The ceramic bowl sits in the middle of a table in my office as a “holder” of ideas for my next creative project.
Where’s your container for your next project and why might you need one?
I discovered I needed a container when after months of marketing my memoir I felt ready to launch my next creative project but I wasn’t sure what it would be. I didn’t like this “not knowing” space, that limbo-land of transition from one project to another.
As the stress of limbo built up inside me, a colleague suggested I find a “womb” for my next project. Well, even though I live in Portland, Oregon, a womb felt way too woo-woo for me but I liked the idea of a container.
So, I found this handmade bowl. And placed it in the middle of my desk. Then, I cut up strips of paper to invite my ideas. Having an actual place to hold this gestation process has calmed me down. It sits in the middle of my office and even when I’m working on other things, it’s still inviting my ideas all day and all night long. The bowl lets me know it will hold what isn’t fully born yet until it’s big enough for me to see what it is.
Do you need a place to hold that next project in all its fragileness and possibility? It could be a bowl or a wooden box or a glass jar but find something that you can place on a real table -- in the middle of your life -- and live with. Tell me what you discover. What begins to grow inside of it?
Peasant Woman with a Jar, by Octav Bancila, 1910.