Too Many Ideas, Not enough Time.

I never thought I would say it, but I have too many ideas for series of paintings. My mind is swimming with ideas that I want to work on but now I feel like I don't have enough time. How is that possible??? I am a full-time artist now! All I have to do is paint (okay, i also have an apartment to clean and meals to cook too and I'm sure my fiance would like to see me sometimes) so why do I feel like I don't have enough time to work on all of my ideas? I feel like I got a lot more work done when I had a day job since I had to make sure that I crammed as much painting time as possible in a day. Hell, I painted 18 paintings in less than a month while teaching all day and tutoring twice a week! Why is it so difficult now?

It is during these times that I feel like I must be a bit A.D.D. I have so many thoughts swimming around in my head since now I have the time to actually think about new ideas and series. This is normally a great thing, except now I feel overwhelmed that I don't have enough time in the day, week, summer to get them all done. I know I need to focus on one thing at a time but I get so excited about new things that I want to try those out too. Then I start to wonder how will I meet the needs of the galleries showing my work AND still be able to experiment and work on these new ideas. I know there's a balance. I guess I just haven't figured what that is since I am new to this whole "painting full-time" gig. I haven't quite figured out how to divide my painting time so that I am doing all of the things I want to do. Do I devote a different day of the week to do specific projects? Or do I divide up my day to do this? Do I just focus on one series at a time?

After having taught for 13 years, I am so used to structure and need it. I like schedules and timelines. It helps me get work done. I guess I just need to figure out how to schedule everything I want to do within a week. I'm sure eventually I will get the hang of this and figure out how to fit everything in. I'll have to. This is my career we're talking about. In the meantime, I guess I'll just be a stereotypical, neurotic artist...

Image: "Corsage" a work in progress. 16" x 16"