How Is Your Creative Mo-Jo?

One of my biggest blockers to creativity is feeling creative but having to do housework/other paid work or having the time and space around me but then not feeling my creative mo-jo.

Do you feel the same?

What solutions do you have?

For me its about how I use my week. I have 2.5 days of grown up, 9-5 type work. I need this. Selling my art, particularly my jewelry is very cyclical through the year. I have ups and downs and I need to pay the bills. So by Wednesday lunchtime my time in theory is my own. It isn’t. Work has a habit of spilling over. There’s people to see, exercise to fit in, housework, cooking, shopping……

My solution is to utilise Thursday to get my business admin bits done, see people, run errands etc and Friday is my day. On Thursday I clear the decks down, Remove paperwork from the dining room table. By now I’ve decided what my focus is. Tomorrow I’m going to plan some new silver designs and start my new kingfisher embroidery. I will start my day with a dog walk and a swim, come back chill for a short while and kick start my creativity.

Here is my latest work. It is a sunprint on repurposed fabric stitched with Anchor Purl Cotton – varigated green.

I also made this nice little needle case – it only took 2 hours to make and as long again to gather all my needles so helps me be a little more organised now they’re all in one place. It supports my reuse, re purpose, recycle ethic. The fabric is a test scrap of rust & indigo hand-dyed I had left over, and the felt has been kicking around for a while. The button is precious. Granddad used to be a postman and it came from his uniform. It has lived in the old quality street tin that houses my button collection for about 45 years (I started the collection to get my first Brownie Badge). It’s lovely to be able to use it.

Words & Pictures & Art copyright Carolyn Trafford (2022)