Time

Today’s (and yesterday’s) drawing of Mary Magdalene

After my summer illness, I have been staying aware of exhaustion, so I don’t end up sick again. This was a busy week, with parent teacher conferences at the school and a night workshop my team and I did for the families to teach them how to write a resume. I did my drawings most days, but just could not stay with the computer any longer. Time was scarce.

The idea came across in one of the may podcasts I listen to, that making something just because you have a schedule that you set yourself is really not the right way to go about it. I had been thinking about that, although I recognize that the first 4 or 5 month of daily drawing and posting really built in me the ease and discipline I needed to continue my work both with Mary Magdalene and with art in general. Sometimes it’s great to make yourself sit down and do something that will help you return to or begin something that your heart is telling you to do.

Sometimes, because art needs time, it might not be the most productive thing to do. I chose drawing Mary Magdalene because I knew that I would never succeed if I tried painting instead. A drawing can be quick and simple or more elaborate, so the times that I have done line drawings were days when I was so tired that I couldn’t do one more thing. When I have done more elaborate drawings, I felt I had the energy to sit for a couple more hours after a long day at work.

One thing I have found is that I was able to create a lot of drawings but not much more. The time I invested in drawing was all the time I had. Now I’m working on making sure I also leave time for new projects and paintings so that the energy generated by the process of drawing Mary Magdalene does not land somewhere else.

I have been less inspired to write, because there are so many ideas in my mind, so many things I’m thinking about at the same time, it’s making my concentration and productivity lower. It is always best to write a plan so that the mind doesn’t go in other directions, but I started writing impulsively and irrepressibly. In a way, the same process has woken up all this thoughts and ideas.

Because the topic of this blog is Mary Magdalene, or paining Mary Magdalene, I try not to write too much about my thinking process, but I think that in exploring the effects of a devotion through art, this might be relevant.

I am looking forward to what I am creating: I hold the image of a time when the hours are mine and I don’t have to stop because I need to wake up early tomorrow. For now, that’s not how it is, but it will be. And then I will reinvent my images of Mary Magdalene to reflect the triumph over time!