Ideas that Keep Me up at Night

Since posting my ideas for a cute little project in a previous entry, I think I'm coming closer to a more solid plan of attack.

Before I get to that, I should shed some light on my strange, creative process. This is not to say this is how I come up with ideas all the time, but some of my better ideas usually come to me in one of two ways.

The first one is when I'm completely miserable/bored. For example: my last year in school required me to take this 101 class that had discussions that were unbearable. People didn't know what in the world they were talking about, and they would go on and on and on and on and on about it. It's a miracle I didn't scratch my ears off during that time. Instead, I focused that misery into something I could use, and from that class alone, I got ideas for two projects, one being my senior project. The other project was a response to one annoying session talking about ethnicity, ad nauseum. I created an interactive photo installation where I took pictures of people in a strange, clear mask that had makeup on it and made viewers try to guess what ethnicity/ethnicities that person was (it was matching, to make it easier). What made it even more fun was for this show, the only rooms I had access to view the piece were in a dance rehearsal/class rooms, so I took some hooks and fishing line, and hung the larger than actual size headshot images at different heights over the mirror. Sitting from afar (I put chairs in the back to sit and observe), one could watch viewers walk from image to image, and it would appear as though those heads were their own.

The other way is when I'm at that stage between awake and asleep and my subconscious is about to take over, but my conscious self is aware enough to take the crazy thoughts my subconscious is thinking and use that for a good idea. One time I was lucky to have a tape recorder that happened to be next to me when I was really upset in the middle of the night. Instead of taking the time to write down my thoughts, I was talking of my ideas into the recorder in my frantic, super upset mode. The result of that session became a theatric monologue I performed in front of about 1,500 people, where half the performance I was writing around on stage, half naked.

Most recently, my half-awake moments have been devoted to strange dreams and thoughts I sometimes take action upon, but a wave of good ideas came to me again using the latter method. It was good, but perhaps not during an ideal time, because I was actually driving at that moment.

I was stuck in pretty bad traffic on the 405. It was the kind of traffic that was actually stopped, and unfortunately, there was no way to circumvent my route given my destination. In moments such as those, I dangerously become drowsy as I sit idle in the car, waiting for traffic to let up. The sleepiness started getting to me, and I kept doing things to make sure I stayed awake. There came a point, though, where a sudden rush of ideas came to mind as far as my ticket project. How I could present it and give to people. I also came up with ideas how I could package and feasibly sell it on Etsy should I ever want to do that, and also found a way to keep a "personal" edition of the ticket project separate from the edition of the "sell for other people to do the same thing," if/when I'd actually want to do it.

I don't want to get into great detail here, but I'm more convinced that I'm actually going through with this project.

Before doing any of that, I should concentrate on finishing crocheting the blanket I'm making for a niece of nephew on its way in August, and even more immediately, I need to shower so I can make it to a rehearsal so I know what I'll be photographing later this week.