The Luxury of Time
A few years ago I was fretting over getting a report done using data in a system I was still learning. I was trying to complete it by a specific deadline I had set. And then, a colleague facing the same challenge told me to stop being so hard on myself. She talked about how we are often our own worst enemies because we set deadlines for ourselves that can be unreasonable, and then we either work overtime to get something done or we feel bad for having to extend the deadline. We want to produce something that is accurate, professional, and excellent, and if we can’t do that by the deadline we set AND it isn’t needed to inform something by that deadline, then we should be okay with extending the deadline and not feel bad about it. That conversation stuck with me because it came from someone I have a tremendous amount of respect for and had been doing the role I was in for much longer than I had been there.
I think about that conversation a lot, especially because I’m terrible at letting myself off the hook on arbitrary deadlines. Often, I have an overwhelming desire to try to get things done as quickly and efficiently as possible or to push through to get something done by a specific, arbitrary date. I’ve stayed up later than I wanted to, used up way more energy that I should have, and given up refinement for haste. It’s these times where the balance between time spent and end product aren’t very balanced. This compulsion exists in my work, my household, and my art, and it’s something that I’ve been actively working on combatting for years now. I like deadlines, but I like for them to be meaningful.
And that brings me to my art. I have been rushing and pushing myself to get things done. I felt like I had a limited amount of time, and if I didn’t get it done then, it wouldn’t get done. This feeling exists in lots of different ways. There’s class time where I want to get something done in the time I have in class. (This was much more important when I was working full-time and didn’t have much down time outside of class.) For pottery, rather than taking the time to smooth my hollow balls or pinch pots, I would just jump to the next step. When I paint using oils in my classes, I’m the same way. I would rather finish by the end of class than come back to it. Acrylics and collage are a little different. I never felt this way because I knew I could always paint over what I was doing or I was mixing media that didn’t have as many time limits to it.
Glazing Finished and In Process
Then, there’s glazing: it takes so much more time that you think it will. Always. When you brush on glazes, there are layers that need to dry before going to the next coat. If I had to stop before I finished a piece or a section, I needed to remember where I was and what I was doing. This isn’t a problem if I’m coming back to the piece in the next few days. But if I’m not…. And that brings me to a recent experience: I was at the studio for two hours, and that was the time I had to glaze. I could have extended it to two and a half hours because the studio wasn’t closing until then, but I had a hard stop. I glazed my crow/raven and my ergonomic owl. I had two more pieces with me, a penguin and a bear. I went ahead and glazed the penguin's feet and beak. Then, I stopped to look at the clock. 20 minutes left, not enough time to finish three coats on anything, at least not without a hairdryer and rushing to pack up. So I didn’t do it. I stopped.
At that moment, I embraced the feeling that I have time. It was glorious.
Taking time is a luxury in our world. As George Lakoff discussed in Metaphors We Live By, we use language to describe time in terms of money. In other words, we think of time as a commodity. We talk about the time we spend on something or how much time we’ve lost because of x, y, or z. Using this conceptual metaphor of time as money, taking more time is a luxury as it costs more. And so often we don’t take that additional time because it costs too much. And because we don’t take that time, we also don’t produce at our desired level of quality.
I recognize that taking the time we need is a balance to meeting a deadline. But, if it’s arbitrary, don’t be so hard on yourself. Take the time to get the data you need, smooth your hollow balls, revisit the painting you started, allow your glaze to dry between your layers, step back and let the creative process have space.
And time.