living life one art project at a time
I just wanted to say happy holidays to you all! I’m wishing a bright and joyful holiday to you and your families! And to all of you who celebrate the coming of Old Saint Nick this week:
I will be away celebrating Christmas with my husband’s family on the Northern California coast through December 27, and back in action next Monday. See you then! Of course, any orders placed in my shop between now and then will be shipped upon my return!
I was hanging out at a bookstore recently, and I came across the book Feel Happy Now by Michael Neill, a life coach that I really love. I’ve heard him say this before on his radio show, but it really resonated with me at this moment in my life:
“What is the reality [in your life] right now? Could [you] let go of trying to change it?”
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I’m kind of a self-help junkie—if there’s a book about how to live your dreams or change how you think, I’m on it. Lately, I’ve been trying to ease off because I think I have too many messages (sometimes conflicting) in my head. But even more, I realize I am addicted to trying to change things—my mind, my career, my thoughts. While it’s not a bad thing to want to become a better person, sometimes it can be exhausting to be always trying to improve. When I read these questions from Michael Neill, I started to really think about it. Could I let go of trying to change?
This led to an entry in my journal on this topic in which I wrote a long litany of things I’m always trying to improve about myself and my life, and the question “Could the source of all of my frustration be in my attachment to expectations and a constant need to change my current reality?”
I think we all suffer from this—as we grow up and grow into ourselves, aren’t we supposed to become better and better people? Smarter, more accomplished, more patient, more understanding people? It’s hard to say no to that question, and I’m not saying the answer should be no, but wouldn’t it be tremendously liberating, for just one moment, to allow yourself to be yourself, and allow this reality to exist as it is without trying to change it?
This leads me to the gift at the top of this post—since this is the holiday, gift-giving season—I think this is the greatest gift we could give to ourselves: to accept what is, right now. To just love it. To stop trying to change, improve, and enhance. To just let ourselves exist as we are.
I dare you to love yourself and your life as it is right now. I dare myself to do the same. I dare you to give this gift, that we are always told to give to others, to yourself this time. Can you let go of trying to change?
Yes, the poetry podcasts just keep coming! Below, you’ll find a podcast about . . . well, you’ll just have to listen to find out.
OK, here it is—just press play to listen:
Please let me know if you have any technical difficulties listening!
{To listen to my other poetry podcasts, click here}
Interesting thing: I was just searching online for the poem I read in this podcast, and it looks like Mary Oliver wrote two poems called “The Swan,” and the other one is more findable, so here is the poem typed out for you. I found this poem in her book Winter Hours, although I think it may have been published in prior collections.
The Swan
by Mary Oliver
Across the wide waters
something comes
floating—a slim
and delicate
ship, filled
with white flowers—
and it moves
on its miraculous muscles
as though time didn’t exist,
as though bringing such gifts
to the dry shore
was a happiness
almost beyond bearing.
And now it turns its dark eyes,
it rearranges
the clouds of its wings,
it trails
an elaborate webbed foot,
the color of charcoal.
Soon it will be here.
Oh, what shall I do
when the poppy-colored beak
rests in my hand?
Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:
I miss my husband’s company—
he is so often
In paradise.
Of course! the path to heaven
doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
It’s in the imagination
with which you perceive
this world,
and the gestures
with which you honor it.
Oh, what will I do, what will I say when those
white wings
touch the shore?
If you like Mary Oliver’s poetry, I would like to recommend my favorite volume of hers (that I’ve read so far) it’s called White Pine. This poem is not in that volume, but every poem in the book is an absolute celebration of life!
There is a lot of uncertainty in art, and I suppose, in life in general. We never quite know where we’re going. I find this to be especially true when you’re starting a new business or career or venture (often working with blind faith) like I am.
There are many images out there of artists as free-spirited, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants types, that live their lives floating on the wind. I am not one of them. I am the perfect fusion of my two parents: my dad—a creative, pensive, lamenting soul who jumps from new idea to new idea, and my mom—also creative, but a stick-with-it type, and a constant worrier. I love being creative, but I also like schedules and plans, lists and boundaries. I like to know where I’m going.
Unfortunately or fortunately, I was gifted these two sometimes seemingly opposite wishes: to have creativity and stability. It’s funny how life is—perhaps we are all given the exact combination of things that could either drive us insane or enlighten us—and it’s uncertain which will be the end product.
Some things I do not know: where I will end up, where art will take me, if I will be able to support myself as a full-time artist, if I will ever have financial stability.
Something I do know: I will keep showing up and making art, no matter what.
Perhaps this is the perfect manifestation of my two warring fractions: I am stable in my creativity. And maybe this is all the certainty we need—if we keep showing up and doing what we love, everything will turn out just fine—it may not be exactly how we imagined it, but it will still be our own surprising, wonderful life.
Do you have two seemingly opposite wishes for your life? How could they work together? I’d love to hear your war stories.
{p.s.: for previous “Life as an Artist posts, click here}
Have you ever gotten to a certain point with one of your own annoying habits, when you just decided, “enough—I can’t take it anymore?”
["Shadow Button," week 4, number 61, from my Quit Your Day Job Buttons]
The word is fear, and my frustrating habit is: motivating myself with fear.
I think most of us do this to varying degrees—here are some examples:
“I’d better get this done tonight, or else I’ll just get further behind tomorrow, and then I’ll never get it done.”
“I’d better exercise, or else I’ll feel sluggish and guilty later.”
“I’d better clean the house, or my guests will think I’m a slob.”
“I’d better say the right things in the interview, or else I won’t get the job.”
It’s funny, I noticed in writing these examples that some are very embedded in my brain and therefore sound like realism. How about you?
Do you have any little lines that you recite in your head? The reasons you create to scare yourself into doing things?
Personally, I’m most able to notice when I’m motivating myself with fear by how I feel—when fear is the motivator, I feel a weight in my chest, and start to feel a little sick with panic. My brain gets frantic as I start to think, “I should/must do this, this, and this.”
What is your tell? How do you feel when you give yourself an ultimatum—”I’d better do this, or else?”
The opposite of fear seems to me to be joy, or excitement. What does it feel like to be motivated by joy or excitement—that moment when you think up a wonderful little scheme? For me, it feels like laughing, like a joyful internal laugh, like being a little kid. It’s an expansive feeling of possibility and fun. We all have many examples of being motivated by simple joy:
“Wouldn’t it be so amazing to go on a trip to . . .”
“Ooh, I’d love to have a slice of pizza for lunch today!”
“It would be so great to call my best friend right now.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun to try and make . . .”
“I would love to be a ______ when I grow up!”
All of this thinking got me wondering:
What would it be like to only do things that I feel positively motivated to do?
My first response to this was, “Well, that wouldn’t work—how would I get anything done? I would never pay the bills or wash the dishes. I wouldn’t be motivated to do anything that isn’t fun.” But when I really started thinking about it, isn’t this the answer to creating a fulfilling and exciting life—doing more and more of the things you love and feel joyfully motivated to do?
Before the alarm bells start going off in your head, let me clarify—I’m not suggesting we all quit doing everything that we don’t love doing. What I’m really talking about is letting go of fear, and the process of trying to re-learn how to motivate yourself in a positive way. I’m also talking about living with intention. When I’m being motivated by fear, I often find myself grasping frantically at tasks and goals, and therefore not doing my work with intention—not really putting my focus and full creativity into it. When I’m operating from a place of excitement and joy, I am able to appreciate the process of doing something and really put my positive energy into it.
While it’s true that there are two ways to look at everything—any action can be motivated by fear or joy depending on how you look at it, I think that the best way to get started with this is to begin noticing when you’re feeling one or the other, and try to start acting on the joy, in as many situations as possible.
What would change in your life, if you spent more time living and working from a place of joy and excitement? If you made more choices based on what sounds exciting to you? Would you feel less or more energy and motivation? Would you feel less or more fulfilled?
In the end, what is life about? Is it about getting ahead in any way possible, or enjoying the ride and appreciating every day?
There is a big learning curve with this type of change. To be honest, I have been aware of this tendency in myself to motivate with fear for a long time, but a part of me has still thought that somehow the fear was really motivating me to do things I wouldn’t otherwise do—the fear was keeping me in line.
A life coach I like to listen to, Michael Neill, often talks about this, and he says that the key to changing a behavior is to really understand that it’s hurting you. He compares a hurtful behavior/habit to the act of hitting yourself in the head with a shovel. Obviously, we don’t hit ourselves in the heads with shovels because it hurts. When we can get to that point of understanding with a behavior (worrying, motivating myself with fear, and smoking are like hitting myself in the head with a shovel) then, changing the behavior is simple—you just do it because you know it very blatantly hurts you.
Do you have any habits/behaviors that you continue to do, even though you know (on some level) that they’re hurting you?
Do you have any habits you’ve kicked by realizing that they’re no good for you? How did you make the mental switch?
I just dropped off a whole bunch of art at Nina and Tom, a cute little gift and hand-screen printed clothing shop in downtown Davis, CA (where I live).
Above, you can see a picture of their store—it’s the cutest little shop with so many lovely creative items—often handmade and local. The owners, whose names happen to be Nina and Tom (coincidence?) are a very creative duo. As you can see by their website, they’re more than just a store—they create many wonderful screen printed items themselves and sell them near and far.
I’m so happy to be a part of their creative line-up! You’ll find Blue Bicicletta originals, prints, buttons, cards, and my Eat Well & Slowly Tote Bag too! So, if you’re local, or happen to be in the area, go and check out my work in the flesh!
Hello, I’m here to give you another update on “life as a full-time artist,” a series of posts I’ve been doing about my first months as a full-time artist. You can see the previous posts here.
If I could give this post a sub-subtitle, it would be “ups and downs.” Everybody has ups and downs—it’s just life. Even when you’re doing your dream job, there are still good days and bad days. A couple of weeks ago, I had a pretty low week—worries about whether or not finances were going to work out for the creative shenanigan that is my life right now, were consuming me. I felt a bit like I was dragging around a couple of heavy weights in my heart, as I worried my way into a case of the blues. Talking to my husband, he said these sage words, “Everybody has down days.”
While this phrase did not immediately pull me up into the sunshine, it worked on me, it stayed in the back of my mind. As I continued to work on myself—realize that my worries were not helping me in any way (actually they were hurting me)—I was able to make a little peace with my blues. I ended that week with a little champagne to celebrate all that I have, and many prayers for guidance in figuring out how to navigate things. A few days later, I was on fire with possibility, and last week became a week of great possibilities—some new ventures, a lot of new ideas, and much renewed hope.
Writing this, I begin to wonder what the lesson is, or why I’m sharing this information. I suppose the moral could be what my husband said, “Everybody has down days,” even when they’re doing what they love. Actually, I think it can catch you even more by surprise when you’re doing what you really want to do. You wonder, “why am I not happy? I was supposed to be on cloud nine here!” As I’m learning, there will always be ups and downs, no matter what you do, but the real test is how you deal with them. I’m finding that if you just keep doing your work, the downs will pass, and if you keep asking for guidance from your inner self, the universe, god, whatever larger power you see in life, you will find your way, even if it’s slow. And sometimes it may be slow. But maybe it’s not supposed to be fast? This is something I struggle with often—patience is a virtue that I wish I had more of. From my art desk: I’m wishing you patience, the courage to carry on, and of course, as always, buckets of hope!
Today, I want to talk about possibilities. Mostly, I’m writing this because I need to hear it, but also, I think there might be someone else out there who needs to hear it.
I want to hear these words hanging in the air, I want them dangling from every tree. I want everyone to fling the doors open wide, and let the possibilities in, I want to fill this place with:
This is just a friendly way of saying that too often, we focus on what is not possible, but truly, anything is possible. I am telling you, it’s true.
I will get specific and tell you that I need to hear this because sometimes I focus on the ticking of the clock in my art career instead of the possibility. It hasn’t been long since I went full-time with my art, but I went into it with a time limit: if I couldn’t start making a full income by the beginning of 2010 (allowing myself just a few short months to amp it up), I would have to re-evaluate and find some other way to make money, and return to pursuing art part-time (until some future unspecified date, when I did find a way to support myself at it).
I put this in here not as my sob story, but because I want to be honest with you—honest with anyone out there who is in a similar situation. You are not alone. Truth be told: I love making art (I love it, I love it), but I am not yet making said full-time income.
So now, more than ever, with the holiday season dangling very near in front of me, the season during which many artists make a large chunk of their income, I am singing out to you and to me this message: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. Don’t forget it. You wouldn’t want to.
[The above "Hope" drawing is one of my new, as of yet un-released drawings that I will be bringing to a local craft show this weekend. If it doesn't sell, it will be showing up here on the blog next week.]
What do you do in your free time when you’re an artist? Well, more art of course!
When I was still working at my day job, I often wondered, what will I do with my free time once I’m doing art during my work time? Obviously liking to make things is really a life-encompassing personality trait, not just a work interest, but I did wonder how it would all shake down. Could I get sick of art-making? Could I need to take a break?
So far, the answers are: no, I do not get sick of art-making, but yes, I do need to take a break from my art business. But that doesn’t mean I won’t want to make other things.
At the end of last week, I found myself itching to get my hands dirty. My pen and ink drawing is the opposite of messy, so sometimes I find myself wanting to mush wet media around. I decided that I wanted to make something with surface texture, something more three-dimensional. The first medium that came to my mind was grout—you know, that sort of smearable, cement-like medium used in between tiles, and often for mosaics.
So this past Saturday I took a trip to one of my favorite art supply stores, otherwise known as the hardware store, and found myself a bag of grout. I already had some old paintings that I was ready to paint over (I had finally faced the reality that I would never finish them), so a $7 bag of grout, a little water, and some old paintings to use as surfaces, and I was off and running in the lovely Fall sunshine of my backyard. Here is what came out of this adventure:
I ended up doing two pieces so far. I smeared the grout on with a paint stick and my hands and then started “texturizing” with a small piece of wire mesh I found in my collage box.
Here are some closeups of the two pieces:
Oh, what fun to create without any intention of getting anywhere—to just put your hands in and go. To lose yourself in the process. To act like a little kid and get dirty. I suppose I’m not getting too far away from my Blue Bicicletta tendencies because I don’t intend to add color—I love the white. I’m hoping to do a few more pieces like this and maybe hang them somewhere in the house, just for something a bit different.
This creative feeling continued for me later on Saturday night with another more easily accessible project (and one you might want to do if you’re looking for a fun and easy way to get creative). Last week, I read this post on a blog I love called Ink on My Fingers, and the subject of the post, an amazingly creative woman named Gwen Bell mentions making vision maps on her blog, which reminded me how much fun it is.
I’m not an expert, but as I understand it, a vision map or board is basically a collage—you go through magazines pulling any images that call out to you, then you make a collage out of them, and then you look at the collage and use it as a tool to see what you value in life and where you want to go. Even without the philosophical analysis part, this is a REALLY FUN thing to do. I love collage—it’s just so creative, accessible, and fulfilling. I highly encourage it—and all you need is some magazines, some piece of heavy paper or board, a pair of scissors, and some glue (I’m a fan of mod podge). Here’s the vision board/collage I made. Please note, all of these images were torn from magazines, so I can’t claim credit for them.
I call this collage “Zest” for obvious reasons. It is now hanging on my office/studio wall to delight and inspire me. If I did decide to analyze this as a vision board, I would say that it shows that I’m looking to lead a passionate, playful, creative life [bright oranges, reds, and yellows, the lightening strike, laughing woman, lots of art and illustration in the collage, the word "zest"] with an ample dose of calm and slowness [the bicycles, (surprise, surprise), natural elements, the bedroom].
I wanted to share these projects with you because taking time to be creative can be such a breath of fresh air. It gets your mind out of the old ruts and opens it up. When you’re making something that is actively engaging your creative brain, you are right there, in that moment, in that project, and it is a wonderful free feeling. I think this is really true for everyone who is willing, whether or not you think of yourself as creative or artistic. Once you let go of expectations, or the judgmental ideas like “I’m not creative,” and just go with it, being creative will take you to a new place.
Hello there! I’m just rounding my third full week as a full-time artist, and I thought I’d give you an update on how it’s going. If you’ve been following my blog, you will have noticed some new projects popping up, and when I was first thinking of a photo to take for this post, I thought of scattering my desk with various said projects, but instead, I settled on a calmer idea:
This is a “to-do” list for my upcoming weekend. I have learned quickly that I still look forward to and need weekends, even when I’m doing something I love for work. While I do not spend the hours of the week counting down until Friday anymore, the weekend is still a much needed mental break.
Other than the reality of having many new projects going, how is it really going over here at Blue Bicicletta? Well, if I had to choose a word to sum up my Life as an Artist right now (at least the more business-y part), it would be choices. I find myself constantly faced with choosing—which projects to work on, which projects to let go, and which projects to plan on doing in the future.
While I love that I have no shortage of ideas, it is my current challenge to learn how not to drive myself crazy about making each little choice of how to spend my work day, and bigger choices of how to structure my career.
I’m often reminding myself that it’s also a choice to relax, be calm, go with the flow, and trust yourself to get the job done. I am trying to make that choice as often as possible.
On the flip side, I am so excited about all of the new art ideas that keep coming into my head, and I’m so grateful to have the time to pursue a number of them. The creativity keeps coming, and it really fills me up.
Happy weekend to you, and I wish you days full of inspiration and calm!
Oh, and for those of you new to this blog, you can see previous artist life updates here
