Impatience and Creativity

When I am feeling impatient, I become creative. Typically, I start painting or sewing. Usually painting. What reminds me of this is what I did a week or so ago when I was waiting for the new Harry Potter book to appear on my doorstep (which it never did - I had to go purchase it. Thanks, Amazon).

The day I was waiting for Potter was extraordinarily productive. I completed two paintings. I do not have these to show, as I’m waiting until the entire project is complete (I’m doing sixteen related ones for my living room).

But I do have this basket to show, which I was reminded of that day. This painted basket is actually titled “Impatience” and that’s what it reads on the bottom.

This incredibly involved thing was painted when I first met my husband 7 years ago. I was very taken with him from the first hours we spent together, and I was trying to be patient and not get too ahead of myself. So while I was trying to be patient and failing, I painted. Often I painted in the evening when I was waiting for him to show up at my house. Or when I wasn’t going to see him. It was only 15-20 minutes or so every day, so it took about three weeks to complete. It’s been a fixture of my decor ever since, and I now keep my paints in it
The material of the basket is wood, which is my favorite medium. The colors I chose remind me of the colors of Mardi Gras. The forms are ones that I find myself painting often - organically-shaped mazes, rhythmic yet detailed and precise shapes. It definitely looks like I painted it and no one else. If nothing else, this basket is definitely my colors, my shapes, my design, my material.

I tend toward these sort of engaging, involved projects when I’m impatient because I can really wear myself out without something to do. This takes up the mental space that would’ve gone into becoming a nervous wreck while waiting for whatever. I don’t wait easily. It’s my way of turning what would otherwise be a negative experience into something positive. And that, my friends, is reason #100,394 of why I craft.

Cool Spoons and Sambhar

There are inventions and then there are Useful Inventions.  There are Those Things I’ve bought and then there are These Things I’ve bought.

Those Things are inventions that turn out not to be useful, which I keep far from me and feel slightly gullible for trying them.  Many things Made For TV are in this category.  Occasionally major appliances like my current dryer fall into this category.  These are things I wish I didn’t own.

Cool Spoons

Then there are These Things, which I keep close to me both literally and grammatically, which are wonderful and useful and I like.  This spoon is in that category.

I got it at Williams-Sonoma, which is where I go when I want to see nifty implements of cooking.  I can’t find it online, however.  But at my local store I found this spoon, which has a flat end suitable for scraping the bottom of pans.

Scraping the bottom of a pan IS a real cooking technique, I swear, as it is required for “scraping up the brown bits” in a lot of recipes.  Also for scraping up the rice from the bottom of the pan where it sticks, which always seems to happen to me with rice mixes.  I LOVE this spoon for all the hassle and irritation it saves me.

Sambar/Sambhar Powder

Today, the spoon was used experimentally cook.  Today’s secret ingredient is sambar powder, also known as sambhar powder.  When my dad gave it to me, he didn’t know what it was either.  He just bought it because he thought it looked neat.  I took it home because it smells great.  It’s named for a South Indian/Sri Lankan dish called sambar that involves tamarind and something called red gram.  I desperately wish I could blog the smell of this spice when cooking, which is somewhere in between fantastic and wonderful.

I’m not sure what it has in it besides coriander and red pepper, because apparently there are a variety of ways to make it.

The Wikipedia says sambar powder typically includes lentils, coriander seeds, dried whole red chili, fenugreek seeds and dried curry leaves.  Variations might include coconut (in regions that grow coconuts) mustard seeds, cumin, or black pepper.  The powder is prepared by roasting the spices and then grinding them into a fine powder, or into a paste if oil is used in the roasting.

Sambar the dish is made by adding the powder to tamarind broth and vegetables such as okra, drumstick (yes, it’s a veggie, I checked), radishes, pumpkin and onions/shallots.

It’s a good match for Jeff and I, who like all of these things with the exception of drumstick, which I couldn’t pick from a crowd to save my life.

How much of a pack rat are you?

So Melissa just commented thus:

“I don’t know … seems like planting the idea of “recycled crafts” in my head might give me the excuse to become more of a pack rat! (”I don’t know, I might make something from this someday …”) I already keep too much stuff!”

I read a lot about people’s yarn stashes, about swaps, about recycled projects, etc. And although I know I occasionally keep stuff to make other stuff out of, I am decidedly not a pack rat. I used to be, but then I moved - and not just one move, but more like 20 moves in 14 years. Hence, I am no longer a pack rat and most of what I own is eminently portable. In addition, I have a VERY strong ethic about not wasting anything from my grandmother - I scrape pans when preparing food, cut fabric so as to use every square inch, and otherwise get stingy about my materials.

So I wonder where the stuff comes from that people make into recycled projects. Do they go rummage through scrap metal piles or secondhand stores when they get the urge to make a sculpture or project? Do they already have said collected materials in house, remnants of their own lives? Do people buy yarn, art supplies, and thrift store items because they like them, not because there is a particular project or idea associated with the item? Do people keep things for no reason, or with the intent of swapping them, or because they really think that said item *might* be useful one day for who knows what? How many people really have the space to do that?

I seem to be unlike most people in that I have no stash. No, really, I don’t. Fact is, I’m very stingy with buying things, and I don’t buy things without having something in particular in mind for said item. I also don’t buy a lot extra of things, so I rarely have much besides 6″ square of fabric or a few lone inches of yarn left. I don’t buy random art supplies I won’t use. I don’t like waste - and this doesn’t lead to me recycling, or swapping - it leads to me just not having it or buying it in the first place. I tend to run out of things more often than I have something left over. I spent a lot of years in the state of being a poor college student, and then two years in Manhattan with NO space. Plus, most things I might get the urge to keep can probably help someone else more than me or be recycled and used elsewhere. Also, I’ve realized that many things I get the urge to buy I don’t really need - want does NOT equal need.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a pile of yarn and fabric and paint. I do have a pile of yarn, but it’s attached to half-finished projects. I do have about a box full of fabric, but it’s all being slowly turned into various projects. I don’t reuse my clothes - if I don’t wear it, that means I don’t want to see it again, and I have accepted that I won’t remake it. I give it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or my mom’s church. I seel my books or give them away, magazines go to charity (that’s right, some charities often want your magazines), etc. But that’s it.

I have a weird ethic, it seems. A combination of my grandmother’s Depression-era resistance to waste, my own years with few resources and space and a lot of moves, and fondness for supporting charity whenever I can.