I've got a busy day ahead of me. At 11:30 I've got two 3-hour classes back-to-back, then I have to sprint across campus to get to a lecture and right after that I've got to sprint back to the original side of campus to get my car (second sprint is all up-hill. not really looking forward to that) and then drive to another campus to hear another lecture (which lecture I'm actually looking forward to - I'm not complaining about the lecture as much as the sprinting). I'll probably get out of that between 8 - 8:30, at which point I'll go home and break out my homework assignments.
Busy, busy day.
But right now I'm sitting at work, in a nearly-empty office, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs (and blog). I would work on certain assignments, like the 200 page sketchbook I need to fill up by December, but every time I bring that sketchbook out at work I get swarmed. Random people come out of the woodworks to gawk at the pages and make weird elementary-school suggestions ("you should draw him doing this..." "have you tried drawing a ____?" "can you draw a ______?") which makes me tense and irritable and kills the creative juices.
Please leave me alone so I can draw. You leave me alone when I blog. Drawing should not be any different.
The craziest part is that, even though no one is in the office right now, I just know that as soon as I open up my sketchbook everyone will swarm in at once, gather around my desk, and hover over my shoulders and point fingers at my drawings. There is literally no one in the office right now. Completely empty. Just me in here. Doing nothing. But the moment I try to do anything productive, people are going to show up out of nowhere and pester me.
I know this because it has happened. More than once. It keeps happening.
I would love to draw here. I have hours and hours on my hands, sitting at a desk with nothing to do but occasional grading or data-input, that I could use to do some much-needed catching up in my classes. But I've come to hate drawing here because it attracts too much attention.
Yesterday afternoon, for example: I was brainstorming ideas when a teacher sees what I'm doing and starts giving his input. I was patient and everything, but in my head I'm thinking, Look, no offense, but your ideas are not helping me at all because I've already brainstormed through them. These ideas are cliche and predictable and we all have them until we brainstorm through and past them. And I've already done that part. As much as you think you're helping, you're really just slowing me down. The worst part was when Blockhead overheard the conversation and decided to jump in. So of course he shoves his way right into my personal space, leans over my desk, puts his nose in my sketchbook and starts asking stupid questions, "Whatchya doin? Whatchya assignment? Have you tried this? This? I think you should do this!"
I couldn't get a word in edgewise. I just sat and stared at them while they both pummeled me with ideas that I had already had, drawn, and scrapped. It was a little overwhelming and quite frustrating.
After a while I realized that it was no longer about me at all. They were enjoying the creative challenge and throwing out ideas, building off each other's suggestions, and really working the right-brain.
And that's great.
Really.
I encourage that. I embrace that. As an artist, I believe in the importance of that.
Just do it somewhere else.
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