Time Management: How do you do it?

[Michele Rushworth]

Art is like a second lover. In many cases the relations in our lives realize they come in second place to our art. That is not an easy place to be for many people. It would be a lot more stimulating for many of them to just move on to a person who can give them all they crave. With that in mind let us think how we can show undying love and affection for the significant other and let him or her know that they are not the INsignificant other.

Very thoughtful words!

[Anthony Emmolo]

Hello again,

More thoughts on losing time.

I'm sitting in my studio painting and I found myself once again moving the brush with little to no concentration. What was the issue today? My part-time job here in Shanghai is English teaching. It pays well enough to keep me going comfortably when paintings don't sell. When they do, it is nice extra money. Well, two weeks ago we learned that our boss ran off to Taiwan without paying us a month and a half salary. The police are after her now, and her sales staff, teachers, school bus drivers and cleaning crew are all out a month and a half salary. My loss came out to $1,500US. My other loss came out to loss of concentration in the studio. I believe anyone would tell me I am correct for being angry, but still what do I get for it? Nothing but lost time. My feeling is that one way to be a real professional in this field is to grow through it. To use the pains that come into our lives to become a new person. To be used by those same pains is the sad truth for most of us, but with the aim toward inner growth, we can use the pain and not lose the valuable time we need.

Maybe I am speaking only for myself here, but I suspect we are all subject to this weakness to some degree or another.

By the way, it is this idea that fueled my recent thread called Chicken Soup for the Artist's Soul. (Catchy title, maybe I should write a book.)

Good luck to us all.
Anthony