For more than two decades, I have aligned my work habits with a certain Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip.  It’s the one where Hobbes is asking Calvin about his homework and Calvin replies that he will start it eventually.  You can’t turn creativity on and off like a faucet, Calvin says.  You have to be in the right mood.  Hobbes asks exactly what that mood is and Calvin replies, “Last minute panic.”

My NE150 Nebraska By Heart project is due Saturday.  This Saturday, April 15, 2017.  Three days away.  I still have two crane vignettes and the entire base to do.

As much as I like to plan things out, I also am a darn good procrastinator.  I’ve always admired those people who seem to be putting things off until the last minute and suddenly – voila! – you have a masterpiece.  I think of Alberto Giacometti’s 1947 Man Pointing sculpture and what he had to say about it.  He recalled: ‘I did that piece in one night between midnight and nine the next morning. That is, I’d already done it, but I demolished it and did it all over again because the men from the foundry were coming to take it away. And when they got here, the plaster was still wet.’  That sculpture, by the way, set a world record a few years ago as the most expensive piece of artwork ever sold at an auction – $141 million.

There are two things about Giacometti’s story that speak to me.  The first is the frenzied outburst of creativity that happened in the course of one night.  That’s what we see in the movies, isn’t it?  That’s the romantic way of making art, writing, cooking, living.  The second is Giacometti’s throwaway admission that he was a perfectionist.  “…I’d already done it, but I demolished it and did it all over again…”  I live that life.  When working on a book, or this blog, or an email, or even a text for crying out loud, I write and rewrite and reword and rephrase.  When creating art such as the Heart, even when under a looming deadline, I often stop, dissatisfied with what I’m doing, and start back at the beginning.

Yesterday, on the Nebraska By Heart Facebook page, the photo below appeared.

The image shows a trailer bed full of Hearts loaded up and ready to be taken taken to their installation points in Lincoln.  This gives me inspiration to continue to work on mine and not wait for the last minute panic…although you’d think I should be panicking by now.  Oddly enough, though, I’m not.  I’m looking forward to my next paint day (Friday) and I’m not stressed about the high probability that I will not meet the Saturday deadline.

Maybe I should be…I’ll let you know how I feel Saturday.