This week has been a frustrating one for me on The Daily Doodle Project. With holidays approaching, work increasing, and stacks of projects and responsibilities, I feel like far too many things have been slipping through the cracks while I've been doodling under the rigid regime of the Daily Doodle Mistress.
While I've kept up with the necessities of life, I've missed out on time playing outside, moving my body, luxuriating in time with loved ones. I long for dark wild spinning, limbs flying free, thought- scattering-dancing. I long for a conversation with a friend with all the time in the world to appreciate it, no nagging threads pulling at me. I long for empty in-boxes and blank to-do lists. I long for a day without needing to get online.
But all week, the Mean Doodle Mistress kept cracking the whip. And I spent almost all of my free time doodling away- making little pieces of art, and sending them out into the internet, hoping they made a difference somewhere for someone besides me, which would help make the relentless nature of this project, this expression, somehow worth it.
It is hard to balance work and play, when the work is something I'm passionate about. And yet, if I don't let my inner artist have enough fun out in the world, the passion molds into obligation and duty, and the artist gets angry and grumpy. (And while I am only one judge of the doodles, and often not in the majority opinion on their merits, there's something different about a doodle doodled from duty. Perhaps for me, it is tainted with the stench of the jail.)
This doodle is a warning to the Doodle Task Master (yes that's me, but perhaps you have one, too) that when artists don't get enough play-time, wonderful projects and commitments can become prisons, and that just won't do for a doodler.