Deadlines

I spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about what I’m going to do. I’m not talking about planning mind you. It’s more like throwing ideas around in my head and hoping some of them land.

“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to.” -Lao Tzu

Some ideas become paintings, but most continue swirling about in the busy ether of my subconscious.

What makes an idea real is a deadline. Placing some kind of marker out in front of my creative process is the only way to get my work finished. I used to procrastinate quite a bit. I don’t even call it procrastination anymore. I like to hold it up as part of my process. I like to give myself as much room as I can around an idea. But what about all of those unfinished paintings that keep stacking up? For me, this is where the deadline becomes invaluable. Without a deadline, my work is never done.

Creating a hard date for an open studio or gallery show puts my feet to the fire. My time management solution is to lie to myself. Rather than putting the real deadline on the wall, I come up with a date a couple of weeks early. Nothing too clean, maybe 11 days, something that’s hard to keep track of. I pin this number to the wall and look at it every day. After several months, it becomes the deadline. It’s just like setting my clock. A little fast.

My studio tends to implode when I’m working toward a show.

Creativity isn’t linear. Learning isn’t linear. Half of the lines I draw aren’t even very linear. When we’re embroiled in our creative work, we need to give ourselves room to experiment and allow time for things to gel. A deadline can just start with a title. When I give my deadline a name it helps me to rain the ideas in and begin moving in a specific direction with the work. “I’m working on a show called Infinity.” You can design a show without having a place to put it, but once you decide that the world is going to see it, a new level of accountability kicks in.

I regularly end up spending more time painting in the studio in the final couple of weeks before my deadline than I do in the two months prior. Deadlines force us to make decisions, and they sharpen who we are as artists. You might try giving yourself exactly an hour and a half to paint in the studio. Get going! You know there is something in life that will inevitably drag you away. Take every minute! Even these kind of short-term deadlines makes the work more finite. If we only have an hour and a half, we had better start painting.

Painting and drawing from life is a great way to stay honest about time.
Nothing says “move” like a model holding a pose for you.

What can you do in 50 minutes?
How do you handle your deadlines?
How do you get it done?