Night & Day

Every morning I wake up and go for a walk with my dogs, Bentley and Tina Fey. The morning is rejuvenating for me, and the time of day I am most capable of finding clarity about my thoughts. I often wonder what it would be like to be a person of the night though… to stay up until the sun rises and then scurry off to my place of rest like the nocturnal creatures I meet on my early morning ventures. If that were the case the clarity I find when I wake may occur at another time, perhaps twilight instead of dawn, and I wonder how that would affect my work as an artist and thinker. It isn’t that I have never stayed up all night, I have on countless occasions, but the purpose of my consciousness during the night is usually to enjoy living without it. The night is an indulgence, a holiday from the life I live in preference. More and more I feel drawn to experience the night as I do the mornings though… to pay it an unreserved visit. As the morning has fond “characters”, so does the night… stars, the moon, coyotes, raccoons, bats, stillness… As an artist and thinker, even a person, I cannot deny myself the obvious need of a new perspective, to know about the life I often choose to sleep through. And to those who prefer the night to the day…

Creative Spaces

   Something I have learned from myself, and the other artists in my life, is how important creative space is; the nooks and crannies, or hustle and bustle, that artists nestled themselves into as they prepare to venture into their hearts and minds. An observation I have made of creative space is that it is fluid, changing with my mood and needs, whether physical or mental, at any given moment. It is often intuitive in its fluidity, leading me to exist in spaces where I find inspiration before I even know what my creativity is in need of.  Soon I’m writing down every thought in my head from beneath a street light, unaware that I am lost in the avenues of my creativity.

   "My strength is in knowing that I am meant for something larger than the past I have left behind."

~Roxanne Fogel

Keep a notebook next to your bed

   As an artist I find that my creative ideas come and go as quickly as a breath, especially before I fall asleep and when I wake in the morning. I have always carried a notebook with me but now I also leave one by my bed. Not only does it keep me from having to get up, or allowing my thoughts to go undocumented in assumption they will be there tomorrow, but the notes I write during those hours of "dusk" and "twilight" make for interesting reads... more so than those I write with a fully aware mind. To me they seem more emotional, reflecting a purer depiction of my true feelings.