Creative Pensieve

PensieveCloseUp

Harry Potter: “What is it?

Albus Dumbledore: “This? It is called a Pensieve.

I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling,

that I simply have too many thoughts

and memories crammed into my mind.

— Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter discussing Dumbledore’s Pensieve.

Several years ago, when I read the above in one of J.K.Rowlings’ renowned books, I immediately thought, “That’s what I need!!” I had actually been doing this to a certain extent in my sketchbooks. But I began to create Creative Pensieves in the form of books (rather than a cauldron of water) to hold all the “brilliant ideas” that came floating into my head, clamoring to be made. Since I couldn’t tend to them all at once, I decided to write them down, sketch them out, paste in, whatever the idea was so that I could come back to it at a later date. For some of my yarn projects, I actually made a scrapbook, titling it thus.

PensieveScrapbook

Pensieve1

Pensieve2

Pensieve3

I have scads of these Pensieves around the house. I have one for Genevieve books I’ve written awaiting  illustrations and…publishing…????

GenevievePensieve

I have sketchbooks with ideas for larger works…

SketchbookPensieve

SketchbookPensieve1

I have composition notebooks which are my daily writing books, but are filled with ideas for making stuff, for poems, for sewing stuff, as well as the yarn designs that crop up along the way…

JournalPensieve

Journal1

Journal2

Timaree says she does this too…writing down the ideas as they come. Perhaps its not as elaborate as the scrapbook. It doesn’t need to be. But it’s a great way to hold onto some of those creative no-see-ums when they’re buzzing around your head and you don’t want to lose the idea. It helps in several ways:

1.  It eases the frenzy of all those ideas banging around in your mind. Writing or sketching them in a book, allows you to breathe a bit easier knowing the idea(s) is captured there for a later date.

2.  When the idea first comes to you, it may have this “brilliant idea” quality. If you write it down, then it can simmer. When you look at it again you can decide if it still has that brilliance or if it may be something you can let go of.

3.  If you ever hit places where you are bereft of brilliant ideas, then you have your Creative Pensieve to dive into and find a cool creative project.

The one hitch to having these Creative Pensieves sitting around is that they might start to talk to you. You have to watch out if it starts saying something like, “Okay…I’m sitting here…waiting for you to do something about this…all these great ideas you’ve never done anything about…come on, get with it!” DO NOT listen to it if you hear negative chatter like this!!!

If you do hear something like that, immediately change it’s tune to this:

YOU HAVE AMAZING CREATIVE IDEAS AND THIS IS JUST PROOF OF IT! BE GLAD IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU WILL NEVER BE BORED. REMEMBER WHAT FUN IT WAS TO CATCH ALL THESE CREATIVE BUTTERFLIES AND PUT THEM IN THIS JAR. THEY’RE HERE FOR YOU WHENEVER YOU NEED THEM.

**Just another way I live artfully. I hope you are living a life of art as well, and loving every minute of it!

0 thoughts on “Creative Pensieve

  1. Pia says:

    I do the same thing. I feel that by acknowledging an idea in making a note of it, I signal that I want to stay in the creative flow. A sort of thank you. If I just push things away, perhaps they stop coming? And it gives me some satisfaction also, some ideas don’t need to go any further, they just have a different life than the one that are materialised, does that make sense? The simple event of having the idea, pondering and elaborating in your mind, is also a lot of fun. And, well, I suppose they are also good to have on a day when the source HAS run out temporarily.

    • jenpedwards says:

      They can be any way you want/need to make them…dashed off slips of paper put in an envelope, or elaborate notebooks…whatever “works”. Thanks for popping in Cathy!

  2. freebirdsings says:

    I love the way you put #2. Yes, a lot of ideas sound so good but when I try to work them out on paper or in actuality they don’t hold up. Still as Pia says, just getting and jotting down ideas is a sort of life for them which is why I guess, it’s easier to let some of them go at that point where others keep their “brilliance” and move to the next stage. I actually laughed at the idea of the ideas starting to whine at us – oh boy, they do and yes, we have to stop them right there in their tracks or risk getting overwhelmed all over again. That’s why I like Pia’s idea so much I guess – “stop whining ideas, at least you made it to the written down stage”!

  3. Caatje says:

    I love this. I do something similar in what I like to think of as my workhorse sketchbooks. I keep one in the studio and one downstairs. I will note ideas, paste in images and my own little try outs, test out materials etc. I make lists in them and also written contemplations about (my) art or just references to books and websites. The really are hold alls. I love having a peek at your version of this. Nice!

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