Monday, December 07, 2009

I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No


Here is the start of the Ontario piece. I am creating pieces that go with the porcelain pieces I made for each place we visited. Then the rest of Ontario will be filled in. There is a lot of the rest of Ontario, by the way.

I was rushing to complete at least a small section of this so I could take some photographs for the invite for the Art Gallery of Peterborough exhibition in January. For some reason, everything I have made related to my Knitting Sprawl project has been either crochet or made of paper or ceramic. Hello? It's Knitting Sprawl, not Paper Sprawl or Porcelain Sprawl. But nothing like a deadline to spur a little creativity and problem solving.

I hope I got decent photographs because I will have exactly no time to make further changes until later in the week. Tomorrow is an all-day Boston affair - early morning train to make a late morning class at Simmons, the afternoon spent in their extensive archives (I am looking forward to this!), then back on the train and home by nighttime, if all goes well. I am depending a lot on Amtrak, which is always dicey, but here's hoping.

As I laid awake this morning, trying to imagine how I will complete everything and wondering how it is that I have double and triple booked myself yet again, I realized I need a strategy for saying no. I absolutely LOVE everything I am doing, but I have fears about needing to cut corners to make it all happen, and I don't like cutting corners.

How do you say no and feel good about it? Hint: it is that second part of the question that is the real kicker.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

recast the question!

don't say NO to doing this good thing.. but ask your self--It this the path i want to take?

and if the answer is no, ask again, could this temporary detour be good for me? (if yes, well, you're screwed!) but if no, you won't feel guilty about saying so!

There are always things that demand our time and energy. we can float along like a fallen leaf in a stream, letting currents take us where they will or we can steer a course.

Once you chose to steer a course, don't fell guilty about the new currents made by the movement of oars, and they change the currents for the leaf!

Taos Sunflower said...

That's the $64,000 question, isn't it. Anxious to hear what others have to say. I have learned to say no, but I get in so much trouble all by myself, I find I'm still so overbooked with projects I'll need to live another 50 years to get them all accomplished. (Which I consider a great problem, since I have a sister who is always bored...what's THAT about?????)