133 – Art in Bursts

Podcast – Adventures in Arting Podcast

On today’s episode of The Adventures in Arting Podcast, Mom and I are discussing making art in bursts. This is the concept that you don’t need two or three hours or a full day to get art done. You can make a lot of art in short bursts of time — 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there.

Be sure to listen to the end because we have a new segment: Listener Mail! I hope you enjoy the conversation. As always, you can listen to the podcast, subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch the video version on YouTube.

Here is the video that I mention during the podcast:

So many of you noted that you like the transcript. So once again, here is the podcast transcript:

Julie

Hello and welcome to the Adventures in Arting Podcast. My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I am a working artist and mother. On this podcast — together with my super special co-host and my mom, Eileen Hsu-Balzer — We discuss all aspects of the artful, thoughtful life. Hey mom

Eileen

Hi Julie.

Julie

How are you?

Eileen

I’m good we’re having you know the snow is falling. The plow has come. I don’t feel trapped anymore so here I am. Where our topic today, which actually comes from a series of articles I’ve been reading about how even short really short bursts of exercise, meaning climbing a couple of sets of stairs or something, you know something like that only takes you 5 or 10 minutes, but it’s actually good for you in the way that doing a lot of exercise is good for you. They call it exercise snacks and I thought you can probably apply that to things other than exercise. Because I’ve always told you, for example, if something’s going to take 5 or 10 minutes, just go ahead and do it. Don’t keep putting it off like for example making your bed, or you know, putting your clothes away or making that phone call you’re supposed to make and then I thought, well, you can probably think of ways that it applies to art making. Because I think sometimes people are put off by the idea that they have to do like 3 hours…

Julie

Yeah, we’re really talking about art in bursts, right? And this is like the idea again that you don’t need two or three hours or a full day to get art done.

Eileen

Right.

Julie

You can make a lot of art in these little short bursts of time I’ve advocated for many years. The idea of 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. In fact, I think you can find a video on my YouTube channel — I’ll try to find a link to it — that’s probably about 10 years old where I showed how an art journal spread came together for me, doing basically 10 minutes a day over a week, which together is 70 minutes. Which is, you know, a reasonable amount of time to spend on making something, but I didn’t have 70 minutes altogether. I was able to just do it in the little bursts, which is a great way to do it.

And I also wanted to mention that we’re going to have a new segment at the end of the show: listener now. But I wanted to share one piece of the listener mail now because I think it’s relevant. Alice wrote in response to our recent podcast about organization and planning. She said: “Great talk as usual. Breaking organization down into small, manageable chunks is a big help for me. Otherwise, I get overwhelmed and just give up.” And so I thought that was right on point for what we’re talking about here. That basically, just like you were saying, you have always said to me — I’ve not always listened – if it’s going to take you less than 5 minutes, just do it now, and that’s what Alice is saying about organization too.

Next, before we actually get into the discussion, I want to just cover a couple classes that are coming up.

• So design Bootcamp starts February 7th and I’ve got tons of stellar reviews that you can see from people who’ve been through the class. There are just a few spots left in the evening section. And this is a class that really teaches you how to understand how to make your art better, how to feel confident when you’re making choices. How to know what feedback from people is useful and what’s not? All that kind of stuff. So that’s a really exciting thing that’s happening.
• I have a couple in person classes happening throughout the 2023 year, here in my home studio

• Color Camp will be March 10 through 12. I was just prepping out some materials for that. We’re making some great reference books and all kinds of materials that you’re able to take home with you to be able to take everything you learned in class and really play with it.
• Then Printmakers party June 23rd through 25. You’re going to be making stencils and stamps and screens for screen printing, and we’re going to be using them and layering them, and you’re going to take home all those tools that you make. All supplies, by the way, are included in these classes.

Eileen

These are gonna be the first classes you’ve taught in your house because you moved in and immediately you had a baby and then you had a quarantine, so…

Julie

Yeah, I actually scheduled some classes for 2020, but they didn’t happen obviously because of the pandemic though. Sad.

Finally the mixed media collage intensive in September. That’s a week or it’s five days the 11th through the 15th. It’s for intermediate and advanced students, so that means people who already know how to do collage and have some idea of where they’d like to go and this is a really intense class that’s focused on you creating a body of work during those five days. And there’ll be a lot of critique and conversation so I’m super excited about that, OK?

Eileen

People are afraid when you say the word critique. But they shouldn’t be.

Julie

There are, but they shouldn’t be, and I would say I would say the following: I mean, I grew up with the most the most….How do I say this nicely? You are so critical and yet so loving at the same time, and I think that that is something that I’ve learned about a critique, which is that nobody gets better if you tell them all the time, “Like, oh that’s so great, you’re so great.” But also, nobody gets better if you scream at them all the time. “You suck, you stink. Why are you doing this, why bother?!” There’s something in the middle. I should hope.

Eileen

Right?

Julie

Which is really about being able to say, like, listen: This is something I think is really strong about this and this is something where I see there could be some improvement. So for people who are in the group coaching program I run where — if you don’t know, once a month as part of the Super Learner monthly membership, we have a group coaching session. And when we do critique in the group coaching, one of the things is, I always ask people what is your question about this artwork? So it’s not like: “here’s my art. What do you think?” Cause like everybody’s got an opinion and you may not be interested, but you could say: “I’m really pleased with this piece, but I wonder if the orange line is too dominant?” That allows people to enter the conversation. That one is actually a conversation you want to have, right?

Eileen

Right.

Julie

And also to provide feedback in a sort of area that I think has like art terms in it that are not about taste.

Eileen

When I critique somebody’s writing, you know. I try to always say things like: Have you considered X or what do you think about Y? Because I think there are ways to say things that are more or less authoritarian. Nobody wants you to say: now do this.

Julie

Yes, so huge we talk all the time about how you shouldn’t say “you should put a red dot here.”

Eileen

Well, I remember one of your major complaints was when you took a….

Julie

I have so many major complaints how do you categorize them?

Eileen

You do. It’s endless. That you were taking a painting class at the Art Students League in New York, and the person — the teacher — actually just came over and started drawing on your drawing.

Julie

He painted on my painting! And I get it. Because like it’s the laziest teacher thing on Earth. It’s easier for me to just do it on your painting than to talk you through understanding how to do it. Because then I just…but I don’t think…at least I can’t learn that way.

Eileen

Right?

Julie

I can’t learn by you coming and fixing it. It’s like my son is in a in a place where he constantly says to me: “You do it, you do it. Can you do it? I need help.” And I am constantly saying to him: “You can do hard things. You can do hard things. Try it again.” And sure enough, if he keeps trying, he can unscrew the cap on the bottle. He can, you know, reach the thing. He can manage to get his shirt over his head or whatever the problem is, and I think it is that thing of…it sometimes feels better to have somebody kind of rescue you from the situation….

Eileen

It’s a lazy shortcut too.

Julie

It is, but then you don’t really learn how to do it.

You don’t get the sense of a accomplishment, and so I think that can be frustrating sometimes when I have students who are like, “well, what should I do?” And I almost always shoot it back at them in question form as saying, “What is your goal? What do you want? What do you think the problem is? Where do you…you know what I mean?” Because that, I think, is how you teach someone to be able to keep fixing it when you’re not there to answer the question. Anyway, we got totally off topic as usual.

Eileen

Back to art snacks.

Julie

Yes, by the way: The reason I didn’t want to call this episode “art snacks” is because there is an art supply subscription box called Art Snacks. And I thought that might get confusing, but it is a great catchy name for the idea of, you know, making art in little bursts. So that’s why I called it “art in bursts.” OK, OK, so art in bursts. Let’s talk about that.

So the example I gave previously was from art journaling, but I also — over the past like maybe three years — I’ve been using this “Art Parts” Theory to do a lot of the mixed media, collage, printmaking stuff that I do. And the theory of art parts is basically that you know, I know I’m going to need collage paper so I don’t sit down to make a piece of art and make the collage paper in that moment because, for me, that just is like a time suck. So I make the collage paper whenever I have time. The collage paper could be cleaning up a paint palette — like I was doing a video today and I ended up with extra paint. So I just made a bunch of collage paper because I have the paint out and I didn’t want to waste it. It could be the underpaper from where I’m working. It could be, you know, I feel like making…so I got some new stencils that I designed in the mail. I’ll make a couple of gelatin prints to just test them out and make sure they’re as fabulous as I know they are. And that will just become collage fodder so that when I actually sit down to create, I don’t have to do that step. Now, that said, there’s even more steps that you can shortcut, so I think a lot of people, for instance, think of having a sketchbook as a big fancy Michelangelo-esque experience, but a sketchbook can be a great place to just work out like a shape you want to use or a color scheme that’s interesting to you. A Design that you think would work. A thought that came to you in the middle of the night or in the shower. Random things that would be interesting pushed together. So that when…

Eileen

Right, and a note from something you’ve read.

Julie

Yeah, because I think…now this gets into the whole emotional labor conversation that I think this country is having right now about how women are doing the emotional labor, which is the idea that, you know, you may be 50/50 in terms of what you physically do in the house, but is the woman in the relationship putting together the list of who does what chores? Is she knowing, you know, the doctor’s name and the friends of the kids and the, you know, doing all that emotional stuff and I’m….

Eileen

She’s checking to see if you’re running out of toilet paper. Exactly that there are a lot of other items in her brain that she carries around.

Julie

Right, and that’s the emotional labor, and so there is an emotional labor to art making. And so the question is, like I think you can even offload that into bursts and that for me is the purpose of a sketchbook as opposed to an art journal. I think of an art journal. I mean listen, it’s all semantics. At the end of the day, but for me, the way that I have mentally divided my practice. An art journal is more of a place that, for me, is either a repository for sort of random thoughts that are personal, or I’m just sort of diarrhea, trying out, you know stuff to think about kind of morning pages. If you’re a Julia Cameron and the artist way kind of person. And it’s also a place to make things that are experimental but kind of more finished. A sketchbook is often a place for me to keep lists, weird little sketches I want….It’s more like a reference tool. I guess what I would say is an art journal is a place to like play and a sketchbook is like a reference place and so if I want to spend 10 minutes concentrating really in a focused way, I can probably draw out a bunch of thumbnails, think of some color schemes — like really think hard and then I don’t have to do that thinking the rest of the time, I mean, I find when I’m working on anything, I tend to work in bursts because it’s very hard to sustain your attention consistently, consistently, consistently, consistently, consistently over a huge work day. So like if I’m video editing, I could be intensely in it and then. I need to take a break. Go La La la around the room. You know or do a different activity and then come back to it because you just can’t focus extremely for, you know, a really long period of time so bursts can be a useful way just to sort of switch out of what you’re doing. You know what I mean? And to sort of trick yourself into coming back with renewed energy to whatever the task is.

Eileen

Actually, physically it’s better for you to get up and not just sit in one place anyway. A little walking around. You think you’re not doing anything or you think you’re avoiding, but in fact it’s better for your body.

Julie

Yeah, and I think a lot of people unfortunately have taken like. I mean, I do it all the time too. You take your social media break. You’re like: Oh my brain is overwhelmed. I’ll just look at my, you know, Instagram or my Tik Tok for like 5 minutes just to see what’s happening and then, like you know, an hour later, you’re like oops. We all have these weird pockets of time. So if you have this moment of time, how could you change it now? Often times right, I happen to be in my art studio, where I have that time, so I have my art supplies. But people have pockets of time all the time, so the microwave is going. 5 minutes. The air fryer is on for 10 minutes and you’re there. So like, one of the differences between me and my husband is I will use that time to wash the dishes, or you know, deal with the trash or get the counter cleaned. Or like do some other task and he somehow…

Eileen

Water the plants, exactly.

Julie

So it’s like he’s waiting for the microwave to end, he’s waiting for the air fryer to end. He’s just standing there on his phone and I’m just and, you know…I think people are the way they are and I’m not about to change him and I love him very much, but I’m always, like: What are you doing? That’s time you’re wasting. And so I think it’s like there are people who swear by: I brush my teeth and while I’m brushing my teeth I stand on one leg and then I stand on the other. And I’m doing exercises, you know, so I think, whatever it is that you’re interested in, you find a way to do it. I was actually thinking about meal prepping. Have you ever meal prepped, mom?

Eileen

Well, yes and no. I do meal prep, especially if there are things I can do in advance and then leave it for later, but if I’m doing a recipe I’m familiar with, I might not have to because I just know where this stuff is and I go there.

Julie

Well, I’ve gotten semi obsessed with some of the meal prepping videos and there are a lot of variations of how to do it right, and some of the things that I thought really correlated to art making, I’m just going to share with you. So one woman said she has three bins. And she only ever meal preps out three meals ahead because you just never know what’s going to happen further than that. And what she throws into each bin — She puts the ingredients — not made, but it’s like if it calls for tomato sauce, she puts a can of tomato sauce in it. If it calls for milk, she puts the milk in it.

Eileen

It’s too much effort for me, but I can see where for some people it would work.

Julie

So for her it makes it less effort because she like does it once every three days. She puts together whatever the dinner thing is going to be, and it takes her that time. Then when it’s actually time to make it, she actually like, has the recipe in the bin. She just grabs the bin. It has all the ingredients, doesn’t have to go looking for them. She also said that other benefit is nobody eats the ingredients for what she has planned.

Eileen

You know what? My version of that would be when I go to the store to shop because in my brain I’m not just randomly grabbing things, I’m prepping the meal in my brain as I shop.

Julie

Yeah, and I’ve seen a lot of people who have baker’s trays. Who have art studios and what they do is each project has its own tray and then it just slides into the slot. Or I’ve seen people do it with plastic containers or other things so that you just have like your project. You can stop halfway. Put it away. People who have — you know there’s all kinds of knitting baskets, ways to keep your knitting from unraveling or whatever. It is so you can stop it in the middle and move on to another project. And I think that that same idea people don’t think of that as a way of doing these kind of art snacks or art in bursts. But it is if you have a way that you can kind of have all the supplies for something or be able to stop the project part way. So maybe you don’t have the luxury of being able to leave it open on a table somewhere because you work in your dining room or in your kitchen or wherever else you’re doing your artwork. But you know, could you have a container that closes that, so that’s like a little sort of table and you put it away? Could you? Do you have space for a baker’s rack or some dedicated drawers where just a project could go so that you can just take the whole drawer out and bring it to the table when you’re ready to work? Part of the time that you’re wasting. And I don’t I, I mean, people don’t really waste time, but it is our most precious thing. So it’s like how can you more efficiently use your time? I guess is what I would say. And like if you can find a way to not be searching for your supplies. If you can find a way to not be wondering what the next step is — like, one of the things I do in my studio notebook, which is my version of a sketchbook, is if I leave the studio, I often just make a note to myself about what I was working on, what I was thinking. So that when I come in the next day, I don’t have to do the whole like oh, God where was I? You know it’s just there and I have found even that it’s easier for me at the night before I sort of plan out what I’m thinking of doing as opposed to coming into the studio in the morning and being like: There’s so much to do! It just makes for a more chill day if there’s already a plan, and that’s another way of — like it takes me 10 minutes to put together a plan for the next day, and it makes the whole next day better.

Eileen

That’s actually a plan for life also.

Julie

I think that’s true.

Eileen

It’s like thinking at night. What are you gonna wear tomorrow, and at least mentally getting it organized so that when you get up you’re not standing at your closet trying to figure it out.

Julie

Well, you used to tell me all the time: put it at the top of the stairs if it needs to go downstairs, put it at the bottom of the stairs if it needs to go upstairs, you know, put it at the door if it’s gotta go outside. If you’ve got mail you need to mail — like stuff it in the door so that you can’t open the handle until you grab that mail.

Eileen

It really works because if I see it, I’ll remember it.

Julie

Yeah, and so I’ve actually started to do that a little bit with things where sometimes I don’t feel like I can put everything away. This will be a big surprise to everybody who knows me, but I need to get my surface clean and I used to kind of just like make a big junk pile, but then I have like 50 junk piles and it was a big mess. And I know only if you’re watching this on YouTube can you possibly see the relatively clean floor with maybe only one pile behind me, which is fairly unusual in my world, and one of the things that I’ve been doing in 2023 — because it’s a brand new me — Is I have been trying to put piles in the general area where they go and then when I go to that area to take something out I see the pile and because it’s easy because I’m right there, I just go: oh, let me just take the 10 minutes and put this all away. And even though other people might be like: just put it away the first time, Julie! That doesn’t work for me, but I have found a way that it does work for me so that I can do it. And it is by combining like a small burst of cleaning the desk in an organized way, meaning just moving things out, sort of where they actually need to go, and then a later 10 minutes where I actually put it away. I don’t know why I can’t connect the two and make a little bridge, but I think this is the thing that’s so important to remember is you’re not going to change yourself. Like in some small ways, I think you can. But overall sort of who you are and the habits you have, it’s really hard to change. So the question is, can you find a system that’s going to work for you? Can you find a way to make it work for you? So for some people 10 minutes is not enough, although if I told you you have to run in place for 10 minutes, you have to hold your breath for 10 minutes or you have to hold a plank for 10 minutes…it might feel like a long time.

Eileen

I want to see you hold your breath for 10 minutes.

Julie

I want to see me hold a plank for 10 minutes.

So yeah, so I think like it’s, it’s all very relative. And the reason that I picked 10 minutes many years ago when I started “art journal every day,” which is where this whole idea of 10 minutes a day came from. Was because I was thinking, you know, if you say to somebody I’m going to be 10 minutes late, people are usually like: OK fine. If you say I’m going to be 15 minutes late, it somehow seems egregious. But 10 minutes doesn’t you know? If you’re going to a restaurant and it’s like gonna be a 10-minute wait. You’re like: oh, great. No problem. Somehow if they say it’s a 15-minute wait, you kind of like talk to your friend: should we stay? Should we go? And for 10 minutes — mentally at least – in my world seems like not that big a deal and everybody can find 10 minutes. I mean there was this whole 7-minute workout that I think they have — there are several apps that are the seven-minute workout and again, the idea is that everybody has seven minutes and that you can really create something greater with all these little bursts, you know?

Eileen

I have to tell you — I’ll have to reveal myself — that one of the things I do when I’m in zoom meetings….I usually have my camera off and my microphone off, except when I’m speaking. And you can do a lot of things while you’re listening to a zoom.

Julie

You can, I also often do. I often do cleaning while I’m listening to a zoom, because I feel like I don’t have to think a lot and I can still pay attention and I can interrupt cleaning at any point. You know what I mean?

In order to do it, I think again, like thinking about what are some things that you can do to break down a big task into little bites, you know. So to get back to the art parts. It’s not just the collage paper. I’ve also started to do things — like I tend not to use a white background. I tend to like something that’s colored, surprise, surprise, so I started to then pre-make backgrounds, because why do I want to have all that time where I’m waiting for it to dry? So I just get out the paint. And I make 8 at a time, you know. I mean, they’re done. Or I was talking to a client recently, a coaching client and she’s working on some wood panels, but she isn’t quite sure what the project’s going to be, but she knows she wants to be on wood panels. And I said just prep the wood panels now. It’s going to take you 3 coats of GAC. Don’t wait until you have the idea for the project. Do it right now so it’s ready for later, and I think there’s a lot of stuff like that. You know there are people who when they come home from the store, they immediately, you know, take half the chicken and put it in the freezer and the other half goes into the refrigerator and then they that’s their work done as opposed to sort of like having it in your refrigerator and then when you get out to cook it, then you sort of cook half, but then the other half you take put in the freezer and like it makes more work down the line. So if you know you’re going to do something, can you make your life easier by sort of prepping it out now in a short period….

Eileen

Or you make a….

Julie

…Of time.

Eileen

…Large pot of spaghetti sauce and then you put some in the freezer. And yeah, you have some. I mean I, I think applying those kinds of things to the making of art is really going to be handy for people who can’t just sit there for six hours.

Julie

Like we always make more rice than we need because we can always heat up rice or you know my son asks for pasta o’s every day of his life. So I just make him a big pot of Pasta, O’s and. We microwave as needed because it’s a lot faster than waiting for the water to boil every time because when you’re 3. Let me tell you, 10 minutes is a lifetime. OK, so you cannot wait that long for your pasta o’s.

So I think some other things that I do that I think are really helpful for sort of planning ahead of time and what did you do in those little snacky times? Is make a list. So the same way with like — if you had 10 minutes and you were gonna exercise, you might be like, well, what exercise am I gonna do? And that’s literally why all these apps were invented that will tell you what to do cuz people just don’t know what to do in their 10 minutes, right? So, and it’s the same reason people make the same meal over and over. It’s the same reason you end up arranging your kitchen the same way your childhood kitchen was arranged. Whatever it is, just because there’s a level of inertia there. You just know what to do so, you just need someone to tell you something different. So you can tell yourself –This is another thing you can write in your studio notebook, your sketchbook, whatever you want to call it, your bullet journal. What is a list of things that you need to do or want to do? You want to watch a YouTube video that you have saved? Great. You want to do some research into how to gelatin print? Great. I want to be clear that all of these are legit art activities that aren’t the making of art.

Eileen

I was just going to say, for example, ordering art supplies. That is a legitimate activity and it is something you need to do. But you may think that it’s not making art.

Julie

Exactly. Cruising Pinterest. If you’re doing it in a way where you’re looking for like techniques you want to try, a color scheme. You’re looking for patterns that are interesting. Whatever it is, you know? I mean, all of these things are art activities, but you can enhance their usability if you take the time to write things down. “I want to do this project that involves stenciling.” “Oh wait, I got this new soft gel gloss medium and I wanna do a couple of experiments to see what it will do.” So that the next time you have a weird pocket of time, you can be like: what’s on my list and you sort of glance down the list to see what’s interesting, and again, you didn’t have to do the emotional labor of coming up with that idea. It was just there for you and you went with it.

Eileen

And the important thing is, you took the time to buy or order the thing you wanted to try so it’s sitting there waiting for you and you don’t have to say: Oh no, no, I can’t do this for another three days.

Julie

Right! And I think the other thing about it is that you have now also created a situation where you can riff off of any of these ideas, because sometimes your first idea is not the best idea and one of the things is when you have a long time, you can kind of think down the train of ideas to get to the really good one that’s there, but when you don’t, it’s harder. However, if you have a written list you can come back later and be like: Oh well, I didn’t really just want to do stenciling. I particularly wanted to figure out how to do this reverse stenciling. Well, what do I need to do in order to do the reverse stenciling? I guess I need to go find a YouTube video. OK, well I guess I need to then get – they said you have to have this particular gel medium for this technique to work. So let me go get it. You know what I mean? It’s a train of thought that you can jump on to actually, I think, accomplish more. So in a weird way, I think that art bursts let you accomplish more because there’s not so much dead time in it. It also keeps you from being repetitive. We all get into ruts and doing the same thing over and over and over again because it’s easy and it’s comfortable. That’s why we eat the same meals. The same whatever. Wear the — I’ve been wearing the same clothes….

Eileen

Wear the same shirt right?

Julie

You know. And so the thing is…..

Eileen

I feel like if change your earrings, it looks like you’re wearing something different.

Julie

I’ll go there with you. I’ll go there with you.

Eileen

Even going to a museum, you know you shouldn’t have to think that: Ohh I have to go for like 2 hours to justify going. That’s what I like about being able to have some memberships.

Julie

Mm-hmm

Eileen

And I don’t feel compelled to get my money’s worth every time I go. But I mean they also have like free days, reduced admission days, various things. And I just think….

Julie

And let’s not forget about art galleries. Art galleries are a fantastic art snack most of the time. Galleries are not huge, they tend to be one to three rooms. You can see a lot in a very short period of time and be filled with some inspiration, and it’s very possible that when you’re running an errand, you can make a 5 minute jog, you know what I mean? Find an art gallery and if you don’t have an art gallery, libraries often will have little art exhibits. Schools often have art exhibits. All the time you can find public art all over the place. You know if it’s a mural or something like that, that you could find statues, sculptures, all kinds of stuff. I think you know a lot of times, I also find a nature walk — just even for a few minutes in my own backyard – Re-stimulates me and gets me sort of into the mood, and I think that counts again as like an art scene. Back as this art burst, which is like: Can I go out, get inspired, take a picture of a leaf or do a quick little sketch of something? Bring some piece of flora in with me to print, you know, and then boom, I’m up and going, you know, into a new idea. Although I will say this. I have, in the past, tried to collect leaves ahead of time as kind of an art burst thing like I’ll be like, OK, I’ll collect leaves today and print with them tomorrow. They really have to be fresh, in my opinion, because like half of them end up like dried up, curled up the next day and they’re not as nice.

Eileen

Can you bring things in on a branch? And put it in water and then….

Julie

Well, that’s a good idea. I haven’t tried that. Maybe I need to go out with clippers, I’m sure the neighbors will appreciate it.

Eileen

Your house plants.

Julie

I mean do I have house plants? I have some succulents. I’ve killed them through overwatering. Anyway, let’s not talk about that. It’s hard to do, but I wanna be one of the proud people who is capable of doing it.

Eileen

Sad, it’s hard to kill succulents.

Julie

I have both underwatered and overwatered succulents.

I do want to mention, while we’re paused for just a moment, that if you’re not a monthly member, there are three membership tiers over balzerdesigns.com/Classroom.

• There is the Member level which is $5.99 a month. You get a live tream every month. A real time video and then a personal vlog about sort of my art and family life and how that all coalesces or doesn’t.
• Then, the Maker member: you get everything in the regular member plus you also get every month an SVG and printable download. You also get the library of studio Vlogs and studio Vlogs are basically a deep dive into projects I’m working on or a day in the studio or all sorts of stuff like that. Plus you get a monthly Creativity Prompt tutorial video. That’s $14.99 a month.
• And then finally the Super Learners. You again get everything in the previous two levels, plus you actually get the full library of all the SVG’s that have ever been published, all the printable downloads. You get a live group coaching session once a month. You get access to 16 of my work-at-your-own-pace classes, including the entire Getting Started bundle, which is actually only available to Super Learner members, and you get my junk journal classes, which is like a $400.00 value with all those classes together. And that is just $34.99.
• You can cancel your membership anytime. But why would you want to? Because it’s so fun!

OK, so back to our discussion, mom. Did you have any other thoughts of how you use this kind of like theory in your daily life?

Eileen

Well, I’m actually trying to be more healthy and one of the things is just to move a little bit more so just before we began the podcast, I went downstairs to get some stuff and brought it up, whereas in the olden days I would have thought OK. Later when I’m going to bed and I’m downstairs, I’ll bring it up, but I’m now saying, OK, make a special trip. You know which isn’t that special? Getting the laundry and bringing it up, but it’s like not trying to streamline your life to the point where you just do the least possible. And I think that’s one thing, and it also helps you get stuff…Uh, through the pipeline so you don’t get stuck. It’s like emptying the dishwasher of the clean thing so you’re not stuck at the point where you’re trying to clean up and you first have to empty it. I’m trying to think in a more holistic way about what I’m doing.

Julie

Yeah, I think that this is again the thing of I end up in a dish rack problem all the time where the dish rack is too full because I haven’t emptied the dish rack but I need to wash the dishes or I’m emptying the dishwasher and there’s wet stuff that I want to put in the dish rack.

Eileen

And it actually doesn’t take you very long when you get right to it. You know usually like under 3 minutes it’s empty.

Julie

It’s a mental problem, and like I’ve been trying to get better about like going for the just again that microwave time the air fryer time, the toaster, oven time, whatever it is like. Just like take some stuff out of the dish rack and move it on. And even if you do it that way in like one or two-minute bursts, it is then empty eventually, and you know, hopefully everybody is kind of contributing to that.

This is a total random path that I’m going to go down now, but I just stole the phrase that I just used, where I said “contributing.” I saw a video which really resonated with me, which was a woman talking about how she has a son and she made a conscious decision in the last two years. Changed the way that she was raising him. Right, and so I, I think the way she phrased is basically like she was trying to figure out how people like Andrew Tate and these other sort of famous misogynists. How they get a hold of young men to believe these things that basically women are worthless, you know? I won’t say the other words. You know to be used by men and sort of thrown away? Like how did that happen and she was thinking about it and this is something that she started to do that I think is interesting and sort of not the way I would have thought about it, but I really like, which is: She doesn’t give him a list of chores ever because she says that makes her the household manager handing out jobs and then he’s good if he does his job, that she the woman gave him. Instead, she’ll say to him, like, what can you contribute to the household today? What are you going to do to contribute to the household? So that he has to look around for the tasks that need doing and understand that it’s not a chore. It’s a contribution that he’s making to the household, and if she feels that he hasn’t necessarily done it like she’ll come by sort of later in the day and be like, hey, you know, I feel like you haven’t necessarily made a big contribution to the household today. What’s something else that you can do? And I thought: it’s such a good mental shift in so many ways about understanding that the household responsibilities are everybody’s in the household and that it’s not just your job to do the task you’re asked. But it’s also your job to think about what needs to get done. And to see yourself as part of like a family team. And it’s such an interesting idea that just the simple idea of like a woman giving out tasks isn’t — is not like a direct line, but like is part of what leads to people being willing to see women as sort of like less than and just household dictators. And blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I thought it was interesting and so I’m thinking. I’ve just been thinking a lot about that word: Contributing, but anyway, so, uh, I think there’s also this notion of what can you….You could take it a little bit like what can you contribute to your art project today? Like what has done, what can you contribute to your art space? What can you contribute to anything else? Like looking around and seeing the tasks and the things that need to get done to get to the eventual….

Eileen

Well, to your art practice, so maybe it’s taking a few minutes to look at an art book that you’ve had that you haven’t looked at in a long time. I mean, in other words: Redefine. Broaden the definition of activities that you should do, which will improve your art practice, but don’t involve necessarily sitting down at your desk and taking out your brush and doing something like that.

Julie

Yeah, one of the things that Book Club has really taught me is I do a lot better with retaining the information in the book and being excited about it if I work on it in small bursts over time as opposed to doing like a binge through. If I do a binge through the book or I do like: let’s do this and let’s do this and let’s do this and let’s do this. And da da da. And do it all in like 24/48 hours…It may be fine or fun or I may pick up something, but it didn’t stay with me. If I do like a chapter here and a chapter there and a chapter you know — I’m much more likely to have it stay with me, so I think that’s another great thing.

Are you bursting to tell me anything else?

Eileen

Uh-uh.

Julie

OK, OK, Well then let’s do a little bit of listener mail to wrap up here. So there was a lot of feedback on our conversation that we had about books, audio books versus physical books. So I thought I’d share a few of them.

Robin said: Is a book the words and ideas or is a book an object. If someone reads with another sense such as feel. For example Braille, does that count as reading? The more avenues of literary release, the more people who get the opportunity to experience a book. I thought that was a great point.

Susan said that she read a great column on audio books. It’s called: “is listening to audio books really reading” and it’s from Wired magazine and she said: it certainly changed my hubs point of view when I read while weeding my garden. And I did look at that article and I will link to it. I found the article but….

Eileen

I’m sorry you had a funny sound when you said that you found the article.

Julie

I found the article a little defensive like that the person who wrote it was feeling defensive about audiobooks, but I understand that because I, in fact, have attacked audiobooks and other people have too. But yeah, I agree. Reading is reading and you know: More power to you. I know I’m prejudiced against audiobooks. It’s a personal problem.

Eileen

You know what really makes a difference is how good the reader is too.

Julie

Yeah, you said that last time and actually somebody commented directly on that, which I’m about to get to…hold on.

So Daisy says: when I’m listening to audiobooks, I’m usually doing something with my hands. I’ve often been surprised to find that in a month later, seeing a piece of art or embroidery or whatever I was working on while listening to the book will bring me right back to that book, as though the memory of the book ended up embedded in the memory of creating that piece.

Side note: that has happened to Me too absolutely with like podcasts and stuff. I can like hear them in the piece.

She says: about half the books I read this year were audio. I used to feel a little weird about audio books versus reading print books, but all the art and craft stuff was really eating into my reading time and I was missing out on a lot of books I wanted to read.

Laura says: our Book Club listened to Paul Simon’s audio only book by Malcolm Gladwell to see what we thought of a book made for listening. And Oh my, it was terrific.

So I looked it up. It’s called Miracle and wonder conversations with Paul Simon and it is an audio only book.

Eileen

You know what’s interesting, nobody criticizes someone for listening to music in a recorded way.

Julie

Eileen

No, you know it is different from like being present when the actual music is being played in front of you. But nobody says Ohh. That’s not really listening to music.

Julie

I mean, I think there are some jerks who do go around being like, well I heard them in concert in 84 or I guess nowadays I heard them in concert in 2007. But what I was going to say is: I’ve been doing a transcript of the podcast, you know, and I’ve had a lot of feedback recently that people love the transcript, so that’s interesting to me, because people want to read the podcast instead of listening to it. Even though it’s intended format is listening so. Anyway, OK.

Eileen

I’m wondering about that whether people actually do read the transcript, or whether there’s just something to scroll through to get to the end.

Julie

They do. Because it’s a lot. I would not do it, because it’s a lot of work for me, it takes a lot of time to try to edit. And what I was going to say is I’ve had so many comments and emails from people saying they really like the transcript, so I’ve been surprised by that. But I’m glad to see it, because again, more people getting the information = great .

Robbie — they left a comment just for you.

Eileen

Uh oh.

Julie

She says, “I, like your mom, perform all kinds of household tasks while listening to audiobooks. Tor Eileen, may I suggest listening to audiobooks narrated by Davina Porter. Miss Porter has one of the best voices for audiobooks. I feel the same way about not being able to listen to a book if I don’t like the narrator’s voice.

Eileen

In fact, I’ve been so irritated sometimes that I can’t even finish, which if you know me, you know that’s one of my bugaboos is not finishing, although I’ve been getting better at that cause the older I get, the less time I have to listen to a book I’m not interested in.

Julie

Yeah, I think it’s hard. And possibly it’s not the reader. Maybe it’s the book is bad. You never….

Eileen

I wonder who’s…I don’t know?… Be interesting to find out who selects the readers. You know, is it the author? Is it the publisher? Is it the….

Julie

I read an article that said that people who listen to the audio version of Spare — Prince Harry’s memoir — had like a heartbreaking experience, cause hearing his voice talk about it was very different than them reading it, because certainly you can take statements and other things and put like a whine or anger into it that maybe when you hear him talking about it. It’s not like that.

Eileen

Right, I think you pick up clues about the sincerity or the veracity of someone. It’s like the difference between interviewing someone on zoom or in person. It’s very different.

Julie

Yeah, but I mean it’s also the old like Nixon, JFK, TV, radio thing where it was just at the beginning of TV. And like people who watched the debates were clear that JFK had won and people who listened on the radio were clear that Nixon had won.

OK, so I guess it’s time for us to wrap up so. You can find me at juliebalzer.com or on Instagram as @BalzerDesigns. That’s also my name on Facebook and YouTube and everywhere else. Every Friday I send out a free weekly newsletter and if you’d like to help the show grow: You can always leave a review, mention us on social media. I’m so grateful for that. Tell a friend. All of these things help other people find the show, which helps us to grow. So thank you so much for listening and subscribing and we’ll see you the next time on the adventures in arting podcast.

Eileen

Bye.