The show Jim Doiron & Lisa Simon New Work from the Eleventh Hour comes down tomorrow.  It was a great show with a great response.  I think the real success of it was the fact that we put it together in such short order proving, with the proper motivation, we can still be effective as artists.  I feel the long view lesson in it is to try and get to the studio more regularly, to try and get more done in short bursts than trying to create a show in 45 days. This is something I have been attempting to implement in my studio practice for some time but requires such a level of discipline that is hard with so many outside forces (wife, kids, job-or lack thereof, housework, pets, etc) it is enough to make one retreat to a lone cabin in the woods except then I would have to learn how to make liquor and then that would be my distraction.  Small steps-it is something I have taken from other interests such as bonsai and Tai chi. You cannot force a tree to become the ancient specimen you would like it to be in a season or even 1 year or 5.  It is the regular maintenance of it and regular revisiting that become the focus and then one spring the tree you want is there.  Left to neglect and it falters or dies, forced to move faster than it should and it stresses and meets a similar end (in this metaphor the artist would meet this fate having nearly killed ourselves with this show).  In bonsai it is common to have multiple trees in various stages of development and this is how I would like my studio work to be, a constant cultivation of multiple bodies of work growing at a steady healthy rate. It may be all that keeps me from running away to the woods.