What to do with Pandemic time?

The pandemic and quarantine reduced my work hours by about half. We had a pretty heavy tourist season this year in Grand Marais. In an attempt to stay safe (and I just don’t like crowds) I spent a lot of time alone. Hmm, what to do with myself? I have to say I am pretty blessed to be in a safe and comfortable place where my primary worries are not all around safety and survival. Still, there is time to fill.

I have been knitting less. Natural shift I guess, I have what I need and don’t knit fast or steady enough to make money at it. I can tinker with electronics, but I’ve learned the basics, and until I have a burning desire to create something specific it is just noodling around. Pretty much at that spot with all my usual hobbies.

So I asked myself “On your deathbed, what would you most regret not doing”? The answer was “drawing and art”. I have a B.A. in Fine Art but over the decades I have drawn less and less, and become more and more critical of what I do make. This is unfortunate, and those critical voices are worth fighting. My goal, then, is to spend a year drawing just about every day, and work to quell all those limiting judging voices in my head that have held me back. Hopefully I will find my voice and be able to produce work that excites me, or at least points me in that direction.

I have learned that I am on the Aphantasia spectrum, which explains so much to me about some of the things I find difficult and gives me strategies for working around them. I have also committed to doing Inktober this year. It is a challenge and I don’t always like what I produce (ink is pretty unforgiving) but I am drawing, and learning to let go of the inner critic and just letting it be ok.