So Many Ideas

The Blog Triage course that Alyson Stanfield and Cynthia Morris are running is spectacular — inspiring, motivating, and, well, a bit overwhelming too!

These two women have put together a rich assortment of ideas to get and keep us writing. They clearly did their homework. And now they’re keeping up with us every day — giving feedback, encouragement, and coaching. Awesome!

This week’s exercise was to generate (and organize) a variety of ideas for blog posts, keeping our readers and our purpose firmly in mind.

So far, I’ve come up with a few categories and a random smattering of other intriguing things. Let me know what you think.

Here are my categories (and a picture of the little boy in my 2006 Pool of Light piece. He looks like he’s cooking up some ideas too!):

Pool of Light, detail. Tibetan silk appliqué 19x30" © Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo

How To’s

• how to hang a thangka
• how to roll up a thangka
• how to arrange the drape
• how to clean a thangka (or as a conservator recently told me, “in a word, ‘don’t'”)
• how to wrap a horsehair cord with silk thread
• how to twist thread (ever examined a piece of string?)
• how to photograph textile art (I’ve got more learning than teaching to do on this one, so I may ask your help!)

FAQs (the questions people ask me at screenings and exhibitions)

• Where do you get the patience? (This one’s done!)
• Where to get horsehair (along with stories of my adventures on the way to figuring it out)
• How’s your eyesight?
• Who are your customers?
• How did you get in to your apprenticeship? Was it hard to get access, to be allowed in as an outsider?
• Are spiritual practices an integral part of the work , mantras, visualization,…
• Why I like to make thangkas on commission
• How does commissioning a thangka work?
• How do I choose which image to make
• … and many more…

Lists

• Tibetan art websites and blogs
• Sites that link Art and Buddhism (or art and religion)
• The blogs of our Blog Triage group
• Blogs and websites that inspire me and might inspire you too
• Tibetan art galleries and collections

Reviews & Reports

• of Museums I visit
• of Textile art exhibitions
• of relevant books I read
• of Buddhist and Tibetan-culture-related events

Interviews or Profiles (yikes! these will take some work, but could be great fun)

• of other thangka artists
• of other textile artists, especially those who are working in a traditional form
• of other western artists working in a foreign cultural tradition

Random (and incomplete) smattering of other intriguing thoughts

• Quirky observations of the expat life
• Explanations of the parts of a thangka, how they’re constructed, the brocade mount, etc.
• Articles and blog posts that inspired me or solved a problem
• Relevant office supplies, software, and gadgets I’ve found helpful (like this great little online stopwatch for managing task time)
• Balancing the solitary nature of art making (which appeals to the introverted part of me) with the need for social contact (to energize and awaken the extroverted part of me)
• Explanations or translations of Tibetan art lingo, Buddhist lingo, thangka lingo
• Physical objects I find or see which inspire me
• Tibetan art scholarship news, events, writing, discoveries
• Thangkas I’ve seen or am studying or find on the web
• Continuing experiments with a variety of textile art techniques
• Inspirations of various sorts, wherever they may turn up (and they’re everywhere!)

If you’re a regular reader of my blog — or even if you’ve just stopped by and like what you see — tell me some things you’d like to read about here. I’ll see what I can do.

I’d also love for you to help me fill in some details on the ideas I’ve outlined above. That way you can help me be more interesting to you. Sounds like a good thing for both of us!