I felt blocked over break so I cut a man’s face out of a magazine.
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I cut out some mushrooms, too. I used an X-Acto knife. Then I took some green paper and traced it with a bowl and cut out the circle with very small, sharp scissors. Then I arranged all the pieces and stood over it and took a picture.
I did this cutting and arranging on a white drafting table, which sits adjacent to my writing desk (also white). I showed Kels.
“Interesting,” she said.
I showed Beau. He didn’t say anything, just sucked his pacifier.
“Does it have a name?” Kels said.
I looked at it. “I’ll call it Rich Girl,” I said (after the song I listened to on repeat while making it).
My drafting table has pens and #2 pencils, construction paper, scissors and glue, old magazines, old books, a bankers lamp, a cutting pad, a small wooden box containing several X-Acto handles and blades; other non-digital things. It’s an “analog” space. No electronics.
The electronic things—my computer, my mouse, my printer and phone—these things live on my writing desk, a “digital” space.
Having two distinct work spaces helps me break through common creativity problems: blocks, lethargy, imposter syndrome, boredom.
I learned this concept from author and artist, Austin Kleon. “I have two desks in my office,” he said, “one is analog and one is digital.” He said he uses his analog station for craft time, work you do with your hands. He said this analog work gives him energy, inspiration, which he can then take into his digital work. “When you start to lose steam,” he said, “head back to your analog station and play.”
Kleon calls this the “analog-to-digital loop.”
It lets you create things without a screen, which, if you’re constantly looking at screens, is a form of rest.
And rest is good.
We need plenty of rest.
Rest begets productivity:
I felt blocked over break so I cut a man’s face out of a magazine.
Shortly thereafter, I wrote this article.
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