Productivity

[G. Murdoch]

Greetings all,

I just got in from the studio, where I was roughing out a new composition from a piece of ice blue marble. Since returning from Vancouver several weeks ago, I have been carving everyday. Due to a sculpture sale in December, I have had the funds available to quit my McJob as a waiter, and focus solely on art. In addition to the ice blue, I have roughed out 3 sculptures from white Clorado Yule marble. What I have noticed is that I tend to spend 3-4 hours carving. For this length of time I have abundant physical energy, complete mental clarity, passionate enthusiasm, and laser-like focus.

I am finding that if I push much beyond this time, I get physically sloppy, lose focus, my mind wanders etc...Due to the nature of my material (marble), and the nature of the compositions (abstract shapes without external reference, only a vision in my mind which must be adhered to for reasons of structure, balance, elegance, and beauty), I cannot afford to be sloppy mentally or physically. So I simply power down, pack up, and leave.

What I am curious to hear from the fellowship is this: How long can you function at your highest level of performance?

Graham

[Merlion]

What I am curious to hear from the fellowship is this: How long can you function at your highest level of performance?

I am afraid I cannot work at high mental and physical level for too long, as they drain my energy. Perhaps just one hour.

In my previous office bound job, I take a break, to walk to the 'gents' or for a drink. Now that I work at home on my sculpture, I take a break and go into my emails or the web (including this Forum).

[GWayne]

Hi! I usually work at a high level of focused intensity for about 8-10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. I am always thinking about and creating new work on a daily basis. For me it isn't a job. I truly love what I do. :) I have made many sacrifices both personally and professionally for my art. I am fortunate to have a very supportive and understanding wife who knows how important my artistic endeavors are to me.



GWayne
http://www.georgewayne.com
:cool:

[G. Murdoch]

Greetings,

Good feedback. I noticed during last year's big commission (24 tonne boulder carved to 15 tonne sculpture) that while there certainly were days when I had to exercise all of my visual thinking skill as well as the physical, there were many days when no major decisions had to be made, I simply had to remove rock. On these "straight labor" days I could work for much longer than on the days when I was fully mentally engaged.

A related note: While reading "The Economist" recently, I was interested by the data showing that France (with the shortest work week, 37 hours), was also the most productive. So, work shorter hours and be more productive during those hours. Sounds good to me.

Graham

[Julianna]

Graham, congrats on being able to quit the McJob!

I, like Merlion, can only do physical work for about an hour before I become drained. Two years ago I was able to work for three or four hours at a time, but I'm "out of practice". My productivity comes and goes, and I've finally stopped fighting it!

[tonofelephant]

Graham,

Know the feeling you are talking about. After about 3-4 hours of hard chiseling I quit and do other things for the day. For instance go for coffee with my wife, read the paper, or put on my current alter ego and send out queries for articles to magazines. I have also found that if I start early enough in the morning and put in 3 hours I can usually come back and hit the stone for another 2 - 3 hours in the afternoon - all good creative time. After awhile you can do more and more. It just takes time. Think of running a marathon, you just did not get up one morning and say 26.2 miles - piece of cake and do it. You would have to train for awhile to get there.

By the way congratulations on quitting the McJob. Hope you can continue without the McJob in the future.

Carl

[JamesW]

Hi Graham
I must say I find the energy for conceptualising work can last for a long time......but the doing & the problem solving & the focus that takes really varies.....probably around 3 - 4 hours for me.....
I still maintain a money-job (4 x 10 hour shifts a week) and its a bit of a double edged sword....well it pays the bills & provides inspiration & I work with a great team & I love it....maybe more of a double sided coin then a double edged sword when I think about it.
I must say sometimes when I run out of energy when working on a piece it can be really useful to walk away from it for a while & then reapproach it with new/fresh eyes. So maybe those breaks are just as important as the doing eh?
Congratulations on shafting your McJob - more power to you
James

[G. Murdoch]

Hey all,

Arrived in Santa Fe on Monday, and Somers put me right to work, as it should be. The man is approaching 50 and works 8 hours a day on rock. Sure he is big and mighty (6'7" / 270lbs) however, his body is trashed. I prefer to work shorter hours, maintain a little exercise, diet, rest, work, social life balance. While here I will work when the master works, then when I get home, I will go back to my usual routine.

Graham

[dondougan]

Hi Graham,

I, too, am a stonecarver -- although I rarely work single chunks of stone over perhaps 100 lbs. and instead combine, construct, and assemble the worked pieces into multi-element wholes (quite often employing other materials as well as the stone).

My productivity and intensity is good for hours -- sometimes eight,ten, or even twelve hours at a stretch with only brief breaks for pit stops. Just wish I had every day to work in the studio, but as I am not a very good self-marketing person I have to retain a few other freelance 'day' jobs (teaching, museum displays, repairwork, framing, etc.) which take a few days every week.

But there is a kicker to the intense productivity however: I would probably have been diagnosed as having A.D.D. if I was young more recently than I was. By this I mean I don't keep working on the same thing all day when I am in the studio.

At any one time I have quite literally have dozens of pieces going (OK, because my studio is something-less-than-spacious perhaps there are only four or five on the immediately accessible top layer!), but I only work on them while they are giving me feedback.
When the workpiece stops responding (or I stop responding to it) I set it aside and move on to the next one. I keep track of all the bits of time I spend on each piece by noting beginning/ending times down for each and then entering it all in a database at the end of the day. That way some of the pieces I work on will have database entries spanning several years before they are completed and finished. Looking at my database right now reveals 517 current works-in-progress, but only about twenty-two of those listed as w.i.p. have been worked on since Jan. 1st this year (83 days ago as of this writing). In addition, since Jan. 1st there are twenty pieces of sculpture completed, priced, available for exhibit, and packed away (less one small one that was sold).

This is probably not a good business model (but remember I do have a handful of other jobs to pay the expenses), but it allows me to enjoy the fun part of being in the studio and making to the fullest extent I can. And I'd rather do that than have to market the finished product any day.

When I do have a 'marketing deadline' (show, etc.), I will finish a dozen or so pieces that have been 'months-in-the-works' in the space of a couple of weeks. I wish they would sell like that (rueful smile here).

The reason I put this information out there (besides your query) is that I think it is important for prospective artist/sculptors to realize that there is more than one way to solve the productivity problems we all must face.

Have you ever read the book "Art and Fear" by Ted Orland and David Bayles? Subtitled "Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking," I found it to be quite helpful reading for artists or aspiring art students who have not come to terms or resolved their own way of dealing with both their own unique character traits and the demands of the (art)world at large.

Good luck with chucking the McJob, I envy you.
Don

[JasonGillespie]

Very interesting to hear of the different ways we sculptors work.
In my previous life, as a 2-D artist, I worked with a muralist who would paint about 6-6.5 hours and then say he was losing focus and would stop. I, being his second brush would do the same. When on my own however, I find that I become consumed by the work and can skip meals, restroom breaks and most other normal human needs for inordinate lengths of time. It is hard to stop even when I AM tired...I'll keep going back to it if I don't completely sever that connection.
At school I will come to class after being up working on homework way too late and once we start working...I'm focused and alert. I've done some of my best sculpting on days I had no right to. The down side is my burning the candle at both ends WILL take its toll at some point. I will crash if the ratio of sleep to activity becomes too unbalanced....and the older I get the more this seems to grow. Oh for those undergraduate days when I could stay up for two and three days on end with little effect. I resent sleep sometimes.

Now, I'm not a stone carver either and that is different. You guys are in there straining your bodies more than us modelers. It makes sense that you would need more down time. My father, a wood carver, works like a dog in his 60's and I respect his effort immensely. Stone has got to be the same or worse.

[iron ant]

Graham,good thread.I have been working like a crazed freek the last four months,and I found myself "gassing" out and loosing focus several times.I have been drinking protien shakes,eating enerybars during the day,and it has really helpped me gain more energy.I started this show I was 116lbs,I was 104 today.Like Don I like to bounce around on multipe sculptures,work on them for months,and then the clock makes you pull everything together.It will take me several weeks to get my mind and body back after I instal 18 works at the Booth Musuem by april 3rd.I am running on adrenline,fear,and will to suceed right now...one pooped ant

[sculptor]

I think the muse owns my body
when she's happy, I can work long hours
when the work sucks i get tired distracted frustrated and gone
some days, I'll wake up before dawn with a clear concept of what needs doing and hit it running, hard and early-----some days, I wander and pace and struggle and really want a nap in front of the tube
when it's going well, i may find myself staggering away from the work at 2 am too damned tired to stay with it---------and hoping that I'll have the muse with me upon awakening
some nights I dream solutions and have the work infused into my minds eye so thoroughly that all my body does is shape the material into the minds mold.
pain vanishes
exhaustion fades
thoughts are non-corporeal
the work(muse) gives power and energy to the body
for it's own purposes
I'm just the midwife helping the clay give birth to the muse's child
the muse owns my body, and if I can just turn off the internal dialogue, the muse will do what needs doing

but then, there's the clients wishes
getting the words to communicate the muse's vision of the clients wishes
cranks up the dialogue untill I'm pretty much worthless---so, I wander around the work arguing with the muse untill we find a suitable compromise
then, I can "shut the fuck up" and let the muse have my body back again

hours vary widely
i try for 8 and often work 2 (in scattered fragments)or 18

may her sisters find you and share their power

I just took the ryebread out of the oven and am nibbling a small loaf
lately, the crust is a tad hard-thinking the old oven is losing its thermostatic control
g'night and good luck

[Blake]

I am glad to know that we all suffer the same passion.
I was working 8 or 9 hours a day 6 days a week in Vietnam in order to finish a piece in about 25 days, I had a deadline and was going as fast and as hard as I could.
Since I returned I have not been able to do much creative at all. Usually I work a number of pieces and do 4 hours a day with a model and then some hours on my own to try to make 8 hours of creative work per day, which usually takes me about 10 hours to do. I find that I spend about 10 or 11 hours in my studio each day, but at this point I haven’t been there in almost a week. I am sure that I will get back to it soon but in the mean time I am enjoying the break and trying not feeling too guilty about it.
I hope that the muse finds me soon.
Blake

[tonofelephant]

Yes the muse always returns. Sometimes like a cyclone sometimes like a gentle nudge in the middle of a quiet sleep.

Thank you for reconfirming my thoughts on sculpting. It is a wonder so many people have somewhat parrallel experiences - despite distance, medium, etc.

Have just finished a eps foam mockup and a 24" tall stone sculpture for the same client to land a job. Have been working hard to get both done and just right. Now to write the final proposal (to match the work completed) seems so tedious.

Not sure if the muse is not a tyrant. You work hard for hours at a time. You are really tired and need to rest. Then the cruel siren called The Muse sings her seductive song to lure you back again and again. The Greeks did have that part of the "Odyssey" with Ullyssus (awful spelling) correct.

Spelling is atrocious - need more coffee and some of that home made rye bread a previous poster was talking about.

Carl
www.wsggallery.com

[iron ant]

Sculptor 10,

well said,muse man,because I know exactly how you feel,just cant write it down as well.Like I said before,I think most of us are more alike,regardless of the medium and work,then we differ.

Sleeep?Does any one have trouble when big shows or deadlines are near?I feel I have not slept for three months,even know I am wore out totally.I don't do speed,but my mind just races all night long/

[tonofelephant]

Iron Ant,

I usually sleep like a dead man. My wife could invite in 20 of her loudest and closest friends and whoop it up where I am sleeping and I won't wake up. But.... give me a show, a deadline that I have to meet, or put in a proposal that I realy want the job from and I sleep at best fitfully. In fact if a mouse in a house two doors down cleans his whiskers I get up and am up for hours.

Only salvation I found is believe it or not - turn off the tv. I now either read before bed or listen to a cd. It seems tv wires me up right before bed. Been doing the no tv thing for 3 weeks and it is great. Last night my wife was working late and wanted some noise and company. So I joined her and watched the tube while she worked. Bad mistake. Was up from 1 am to 4 am. Gonna get back on the no tv wagon again.

Carl
wsggallery.com