The story of my bone bin

Long ago and far away in a land under the midnight sun...
Once upon a time I was making jewelry and I had a vision; slices of antler carved, polished and set with real gems stones like ruby, sapphire, garnet, amethyst, and diamonds. So I bought a couple of antler pieces locally and bought some gems on Ebay for cheap and began. I loved them and it was great fun so I found folks on Craig's list who had some more antler for sale and I bought it, sliced it and made more pendants. I invested in sterling chains and wire and created some lovely pieces that I sold to coworkers and at bazaars.
I even bought a box with whole moose and caribou antlers as well as a couple of pieces of bone from steppe bison that lived here thousands of years ago. I bought some sheep horn at a gun show and some mammoth ivory at the fair. In all I made an sold about 30 pieces. Then we moved and I lost my work space for making jewelry in this way, but the antlers and horns moved with us.
The next chapter started when I saw an add on Craig's list for some lynx skulls. I was working at a school and asked if the science teachers were interested. "Yep" they said so I bought several. I saved 3 for me.
I gave one of them to my nephew, cause he likes cool stuff too, and the other two sat on my shelf for a couple of years. Then one night I had a dream.
I saw myself painting one of those skulls.
And I did. It took several days as I needed to let each color dry. I was using some stray paints I had left over and some water color brushes I borrowed from the art teacher.
As I was painting I just paid attention to the process and tried to match my vision. As I painted though I knew this was not a skull I would keep. It felt like it belonged to someone else. By the time I finished it was quite amazing; not only did it have many bright colors but I had done a lot of over work with black ink lines and I had set 3 rhinestones into the bone.
About this time I knew just who this skull belonged to.
We had a friend with a brain tumor, who had a biology background like me and like me loved animals and even found the bones and skulls cool.
We gave her the skull while she was in the hospital recovering from yet another procedure.
It became one of her favorite things and still holds a place of honor in the house after her death.

I soon painted the other skull and started seeking more to paint. It was the process that spoke to me. and often left me amazed that the end products could be so beautiful because I just painted things as they wanted to be painted. I seldom have that kind of clear vision of the end product anymore, instead I let myself be lead from one color to the next and one pattern or texture.
I acquired way more skulls since then of all types.
 beavers, lynx, wolf, coyote, fox, otter, elk, cow, porcupine...
And so my bone bin has grown. I have no idea where my vision will lead me next.
I do have several skulls in process and several skulls on the market.
One of my favorites is the pronghorn skull my brother gave me after his hunt last year.

Too Tired to be creative?

It feels like long hours and restless sleep cause by the stress of those long work hours leaves me brain dead when it comes to being creative. But I am not sure if it that or if I am just too aware that I will not have the time to execute anything outside of a very limited scope in terms of time and energy. So there is no point in putting thought into big projects or intricate exacting work.
I recently acquired a stack of jewelry magazines and as I flip through them I do not even let myself consider trying anything I see. Too much time, too much effort, too much learning curve, too much money, too many other pots simmering on the back burners.
I want to sit down and develop some long term plans for my creative endeavors. start taking classes instead of thinking about taking classes. start investing in tools rather than making do with what I have. Develop a structure of time that puts my creative self front and center of my daily routine instead of grabbing time in between other people's priorities.
Unfortunately I think that one way I have tried to justify my need for creative endeavors is to try making them marketable outcomes. I can always sell my bead work so its ok to spend time doing that. I can always give things as gifts so that makes it ok to do it. But the truth is that I have started becoming more invested in processes like quilting where I tend to like and keep the things I make with no other plan for those items. So do that just start to give me the mental space to take classes in glass fusing, mineralogy, jewelry design, and metal smithing. 
But these are thoughts for another day when I do not have the pressure of time pushing me to get enough sleep for that next long day at work.

When It Doesn't Work

Sometimes Life seems to stack the deck against success.
Improvising on an art plan that did not work out. Much to the disappointment of the 7 year olds and myself.
Trying to stimulate some creative writing in 12 year olds who only see writing as a chore and the concept of organizing thoughts as stupid. 
Some days I find it quite difficult when faced with set backs. Especially when I am doing my best to help stimulate the creative process in others.

I have been thinking about what I will do first when it finally gets warm enough for me to be out in my unheated studio space.

Photography will probably be it. I recently asked a professional photographer about how I should take pictures of my art skulls. And his advice was to just try different things. different lighting, different set ups, different cameras, different exposures... And take notes. figure out what works best so that it becomes second nature to get the right set up every time I want to take a shot of a piece I have done.

I admit I am one of those people that always resented the process of learning. Practicing clarinet, practicing hand writing, practicing throwing, kicking... I just hold some tiny hope that one day I will try something and I will be perfect at it. I won't need to figure out why or how or go through the process of getting better. 

It is difficult to excite others to the process of practice and improvement when I resent it too.

So i find myself opting for those processes where control and perfection are not part of the final product. Haphazard or maybe serendipitous would be a better word.

Elements of chaos and elements of entropy

I have found when creating things there is a point in which I give up control and let things happen. Marbling, splatter painting, anything really where the application of form or color is loose, and the results might be unexpected.
Then the artist eye has to decide if it works or doesn't and keep or reject or maybe deconstruct and reuse that which was being created.

There are also time like firing clay or maybe other times when entropy may gain the upper hand and your work is destroyed. Other external forces like flood, earthquake or fire can destroy all our efforts as well. Or the accidental destruction when something merely falls and destroys that which was below it.
These are things to be accepted as part of life and moving forward to new and great works is the solution.

Some art forms are ephemeral and are expected to be washed away in the tide or to fall apart with rust and decay. Working with entropy as part of the process.