Redtree Times

The Waiting Room– At West End Gallery

We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.

― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Fighting distraction is a big part of being an artist. Or for non-artists, in just getting anything done at all.

It’s much too easy to fall prey all sorts of distractions when you’re alone in the studio, waiting for some sort of divine– or even less than divine– inspiration to appear. It gets to the point that you are actually waiting more for the distraction than the actual inspiration or act of creation that comes from it.

I know that I often feel like I spend the better part of my time waiting for something that most likely will never come. Or, as C.S. Lewis points out above, favorable conditions that will never materialize.

He’s right on that account. Waiting for favorable conditions is a favorite excuse of the distracted among us, myself included. I often put off projects or ideas because it’s just not the right time to start a new piece or work out a new idea.

When exactly will the right time show itself?

The answer is, of course, when you say so, when you simply say you’ve waited long enough. You just get out of that chair and start, conditions, favorable or otherwise, be damned.

Conditions adjust to the effort.

I would like t say that this is advice for others but in reality it is a reminder more for myself. It’s something I have to constantly remind myself  so much so that it almost becomes a mantra that is always running in my mind. Otherwise, I fall prey to every sort of distraction, from shiny new objects of the images and sounds that come over the interwebs to the lingering doubts and worries of every shape and size that inhabit every corner of my studio.

There is part of me always looking for a reason to not start working and another part that is constantly at battle with that urge. Even that sometimes creates its own sense of waiting.

So, it’s time to get to work. But first, I have a couple of things that need to be done. Then, I promise myself that I will start.

Well, get ready to start.

Break out the mantra…