One Sweet Lump at a time......... here is a small sampling of my daily lumps. These have all been fired in my kiln. Since I have new people coming to my blog and they might wonder what is a daily lump - I thought it was time to write another explanation post. Something I could link to and answer the question.
A daily lump is a daily practice I am doing. I take a golf ball to tennis ball size lump of clay each day and spend about 15 minutes, sometimes up to 30 minutes, making something. This practice was inspired by my friend Caroline (an amazing clay artist) and writing morning pages (Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way). I started on January 24, 2006. So far I have only missed one day - on the day I missed I had my hands in clay making something else, but I didn't get a lump made. You can read more about the back story of daily lumps here.
My goal for doing this was to learn how to show up. I needed some help getting back into clay. I own a kiln, but it wasn't getting used enough. So far, this project has re-inspired me. It has renewed my creativity in ways I had not anticipated. I have no plans to stop doing my daily lumps.
I would encourage anyone that has a passion for something -yet they procrastinate doing it - to do just 15 minutes a day and play with it. No pressure to share it with anyone else. The only guideline is to show up and do it.
I admit there are some days I'm not as pleased with my lump -it's hard to come up with something or the something I'm working on isn't turning out the way I had hoped. Yet, it is in those moments that I say to myself "this is the most important lump I'm making - to show up and be here" Not every lump is going to be perfect and that's okay because after all it's just a lump! And they all end up being very loose and spontaneous which is such a positive energy to nurture within the drudgery of living. You'd be surprised how many of my lumps delight the socks off of me.......it should be illegal to get that much pleasure out of art!
I have a calendar that I write the title or the words that come to me as I make my lump. It really does begin to add up - as the month gets filled and my shelves become full I see that I've accomplished something. I have fulfilled living my passion in 15 minutes at a time. And of course it has lead me into spending more time living a fulfilled life...but even if I never take it further than one sweet lump at a time I feel such satisfaction.
Is there something you keep telling yourself you want to do? Make it into a daily lump and get to it!
