Once a month, I’m collecting my Manifesto Minutes into one listen. In this first batch, I share why constraints fuel creativity, why process matters more than product, what weeding my garden taught me about negative thinking, how simplifying lets the necessary speak, and why I keep a Post-it on my computer that says “Remember you must die.” Five quick reminders that this is no time to be timid.
Welcome to the first compilation of Manifesto Minutes, short pieces built around the principles of the No Time to Be Timid Manifesto. I share how tea bags, rusted umbrella parts, and masking tape became my art supplies, and what Twyla Tharp and Grandma Moses taught me about creating with limits. I read a favorite passage from The Natural Way to Draw about valuing effort over results, and tell you how a garden became a metaphor for clearing out negative thinking. I also explain how we’ve remodeled our house by subtraction, and I close with a story from photographer Laura Wilson about the difference between percolating and procrastinating.
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Credits
Written and produced by Tricia Rose Burt. Produced and scored by Adam Arnone of Echo Finch. Executive producers: Amy Grant, Nancy Perot, and Sage Wheeler. Thanks to the Fractured Atlas fiscal sponsorship contributors.
Hey there, it's Trisha Rose Burt. So we've just started season five, and we already have a new thing we want to offer, in addition to the solo cast where it's just me telling a story and our guest interviews. Once a month, we're going to offer a compilation of manifesto minutes, short little pieces that focus on the principles of the No Time to Be Timid Manifesto that I'm posting on social media. The audio stands alone really well, and we thought y'all would love to hear them. Listen to them here.
And check them out on YouTube and Instagram. And in the spirit of doing courageous things, I'm going to be creating more opportunities for you to listen and watch. So be on the lookout for something every Thursday. Now sit back and enjoy the first batch of Manifesto Minutes.
Do you ever feel like you can't get started on a creative project because you don't have everything that you think you need? Well, some of the best visual work I've ever made came because I didn't have any money to buy traditional art supplies like oil paint or acrylic paints. I had to get creative. And so I use tea bags and rusted umbrella parts and office supplies. I mean, I love me some masking tape.
The constraints forced me to become more creative. And the choreographer Twila Tharp talks about this same idea in her book, The Creative Habit. She says that one of the worst bodies of work that she ever made is when she had a blank check and an unlimited time. And that one of the best bodies of work she ever made was when she had two weeks and no money to pull it off. The constraints just put her creativity into overdrive. And one of the best stories about constraints.
I I've ever heard, and I just recently found this out, is about Grandma Moses. She made over a thousand pieces of artwork. She published like a thousand paintings in the last 30 years of her life. And she did this because her arthritis made it impossible for her to crochet. But she still needed to create. So she picked up a paintbrush, and at the age of a hundred, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine. So what can you do with the time magazine?
And the money and the resources that you have right now. When I was in art school, one of my instructors recommended that I read the book, The Natural Way to Draw, by an instructor named Nicolaites. He taught back in the 1920s and 1930s. And the book really shifted my perspective. And I've read the introduction so many times, I could recite it word for word. It offers all kinds of wisdom to artists working in any kind of medium. And so I wanted to
Recite a little bit of the introduction to you here. Don't worry if for the first three months your studies do not look like anything else called a drawing that you have ever seen. You should not care what your work looks like as long as you spend your time trying. The effort you make is not for one particular drawing, but for the experience that you are having. And that will be true even when you are 80 years old. Sometimes I forget.
That I get so focused on the end result and the product that I forget that it's about the process. It's about the experience that I'm having. It's about what I'm learning when I'm trying to make something happen. So give yourself some grace as you fumble and stumble along. And remember, this is no time to be timid. I woke up this morning and started weeding my garden. Now I'm hardly a master gardener. I have three raised beds, two are cut flowers and one is tomatoes, lots of tomatoes, and basil and parsley. And it had been a really long time since I've weeded. So there was just kind of chaos everywhere. And these unwanted things were just sprouting up everywhere and they were blocking the beauty that was trying to show through. And it felt like a metaphor while I was weeding. It felt like I was trying to weed out all the negative thinking that's in my head that gets in the way of the of me making the work that I want to make, of of putting my own beauty into the world. And, you know, not only had I not weeded in a while, I also hadn't harvested. There were these lovely flowers and ripe tomatoes, all this creative energy and growth that was gonna rot, was gonna be completely wasted.
If I didn't share it with my family and with my community. And that felt like a cautionary tale. So as we say the manifesto, make your mark now.
So yesterday we ripped off the front porch of our house. little rot. We've been wanting to do this for a while. But it's also been how we've actually remodeled the house that we've been living in. It's been sort of architecture by subtraction. It's a three thousand square foot home, at least that's how big it was when we bought it. And we've taken a thousand square feet out off of it over the course of the time that we've lived here.
We bought the house from a family that lived here for 37 years. And over that time, they had like 63 foster children come through the house, which is a lovely thing. But every time they got another child, they put up another wall or built another room. And it was kind of like a rabbit worn. So, like I said, 3,000 square foot home, we've taken a thousand square feet off. And now the house just makes all kinds of sense. There's a lovely flow and it’s really been a huge creative effort. but we've worked very hard and one of the things we've done is how can we just make this simpler? How can we make it less chaotic? And it reminds me of this great quote by Hans Hoffmann, which is the ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
I think that works. I know it works for our home. And it works for what I write and what I draw and how I articulate things. Really how I work with my clients when I help them with their messaging. If we can make it more simple, then we can let the necessary information come out. So something to think about. How can you simplify your world? And remember, this is no time to be timid. On my computer screen. I have a post-it note that says, remember you must die. And it's not on there to be like grim and doom. It's to say, you know, if you have an idea, get on it. Life is, you know, well, first of all, life is filled with all kinds of curveballs, but also, you know, it's finite. There's only a certain amount of time we have on this planet. So if you got some ideas, move it. There's a a great interview I had with Laura Wilson, who's a wonderful photographer, season three, episode six. And she talks about this idea that if you have an idea, if you have a thought, if there's a direction you want to go in, start moving on it. And she tells this great story. I'm gonna read from the transcript so I get it right. She said, I met John Updike. He had come here to give a lecture, and I met him after the lecture, and he was very appealing. And he stood to have some pictures taken. And I thought, gosh, I'd like to photograph him myself.
And my cousin knew him, so I thought, well, I won't have any trouble at least making contact with him. But I dilly dallied around. And he unfortunately died very abruptly shortly thereafter. And I just thought, that's it. No more. Move. And so I use Lau's advice. I take her advice. I mean, I can percolate on some ideas, but there's percolating and then there's procrastinating.
So if you've got something you're gonna work on, start. Make your mark now. Thanks for joining us. Now I know you're listening while you're either driving your car or doing your dishes, so when you're done, please make sure to subscribe to the show, check us out on YouTube, and subscribe there. It helps us build our audience. And with more listeners and viewers, it means more opportunities to bring you great content. And remember, this is no time to be timid.
No Time to Be Timid is written and produced by me, Trisha Rose Burt. Our episodes are produced and scored by Adam Arnone of Echo Finch. And our executive producers are Amy Grant, Nancy Perot, and Sage Wheeler. I'd also like to thank contributors to my fractured Atlas fiscal sponsorship, which helps make this podcast happen. No Time to Be Timid is a presentation of No Time to Be Timid Productions.