During most summer days it is a struggle to find time for art. I have been wanting to finish this new shamanic frame drum, but life seems to conspire to get in the way. The dog wants walking, the basil was mostly eaten by slugs last night and needs protecting, and the garden still must be watered. The paint brushes require cleaning to be ready for tomorrow's next coat of varnish on the sailboat, and I'm still hoping to bring up a bucket of gravel, left in the verge from the recent road work on Cortes, to put around the pond.
I recently finished reading Masters of the Living Energy, by Joan Parisi Wilcox, and discovered a new perspective about time for making art. One of the paqos (shaman) interviewed in this wonderful book about the mystical world of the Q'ero of Peru described time as a being. A completely new perspective to my north American mind! Seems this time person is a difficult one to have a relationship with. The being who is time for art is demanding that I enter a sort of "no time." How I find to do a thing is most often discovered by finding out how not to do the thing, over and over, until at last all the necessary elements of sturdiness and beauty come together in technique. And this requires being fully present with gererous time. 
So how to make this time being a friend, instead of a stranger in my full summer days? Probably the same way we visit with any of our friends...by asking for their company, setting aside space to be together, maybe bringing a small gift or some food to share. I am imagining that the best food to share will be my full attention, and the gift to bring is my efforts to make beauty when we are together.
