This is the space for our members to discuss and share their creative projects, ranging from written works to drawings, photography, and even craft projects such as knitting and woodworking. Self promotion is welcome (websites where we can view and/or purchase your work). Please do continue to preface if content is NSFW and be sure to properly spoiler/link such content.
A habit I’ve tried to make permanent over the past several years has been to devise New Year’s resolutions in the autumn and put them into practice well before the big moment arrives (I appreciate that the whole concept of “resolutions” can be a thorny issue, but they’ve worked well enough for me). One of the lower-hanging fruit this year has been to streamline my domestic environment (this has been a standing resolution, given my tiny living space, since I started painting for real), and in pursuit, I’ve finally decided to pull the trigger on a longstanding idea and get rid of practically all my CD jewel cases. The CDs (and eventually DVDs) will all go in a large carrying case (I hardly ever listen to them as CDs these days—the ones that haven’t been ripped yet soon will be) and I’ll have more space in the corner where my CD rack has lived now for the better part of a decade (I’ll be asking around if anyone wants it, but if not I’ll probably disassemble and junk it). There’s also the notion of making things easier if and when I move (as it stands, I’ll be here at least until August of ’24, but I figure it’s never too early to get in the mindset).
As mentioned in past Creative Threads, music’s been hugely important to my creative life, especially back when I was writing. There’ve been a few changes since that have gone with my pivot to the visual (including, strangely enough, a plummeting interest in cinema that would have deeply shocked me even just a decade ago—and so many of those aforementioned DVDs are movies, naturally enough), but the place of music in terms of inspiration and creative fuel has never budged. If anything, the construction noise of the past couple of years has strengthened the connection, as a lot of the catch-up chill I’ve been doing this autumn has been suffused with streaming tunes (much of it CBC 2, but I’ve also begun to rediscover our local college radio station). My CDs have taken a bit of a backseat, but I finally managed to get my Windows Media Player working again and have been delving through my catalog through shuffle plays.
Even with all that, it’s hard to resist a certain amount of nostalgia regarding this particular dying technology. One of the few possessions I brought with me on my first move to Michigan (I had to stagger bringing my stuff from storage over several trips in the course of a couple of years as I didn’t have a car) was a CaseLogic carrier with my Kinks and Sleater-Kinney albums (they were all the music I’d have for a few months), and I still have it. Did some calculation and I think the oldest CD I own (or at least the earliest I bought) is John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in Holst’s The Planets (albums by the Monks, Fela Kuti, and Muzsikas filling the bill for the pop/rock/“other” side). Some of these I’ll keep for sentimental reasons but I’m not gonna deny looking forward to having everything a lot closer organized (whatever my mixed feelings on the technology’s passing).
How’s your work going?