The Reading about Not the Same as the Doing of

I found myself this morning at work early with 45 minutes to spare -- a rarity. Normally I would go direct to the office because "there is much to do." However, today found me getting decaf tea, healthy breakfast and time with Art Calendar magazine (http://www.artcalendar.com/). The time was very enriching and I got a lot of ideas about marketing and pricing my art. Great! I thought. I did something for my art today.

At lunch I read Eric Maisel’s Sunday column about living the creative life (available for free by going to http://www.ericmaisel.com/). In this week’s column, Eric discusses the difference between doing things around/about/near creativity that aren’t actually doing creativity. In his case he was sitting on a park bench outside Keats’ house. In my case, I was sitting in a coffee shop. He was giving his mind space for opening and creativity. I was giving mine a list of things to do that I’m not quite sure how I will get them done. In his case, he found new openings for his writing. In my case, I hadn’t created art today.

It was really interesting to notice that even with that time, I didn't sketch (even though I had my sketchbook with me). I read, but at the time I felt like the reading was okay because I was reading about art. So my learning this week is that the reading about still not the same as the doing of.

I’m off to sketch my desk top!