Some mornings I wake up feeling lost...

Twirling Floral Skirt by Bill Pevlor

Some mornings I wake up feeling lost, as if the scene I was dreaming is more real than the waking world.

Not that I recall what I was dreaming this morning. When I started this post the next day was December 1st, and December last year was full if melancholy and drama and action. It was when I decided to finally walk away from a six and a half year relationship.  It was about finally taking the step to make a necessary change.  Sometimes in life you have to let go of things that are bad for you to make room for growth.  And it's not about regret. I don't regret leaving. It's about the loss of the potential. But I can't make a tea kettle into a paper crane. I can only truly change myself.

Going into this December when I originally wrote this I had the expectation that the emotional landscape would be more mellow, rolling hills of grass. I thought my tea-kettle-and-paper-crane moment had come and gone in November when someone close to me, going through a (in my eyes) self-inflicted mess, let loose on me two weeks before my big show.  Poor assumption on my part. Now two weeks into one of the months I dislike most I'm finding I spoke too soon.  That same person has decided that unless I'm willing to play Dr Phil, in person (they lives 4 hours away), that we won't be having even polite-and-happy interactions. Oh, and that they won't be heading home for the holidays for the first time ever because for the first time in three years I'll be here.  "You know where to find me...." was the parting line.

Who are we without our battles?  And if we could drop the weight of other people's emotions could we fly?  I found out I'm being promoted at work, but I find I have no one to share it with.  Intellectually the people who know (the number of which can be counted on one hand) are congratulatory, but I don't know that they truly know what it means.  And with that promotion comes a coworker (and friend) who is decidedly unhappy about my being his new boss.  Great.  The lesson this month seems to be more about not taking other people's emotions and actions personally. 

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Who Are We Without Our Battles?

Who are we without our battles?  Our internal struggles define us in our daily lives, in the paths we walk, in the choices we make. The artist's struggle for relevance and acclaim. The IT director's push for promotion. The human's yearning for acceptance.

Only in the silence of the night, in the murmur of cars on a distant highway, in the stillness of rain, in moments of deep water and slow summer days do the battles cease. And in the echoing silence left after the ringing of the bells we touch the edges if our potential outside the struggles and there is peace.

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All Buyers Are New

It occurs to me that marketing fine art isn't quite like marketing anything else.  Most marketing including retail marketing (which per most classifications is what artists do) focuses on encouraging repeat buyers, but in the fine art field its unusual to have someone buy more than one large piece.  Granted this is an over-simplification but the basic premise holds.  Fine art isn't transitory.  It doesn't expire or get used up; it goes on so long as its well cared for (and matches the couch…).  So theoretically each customer who buys a large piece from me is unique, a new buyer if you will.  The question becomes how does one go about attracting a steady stream of new buyers when most business models depend on repeat customers.

Looking at the sales situation I came up with three methods.

• Through organic methods.  This can be word of mouth or seeing someone else with a similar piece.
• My nod to this method leans towards the placement of pieces in local businesses with business cards displayed.  So far this method has had a lower success rate.
• Through a sales venue, like a gallery.
• Like organic methods sales venues have yielded a lower success rate for me.  Granted my sample size is two, a local co-op gallery with an advertising budget of functionally $0 and a local shop that doesn't specialize in fine art, where prices are marked up to accommodate the 30% commission.
• Through a placement firm, like a design firm.

As part of my day job I've lately been reading through a set of books on management and what motivates people.  The three methods above could theoretically be enhanced through fascination, both of the art I'm selling and of myself as a person.  Fascination with the art pieces is easier, that is to say by creating such an appealing presentation that people become enamored of certain pieces.  Through personal connection - that's much harder.  From the inside I don't see myself as that interesting of a person, and as an introvert having to talk to people about my creative processes is a bit like being on stage.  Over the past couple of years its gotten easier though, and I've found a higher success rate with people who feel a personal connection with me.

Interestingly art shows fall under the sales value method but because if the increased level of fascination I can impart through the presentation of my work and through my interactions with potential customers my sales rate is higher than any other method to date.

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Sally the Shark

In the hustle and bustle of daily life is so easy to become so overwhelmed with little details, with all the tasks and lists, that we forget to be truly present.  I found myself wondering this morning if other people feel a sense of dismay when they realize they've been basically sleepwalking, of not paying attention.  I've definitely been guilty of this myself over the past couple weeks as I prepped for next weekend's Art Denver show.  Even just now I had to stop and go look for bank deposit slips.

It hit me last night and then again this morning while doing laundry, that sneaking voice that says "but I just did this..." with a super vivid memory of the act.  "Yes," I tell myself.  "You just did this last week and now its time to do it again."  

The teacher for a class I attended last week for the day job on leadership styles talked about how most people live 5% in the real world and 95% in a story in their head.  I think to-do lists are definately part of a story.  I shall call mine How Sam Was The Stand-Out Artist At Art Denver and in my head it'll be a blockbuster.  Don't get me wrong; lists are important.  They help keep the little voices in my head that run around in circles reciting all the things I shouldn't forget in place.  They help me remember to tie a deposit account to my new credit card reader, to buy velcro to hang my business card holders, and to reply to emails.  But they're also overwhelmingly distracting.

Sally-the-Shark

Personally I've found injecting moments of whimsy into the lists, into the story helps.  There's an actual reason I have a bin of socks with things like winged-bunnies-holding-wrenches on them.  So yesterday while I was out picking up (hopefully) the majority of the supplies I'll need for next weekend I found up Sally-the-Shark.  Shes now handing off the handle of the cupboard containing the dishes, with her little fins and tail mounted on springs so it looks like she's flapping around like a happy goldfish.

Yes, its stupid and childish, but it also makes me pause on my journey to where ever and smile back at her silly grin.

Today is officially print-and-mat day, with a short break to buy groceries.  Who said the life of an artist wasn't exciting?

Its hard to be enthused about cutting 187 mat boards, and doubly hard today because I had to buy another mat cutter yesterday.  So glad I live in Denver, where the local stores stock these giant things and where they have 40% off coupons this weekend :)

And extra glad because I can go grocery shopping now and they'll have the fresh apple chansons :-) 

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Credit Cards 101

Is it possible to be the crazy print lady as opposed to the crazy cat lady?  After all I only have two cats but almost 100 prints to spend my Friday night with.

With Art Denver less than a week out show inventory has been much on my mind of late.  When stocking inventory for a show the line I always struggle with is the balance between having enough inventory that people willing to buy things have things to buy within their price range but not stocking so much that I end up holding inventory for months.

Larry Berman has a great article on the subject <article here> but the question is still how much is correct?  With new shows its extremely difficult to determine (via the uber geeky Drake formula) how much inventory to buy and so one ends up usually overstocking.

Drake Formula...

Needed inventory = <number of people attending show> x <percentage of people that stop at your booth> x <percentage of people that buy something> x <some factor to take into account the demographic of attendees>

Art Denver, however, is a whole different kettle of fish.  On one hand its brand new, which usually draws a smaller crowd but on the other is put on by the same people that do Cherry Creek, which draws a huge, higher-end crowd.  And they're charging for admittance which will either kill attendance or draw a crowd intending to buy.  One of my best shows three years running charges for attendance.  So yes, I've probably overstocked, again.  On the other hand I heard them advertising the show on the radio last week. 

Like most artists I tend to have cash flow problems right before a show.  Art shows are what banks consider a high risk activity.  There's no true predictor of sales because a myriad of emotional factors have to be taken into account.  These can include, oh, the phase of the moon, the weather, the most recent Pinterest fad, and what everyone else at the show is selling.  So, yeah, a bad risk.  Banks want a schedule of repayment, which I can't provide until after the show.  If loans are out and you're not independently wealthy that leaves credit cards.  Its basically a loan, with interest, but not made beforehand, and its not for the faint of heart.

Here's a couple tips from experience to financing your inventory this way.

1) Have several cards.  One with (probably) a higher interest rate, a nice cash back policy or airline miles (my favorite - hello Kyoto) or some nice perk and one with a high limit and a bearable interest rate.

2)  Charge your inventory on the card with perks and then before the first month's balance is due transfer it to the card with the higher limit.  If you can time it right you can hit one of the "0% interest for X months" promotions.  Yes, there's a fee, but the fee is usually equal to the first month's interest on the perky-but-higher-interest card.  And then pay it off using sales.

We all have bad shows and slow sales months though which leads me to point 3)

3) If sales at the show are sub-par and you're now sitting on inventory (and debt) use the high-limit, low-interest card to auto-pay some service fees you're already incurring.  This allows you to then pay a lower out-of-pocket amount against the balance (because you already have the funds allocated to pay the service fees) while keeping your card provider happy.

Example > I have website hosting fees and monthly gallery fees.  Together those fees add up to half of the minimum payment required on my high-limit card.  If sales are bad for a particular month, since I've already allocated for my fees, I can put less out of pocket against the remaining required minimum.

The one tricky piece of this balancing act is that its not sustainable over multiple shows unless you're reusing your inventory.  

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Sometimes Its Lemons

Sometimes life throws an unexpected wrench in the works.  For me this evening it was my financial backer for my upcoming show pulling out.  After I'd already committed to inventory.

My favorite quote from our conversation "I refuse to let you make me feel bad about this..."

Sometimes you just have to push forward anyways, jump and fall and trust it'll be okay.  Because frankly at this point its too late to do anything else.  Here's hoping I'll float instead of sink.

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Sometimes you just know...

Its funny but sometimes when buying a flower, when taking a shot, I just know the product is going to be something great.  

Pinwheel

Sometimes the little voices in my head send me 30 minutes out of my way to a floral shop I haven't visited in a couple of weeks with whispers that they have something special.  And such was the case this afternoon on my way back from downtown. Experience has taught me to generally heed the little voices so long as they aren't urging me to set fires or ram into other cars (j/k) but in seriousness I rolled on down to Highlands Ranch as suggested. 

Waiting for me was the Octoberfest celebration (yes, I'm aware that its September.  evidently they were confused...), a re-arrangement of my photos on the shop's art rail (which I wasn't thrilled about), and some sunset-hued dahlias.  In the car, on the ride home, they glowed.  On the camera screen they burned.  And the resulting images were like stars in the night.

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Aloneness

Sometimes you have to wallow in aloneness, like the taste of winter in the breeze on a fall day just as the leaves begin to color.  

Aloneness is standing in an art show full of people who can't see the moment of stillness I was attempting to capture, pure like the ringing of a bell, like ice in sun.

Aloneness is having the same interests but approaching them from completely different ends of the spectrum.  From the outside you'd think that would lead to collaboration and discussion, but instead it leads to frustration, an inability to understand why the other is doing something so completely "illogical".  And while I appreciate that a relative of mine came four hours to help me with my most recent show, I'm concerned that it simply widened the gap between us.  

A great example is the one above/below. 

The day after the Affordable Arts Festival, I hit the garden store with my dad, who had come into town to help me schlupp art stuff, where I picked up several pots of foxtail grass.  At the time the question was some form of "are you sure?" and "what're you going to do with them?"  I bought them anyway.  Amidst the chaos of my prepping between shows the pots covered my kitchen counter, leaking water when given a drink, filling the apartment with possibly questionable pollen, and kicking off the most recent edition of Kitty Battles (evidently Cleo thinks they're nibbly). 

This past Thursday I got around to photographing them and the top-most image is one of the results.  Yay right...  Except I shared the image with my sis and her response was that I should go look in the fields around my apartment for more grass because she once found twelve different varieties in a similar field.  <sigh>

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Tea Kettles & Paper Cranes

Sometimes I expect tea kettles to morph into floaty paper cranes and then am annoyed when they don't. People change through experience and epiphany, not because I see a simple solution but because they come to it on their own. Living this lesson this weekend.

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Shouldn't I be more stressed???

As I'm sitting here prepping for the first of two art shows over the couple weekends I find myself watching me from the outside, surprised that I'm not more stressed, more frazzled about the whole thing.

Looking back it seems that for every show prior to this the lead-up was fraught with frantic preparation from a place not-center, scrambling to get everything done.  Interestingly someone on the outside would logically think I'd be more stressed this time around with this being my first show as a single gal.  Gone is the support system of the live-in boyfriend to build booths, load and unload inventory, and help wire frames.  Instead I find myself flowing through prep work with a sense of balance and peace.  It makes me wonder if all of the frantic energy the last couple shows was solely my doing...  Or perhaps I've just changed that much over the past year.  The bar has definitely been raised on "what stress is..."  Stress isn't an art show; its a firewall implementation, an AD infrastructure stand-up, a phone system swap, a 17k square foot office build out, or the dissolving a six year relationship.  By comparison an art show is no big deal.

Well that and my organization skills have improved immeasurably.  Currently my main source of annoyance is that all my work from two years ago isn't signed, serial numbered, and in my inventory spreadsheet.  Well and that I'm out of mat board.  <shrugs> 

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The Art of Being Present

Photography is the art of being present.  More so than any of the other art forms, than painting and sketching, photography is, in a way, the art of luck.  Of noticing the right thing, at the right time, and having the presence of mind to take a picture.  Yes, some photographers go to great lengths to stage their scene, with backdrops and lighting and effects.  But in the end its a question of capturing the perfect moment as it flits by on its way to forever.

The photo on the left is of the Quan Yin statue on my house shrine.  I happened to glance up while cutting 108 mats for my upcoming shows to see her face lit by the last rays of evening sun, reflecting from the neighbors' windows across the street.  It was a perfect moment.

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Because

This is my "because..."

When people ask me why I work a day job that demands so much of my time...

When people raise an eyebrow at my buying dahlias and peanut butter...

When people shake their heads at the explosion of plant-ness in my kitchen...

When people want to know what's up with my obsession with light angles and the weather...

And my return question is "Who would you be if no one could see?"  and then "what are you waiting for?"

The lenses through which we view the world influence so much of what we think we see, what we focus on.  And oftentimes we let the lenses through which other people view us shape our lives in ways both good and bad. 


Heard someone speak a couple weeks back, a Michael Dearing, who said that throughout our lives, we're all continually striving to succeed as a coping mechanism to childhood rejections, constantly seeking "authority"'s approval.  Here's a revolutionary idea people...  Be your own authority and become that which makes you happy.

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Without A Grocery List...

As part of my day job's ongoing quest to teach its new managers to be better managers <some Borg reference here> we've created a book club whereby a group of us read an agreed upon book and chat about it over lunch.  Somehow I've become both the captain and steersman of this effort through some circumstances that still baffle me.  That I'm leading a group of fellow managers when I'm the original anti-authority figure amuses me.

Anyways, the book we're currently reading is Orbiting the Giant Hairball, about creativity in a corporate environment.  And as I read this book it strikes me that I really lucked out.  Through sheer stubbornness and bloody-minded obstinacy I've managed to hold onto my artistic sense and allowed it to flourish.  According to the book, and in line with my own observations, most people aren't so lucky.  So the question arises how do we encourage creativity while still maintaining some form of standards...

The book talks about play and spontaneity as being necessary to fuel the creative process, but that from the outside such activities appear to be a waste of time and are thus frowned upon.  And so creativity dies.  I'm not quite sure how to foster play and spontaneity in others since by definition both things begin to wither the moment you attempt to codify them.  And most people's lives are set up for the maximum convenience and the minimum zaniness.

On a note of personal craziness I like to go grocery shopping without a set list.  Yes, this practice sometimes results in my forgetting things like toothpaste, but also allows me to pick things that I wouldn't normally have seen if sticking to a boring list.

Tonight it was raviolis, and now I've discovered a need for a slotted spoon (to fish the pasta out without having to use my colander) and yet another case to not follow the written instructions.  The bag said boil for 8 minutes... don't overcook.  At eight minutes the raviolis were hard little pillows, not soft pasta stuffed with squash.  Liar I called the instructions and boiled for another 5 minutes to achieve edibility, because blindly following instructions is stupid.

The whole argument of spontaneity vs formula loops nicely back around into my ongoing discussions with my sister, the trained artist.  This past week she sent me flashcards with descriptors on how to talk about my art.  I'm sure she meant well, but I looked at them and felt my brain start to atrophy.  So I returned them to their envelope and painted a sunset instead.

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Blue Sky Orange

Sitting out on my balcony in the dark, listening to the far off traffic hum. The scent of wet grass and water from thesprinklers  below. It's gone past midnight, and all the plants are shades of gray. Its finally still enough to think deep thoughts. To ponder. To turn thoughts over and over like a river rolling a stone smooth. The clouds at sunset tonight were spectacular. Orange foam against a robins egg sky. I read the phrase "blue sky orange in a book recently. It definitely fit tonight.

Is it the intention or the intended result that's important when looking at someone's reasons for doing things?  I do know its possible for someone to simultaneously be a good person and a bad person. Einstein was a genius but a horrible family man. 

I saw the sunset tonight and the tiny bunnies on my morning trek to the train. And it makes me wonder what other little details I'm missing out on. Got my mid-year review today. Gold stars all around, but in the end are the stars worth the exchange of 60+ hour weeks. Frankly I don't know.

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A Different Perspective

Blue Birds by Elena Sidorov

Spent a couple hours at the 2nd Annual Cheesman Park Arts Festival and walked away with a view of a show from a prospective buyer's side of things. Two awesome painters but I only bought from one. The first had amazing landscapes that where mostly sky. But they were huge and on board and over a thousand dollars. I spent a couple of minutes looking through his bin work hoping for a smaller version of the pieces I was appreciating and then asked him. Turns out he doesn't do the landscapes small. No sale.

The other painter was from east of Russia and worked with silk. Amazing flowers. Super vivid originals 2' x 4'. I asked her the same question, and not only did she have prints but she knew exactly where they were. Bought six. 

Note to self. Smaller matted pieces of the big show pieces.

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Cubeville & Ego

I'm always amused that my inspiration to write happens after most people are asleep. After 11p, when the world slows down and the incessant electronic buzz fades to a faint hum. 

Watched an interesting TED talk recently on how people relate to each other and define themselves. The talk was actually a call to action by Tillett Wright, artist and activist, on the equal rights for LGBT campaigns. But it got me thinking. What if one of the root reasons people's relationships change / end is because they start using different boxes to both describe themselves and relate to others.

In defining self lately I've found most self motivators fall into two buckets - external ego and internal ego. External ego I see as the definition of self through the eyes of others, through the seeking of praise from an outside voice. Internal ego by contrast is the defining of self by sounding of the soul. External ego is doing a task suggested by someone else and then allowing the feedback to continue to define further actions. It's living vicariously through others. It's how people end up in a job they hate at 40. Internal ego is harder because you still get that external feedback but you have to weigh the response against what your soul values and decide to keep or discard the comments over and over and over. It's exhausting but the result is a life worth living. 

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Summer Rain At Dusk

That feeling when sad scrabbles at the edges of your soul, trying to find a way in. An afternoon shift at a co-op gallery where no one buys anything.  A summer rainstorm at dusk and the click of balls on the pool table next door while you wait out the clock.  The blurred shape of trees through mist.

Who sees you if you don't see yourself?

Some days you walk the edge of the disaster curve.  Near misses and close calls.  Cars backing in parking lots without looking.  Roads crisscrossed with running water over a foot deep.   That feeling when the only person to really see you all day has the tang of the unbalanced.

And after the rush of adrenaline, the one that has your foot shaking on the gas pedal long after your bout with the road-turned-river, wears off, the brain immediately jumps to what-if.  What if I forgot to lock up before heading out?  What if I've somehow damaged my car by driving through the water?  What if, what if, what if...

Go away little what if... voices and let me enjoy the storm clouds painted coral and peach.

And just to be on the safe side, I'm staying in tonight and reading a book.  I think I've pushed my luck about as far as it'll go today.

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Must Be Pollinated By Bats...

Passion Flower

Lol. The reason my car is always dirty.  Yes, I haul plants (and picture frames) around in the back of my BMW.  Its a car, albeit a nice one, but made for the transporting of <waves hands> all the things I love in my life.

<<< The tag said "must be pollinated by bats..." Guess I'll find out if there are bats by my apartment.   
 
Sometimes when I happen to be in a funk the oddest thinks knock me back to normal. This week it was reading Peter Welch's latest essay 24 Hours of Privilege. I had to laugh and then forward to some friends because its basically my life, our lives, with a few amendments. I mean the specific details are different but the general vibe is the same and someone with that kind of life really shouldn't be focusing on all the "bad" things in life. So what if I have a grocery budget and had to buy peanut butter for sandwiches this week because I also had to by cat food; I have a great apartment in a good area of town with a short walk to the light rail, the tickets for which my job subsidizes, complete with trees, flowers, and little birds that go tweet. So what if my boss is occasionally (or more than occasionally) a dick. All bosses are dicks including a high likelihood of me being one to my minions. So what if whiny people break their computers and saturate the network watching stupid soccer play offs. I still have an inside job that I'm fairly good at with no heavy lifting. And so what if I've recently spend some time clearing out the dead weight from my relationships.

Actually the last one bugs me quite a bit when I let myself dwell on it, and saying "it could be worse... you could be having to pretend interest in gym routines and diets, office politics and I'll-be-happy-when statements, video game descriptions and Comicon plans...  you could be dealing with bloody roast in the kitchen sink and being constantly frozen out by a thermostat set at 61 degrees..." The problem with "it could be worse..." is that eventually you have to work with what you have instead of continually comparing it to what you used to have.

<shrugs>. It's a process that's occasionally impeded by other people's desire to play Happy Families, also known as the company picnic, which I totally skipped.

Usually if I'm being particularly dense about something the universe reaches out to reinforce the lesson to basically stop feeling sorry for myself by sending some acquaintance my way who's being particularly stubborn in her need to wallow in self pity.  Last time it was one of my many occasional friends, one who tends towards depression but refuses to actually make positive changes, who quit her most recent job because "it just wasn't working..." 

So this afternoon enter a random text message from an acquaintance of mine, a gal who I haven't spoken to in months and haven't actually seen in longer.  "I'm adrift" the message said and so it began.  Evidently she's been demoted at her job and feeling particularly sorry for herself.  The irony is she's old enough to be my mom.  Thanks for the mirror, universe.  Mental note > don't be this person or the other person or any of my erstwhile "friends".

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And life goes on... At least it sparkles.

Fairy Dust

Finally got around to processing some of my most recent shots this evening while watching Macgyver of all things.  (I don't remember it being quite this corny when I was a kid, but on the other hand I didn't used to thing the old James Bond flicks were cheesy either...)

The thing that really catches my attention with the Fairy Dust photo is the glowing of the golden pollen against the tissue-paper-like petals.

Looking back through the galleries (almost 500 photos in one alone O.o) it came as somewhat of a surprise the impact the recent changes in my life have had on the amount of work I've been able to post to my site over the past couple of months.  I mean I'm not really surprised, but its still kinda sad statement on how I've had to prioritize things.  Last summer was a flurry of photos and plants everywhere in the house, and this summer it hasn't been and I feel will continue to not be.

Part of its not having a yard to shelter my many photo subjects in.  Plants don't tend to fare well on my exposed deck.  Part of its working uber many hours for day job-related stuff that I'd better be getting a freaking raise for in July.  And part of it is actually having to stick to a budget for the business.  (Stupid rent and being financially responsible :-/ )

But I also think a piece of it is dealing with the remaining emotional crap from the turmoil earlier this year.  Grrr and damn him for continuing to get me down.  I did manage to skip out on the company barbeque this past weekend in favor of some much needed shoot time.  And I wasn't really up to playing an extended game of Happy Families where I'm one of the few single people standing at an event filled with couples, kids, and dogs. 

Happily I've started being inspired to go flower hunting again just this past week.  At least my website is running to the point of being super low maintenance, and it, unlike me, has been having a splendid month.

Here's hoping there's some big sale in the future so I have more funds to buy flowers or at least pay off all the frames I picked up at the uber sale on Saturday.

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Someone Else's Epiphany

A friend of mine and I have ongoing friendly argument. She has a formal art degree and is very into books on technique and theory. Art as defined by someone else. And my art is all instinct and emotion and spontaneity, without any formal education, without the list of does and don'ts, without the "proper forms" running through my head like some demented talking kiwi doll.  So we wrangle back and forth in the ultimate battle of form versus inspiration. 

When there are no flowers to photograph I paint crazy tree-scapes and my feel of how souls see themselves. 

So this past week she and I met up for dinner and I passed my latest painting on for her to deliver to its intended recipient.  I also tried to talk her into coming back over for the upcoming three-day weekend to hang out and maybe go walk the Cherry Creek Arts Festival.  Below was her email response to me this morning. 

"So I spent a good part of the long drive home (all 5.5 hours through road construction) imagining ways you could build specialty lamps and a multi-level table with glass plates and turn your tree paintings into collages of paint, flower petals, stained glass, beads, water droplets, feathers and silk or velvet skies.  I even thought, “Well, that can be the ultimatum for driving all the way back over next week to visit for the July 4th holiday!  We must build this table.”

And then I realized it’s not fair of me to try to push a change on your art, nor is it fair for either of us for me to live vicariously through your art. 

And I honestly don’t want to go to Cherry Creek and look at a bunch of other people living successful lives as snooty artists.

If I want happiness and discovery and a sense of success through art, I should stay home and paint.

How about if we plan something in early August instead, okay?  And I won’t make you build a table of any sort."

Evidently hell has slightly frosted over and  I've scored (temporary???) reprieve. I wished her happy painting. 

UPDATED NOTE...

The reprieve lasted all of a week before talk of making lamps began.  O.o

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Bleed Over

My skin still looks see-through 

And I feel underneath like a fake..."

Brothers by Penny & Sparrow

I always find it interesting and frustrating that the very different areas of my life bleed into each other. I spent several frustrating hours today trying to get ADFS running on my test domain controller without a definitive success. And now, riding the train home, I find myself not wanting to apply for a local art gallery show. The irony is that my success, or lack there of, with a system that every training and blog blatantly admits is EXTREMELY complicated, has absolutely nothing to do with an art show submission. 

Hell I should probably apply to the show anyways. The last time I applied to a show while wrangling with a super annoying tech problem (file server crashing with too many concurrent OS X 10.9 SMB connections) I got in, and that was Art Denver. 

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How Sweet A Sorrow Success...

"It's amazing how people define roles for themselves and put handcuffs on their experience and are constantly surprised by the things a roulette universe spins at them..."  Terry Prachett

Sometimes Life's Not Fair

Yesterday I received the call that I had been moved from the wait list of a promising new show to the accepted category.  I was elated at the news, especially since the promotional company running the show has an exceptional reputation for events.  And yet it was also a bitter-sweet moment.  What cost success? I asked myself, not in terms of how the events of my life affect me but in the effects of my life on others.

Do my successes give other people hope and inspire them to continue forward in their own lives or do they hold the events of my life up in comparison with their own and get caught up in the differences?  Do hearing about the events in my life weigh them down or lift them up?

There are people in my life who, at least from the outside, appear to be, and profess to being, extremely frustrated by the direction their journeys have taken, by the list of tasks and objects they perceive to be in their way.  I sometimes wonder if my successes, achieved by actions motivated not by the head but by the heart, frustrate them to the point of despair.  Those with art degrees who struggle to create while I, in play and meditation, turn out breathtaking pieces.  Those with their rules and lists flounder while I float by. 

Intellectually I know that trying to help them into flow, into creativity, is about as helpful as trying to teach them to fly by picking themselves up by their shoelaces.  Flow and creativity are things that people have to come to from within, by finding their own path.  Am I helping to push them towards that creative epiphany or towards yet more despair and frustration?  And I find myself having to make a conscious effort to allow their frustration and despair to wash over me like salt water on glass, to not let them create for me a post around which my efforts would warp for other people can create immovable obstacles in our lives as easily as we can if we let them.

One of these people is about to have her 31st birthday this week.  She feels trapped in her current job and is allowing herself to be overwhelmed by the list of tasks from the head instead of allowing the heart to drive.  I haven't yet made the call to her to tell her my good news because I'm honestly concerned that hearing about my success would cause her more harm than good...

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Before Becoming Postless

It occurs to be that I harp on the need to not create posts when navigating through life without giving the required precursor step of being centered in oneself first. Without that center, without knowing who one are underneath all the labels and external influence, not creating posts can cause one to be buffeted about like a rubber duck in a toddler-filled kiddie pool.  When our sense of self definition hasn't been determined, and by determined I don't mean some static list of characteristics and qualities but more an indescribable form of self, without posts acting as signs its far too easy to allow others to decide who we are.

Unfortunately the process of discovering the layers of one's true self begins with silence, with opening the space in one's life for change and insight. Most of us come to silence through the lack of interaction with others.  A break-up, a move to a new city. And the space has to be peppered with moments without noise, without the myriad of electronic distractions that fill our souls with static. Most people never take the time, are frightened of the quiet, and so the process of discovering the true self takes years and decades longer than it could.

Believe it or not there's actually a song by Twenty-One Pilots talking about that silence called Car Radio.

Without center and without posts a person's definition of self becomes mailable with the impressions of others. What they think of as important and who they perceive (or desire) us to be.  What on Earth, it may be asked, does this ongoing diatribe about posts and center have to do with art?  Art as defined by self or art as defined by what others think.  Art as a way to experience the viewing of the world in a different way or to produce a product for the masses.  The continual push back against those with intentions good or bad to change a style or a technique through education or influence.  And this push becomes all the more important as I enter more into the field of selling my work to the public. 

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The Double-Edged Sword

Always an interesting dilemma how double-edged it would be to be any flavor of psychic. Specifically anything that lets one see the future. How easy it would be to get sucked into the idea of what might happen or who one might be one day. How much awareness of the current environment would be lost in the vision and how far off track would one have to drift before that perceived future shifted irrevocably. 

The irony is that this kind of lost is possible every day for everyone, without any iota of ability.  Too much focus on what might be instead of the present moment. Too much static in the form of video games and TV and projects, self-imposed and external.  And the missing of important, and maybe not so important, things like the blooming of the irises or the singing of the house wren amid the cherry blossoms. 

I know of waayyy too many people in the latter category. Lost in the dream. Too much focus on what might be and then they turn around to find themselves seven years older and having missed the parts that make the journey enjoyable. Unfortunately, unlike a sleeper, these people fight attempts to wake them. They don't even look up to say goodbye to the people they pass by in their fugue.  And they don't notice, or care, they've missed the house wrens.

This type of individual is always looking for others to believe in their vision of future self and will often offer up their ideas for the future-me. 

"Oh, one day you'll be presenting in front of company boards..."  Me "yeah I don't care right now..." and go back to my book.  I learned to value the present moment for every experience, every second during my internship in Baltimore at 17, because I knew, knew, that at the end of the summer I'd be heading back to rural America and would never have those experiences with those people again. 

Give me kitty whiskers and lemon tea, tulips and Sinatra along the path any day rather than some grand illusion of an emerald city. Because in the end, for those who continually live in the future, that grand goal will always be a couple steps ahead. 

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The Cape-Wearing Opera-Singing Max

Mr Bunny

It's somewhat interesting to me to realize that I'm not aware of how freaking annoying something is until it stops. And then it's like removing a vise from around the lungs.

Take, for example, my roommate's cat. He's possibly the cutest cat EVER. I call him Mr Bunny with his big eyes and tiny squeaks and fluffy white and marmalade fur. He's only slightly neurotic with his love of strawberry ice cream and his pretending to try other proffered treats so as not to hurt the offerer's feelings. 

Anyway, evidently my impending move with the massing of boxes and furniture in the meaningless alcove known as the formal living room (not to be confused with the family room that actually has couches and stuff) has triggered an additional neurosis in his tiny brain. Now in addition to thinking he's the fiercest tiny lion superhero he feels compelled to sing about it, in the language of his people, LOUDLY, at 4am.  

Now the loft, where I sleep, is, in the traditon of lofts everywhere, open to the floor below with its tile floor, blank walls, and empty spaces. In his tiny mind it's his shower, his grand stage, his destiny. Holy Fuck his singing echoes. I didn't realize just how much it was impacting my sleep patterns until yesterday, when I had him locked in my roommate's office overnight after a week of hiding my head under pillows and offering a variety of things to whatever god might be listening to make it stop.  And the past two nights, since his seclusion, blissful silence and my sleeping through the night for the first time in what seems like forever. 

Goodbye iron vice on my chest, hello sweet sweet air. Here's hoping my impending move has a similar effect. 

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Quoting Starwars

After 4 1/2 years in our lovely green house in Highlands Ranch the business, the kitties, and I are moving to a new home.  In a couple weeks we'll be in a very nice apartment closer to downtown.  While I recognize that few people live in the same house for 30 years anymore a huge part of me is very, very sad.  The fact that my ex is so very nonchalant about the whole thing really isn't helping.  Yes, the new place was selected after an extensive search and the use of a very cool phone app called Helios, which shows the position of the sun at your current location (or any location really) for whatever day of the year.  It even has a compass option so the map rotates as you move around.  (And yes, more than one potential landlord gave me very odd looks when I started spinning around like a top while starting alternately at my phone and the windows.) 

Helios app

Anyways, on the merits of its lighting (on the top floor with big east/west facing windows) and its 7 minute walk to the light rail station, the new place was selected last week.  Yes, new things bring growth, but the thought of not shooting flowers through the moving leaves of my favorite willow tree or starting my day off by watering all the plants in the yard or watching my chickadees at the bird bath is just depressing.  And I won't even get into the weirdness of packing HALF the contents of the house.  (Although my inner magpie was very excited to pick out new couch pillows, one of of which has a buddha head painted on it in gold.)

Just this morning I was mooning over the upcoming loss of my loft lighting while getting ready for work and found myself quoting Yoda about being mindful in the present instead of always looking to the past and the future.  Great, haunted by a decrepit animatronic puppet....

I have another 2 1/2 weeks of light through my willow tree; every day should be experienced for itself and not tainted by an imposed sorrow. 

And I'm sure Maggie will still perch on my new couch just like she does on the current model.

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"Sometimes when it rains, it rains concrete..."

Mushin installed, Chicago Title's 16th & Wynkoop Office

My boss at my day job has an interesting saying, "Sometimes when it rains, it rains fucking concrete...".

That seems particularly apt right now.  When things happen they tend to really happen.

On one hand I have two Featured Artist spots in Roxborough, CO for the month of April, I just found out I got accepted to Art Stir 2014 over Memorial Day weekend, and I'm half way through delivery of a massive order to Chicago Title.  They bought 26 pieces between their Wynkoop and Cherry Creek offices including a 2' x 3' canvas piece and a copy of Peach Bellini that's more than 5' wide when framed.

not even everything!

On the other I'm just beginning my search for a new home for the business, I'm in the middle of an SSO integration, and I'm interviewing applicants for a second minion at the day job.  And lemme tell you apartment hunting when one runs a business out of their home is a stone bitch.  You never know how much inventory you really have until you pull it out to measure.  Its like bunnies > it breeds.

And I swear the art fair application website can sense stress.  Trying to apply for the Cheesman Park Fair this evening and its the last couple of hours before deadline (yes I'm a procrastinator sometimes, but one never knows when an awesome shot will appear), and the stupid site starts throwing PHP errors four clicks out of five.  Grr.

At least I have my new wind-up shark to make me giggle.

roboshark!

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"Don't let a bad day lead you to believe you have a bad life..."

3:30am after a snowstorm in March

Quote from a fellow artist on Instagram today...  Don't let a bad day lead you to believe you have a bad life...

Life is always a mix of both good and bad. Sometimes the bad is just in super-zoom focus because that's what you're trying to cope with at the time, and the good is blurry. And stepping back far enough to bring it all into focus is difficult because, well because. 

Trying really hard to keep the core martial arts principle in mind that says the first person to create a post in a fight loses...  It's true in life too but it's so hard not to stop being fluid and flexible with so many things in transition right now. A childish part if me seems to feel I'd be coping better if other people where in the same state, which obviously isn't true. Kind of feeling like my new title should be "Grouchiest Person In The Land".

On the other hand this grouchy person was still up at 3:30a on a Sunday getting her tax paperwork in order and got to see this awesome sky for the 20 minutes it lasted.  Low-hanging clouds rolling out onto the eastern horizon, shining pastel hues against an indigo blue dotted with stars.  And the only sound was the train whistle far down the valley.

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Dichotomy

Dr Seuss' Lonely

Life's a funny thing.  All about balance, only instead of one pivot point and two ends its like an octopus balanced on stilts, with each metaphorical leg being an area of your life and the center point being your innermost self.  A leg for the business and a leg for emotional, a leg for creative and a leg for the day job.  One day you can be working on a major photo sale, taking beer to your florist buddies, and prepping to hire an additional minion for the day job, and the next, which happened to also be Valentine's Day, you're telling your existing minion he didn't get the promotion he was angling for and having a discussion with your significant other about the state of your relationship and how its ending.  

Sometimes in life situations change to make space for growth and new opportunities.  It generally sucks while the space is being created though.  

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