Making Space and Time for Art

I was channel surfing one day a few years ago and landed on Nancy Zieman's Sewing with Nancy. And she gave me a jewel.

She said that it is possible to be creative, even when you have no time. The trick is in being prepared. I recall: "If you have a few minutes, fill a bobbin. When you have a few more, cut out one piece of the pattern. In time, you will make a garment."

The other day, in his public radio newsletter The Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor remembered a novelist who completed his book in the 15 minutes he waited each evening for his wife to come down to dinner.

Such achievements are possible only when we are organized enough to seize those precious openings.

If instead we must search for our materials, or clear the cluttered kitchen table to make room for the glue gun, or dig in our briefcase for the notecard that holds that glorious beginning of a poem, or risk life and limb in that overstuffed closet to drag out the electronic piano . . . we're not likely to do it. It's just too much. There's not enough time.

We must prepare; we must make space in our lives for art. We must say to ourselves: creating is important and deserves an honorable place in my home.

If the house is small and shared with others, this space may be a simple laundry basket, big enough to hold paints, or fabric, or notebooks, or music sheets--a simple laundry basket good to go at a moment's notice. Collapse your easel beside the door nearest the best light. Make your guitar part of your decor.

If the kids are grown and off to college, don't let that spare room become a shrine, unless it's a shine to creativity. Give birth again to something new. Invest in your soul. Make room for re-creation!

That's what I did all day Monday. I took the day off from the office to reclaim our home from too many weekends away arting. I cleaned. I organized. I thought as I worked: this too is art. This is Hestia energy, she who tends to the hearth. This too, however mundane, is making beauty.