I participated in a biannual faire last weekend. It was quite a bit of fun and work. Loads of work! I feel in some ways that I am still recovering from it. I sold journals and goodies that I still have from my trip to India. The lanterns in the picture are from India and they danced overhead in my tent from every corner and in between! They add such a sense of the magical as they swayed and twirled all day. We were definitely the most colorful booth there!
I've sold at this faire may times in the past. Its equal parts sales oppurtunity and social gathering as I know so many people from different aspects of my world that attend. This year sales were ok. Better then last time, but not by much. And this is where things begin to get challenging for me.
I am really struggling with this dual role of artist and business woman. In a perfect world I would spend my days creating whatever it was that wanted to be created, and lose myself in the process. I wouldn't have to train my brain to think in terms of profit margins, weekly budget, and marketing strategies. Trying to figure out if something like the fair is cost effective and profitable in many ways takes away from the experience for me. It also changes how I create.
Recently, I met a man who owns a store in Big Bear, California. He loves my journals and would like to have about 25 of them along with a story board display to sell in his store. He loves them so much he will pay retail prices for the whole thing! I am floored by his confidence and overwhelmed by such volume. Its a great opportunity.
There is a time factor of course, along with the set amount. I am aware that even through my excitement, there is a bit of hesitancy, even a sensation of being a bit stifled. Rather then create out of whatever impulse is wanting expression within me, I now have to create that 25 times! Am I making this more complicated for myself then it has to be? I wonder if this is really just an "upper limits" block I have and not an artists' sensibility and commitment to the authentic spontaneous creative process?
I dont' know. But this really came up for me at with the fair. I found myself calculating how many journals and art pieces I had to sell, compared to the time spent preparing, and money invested in participating with what needed to be sold in order to not only cover my time and invested money, but also create a profit. :/
Taking all these things into consideration... I did not make a profit. And I am trying to really learn that making a profit is just as important as the experience, and the fun, and the socializing. I am finding this to be a challenge, particularly on how it colors my creative process. I don't know how to create with free abandon while having all these considerations and calculations in my head.
Are any of you creatives hitting up against this? How do you work with it? I would love to get feedback and hear how you are all doing with this.
Its been so so long since I have paid any attention to my poor lonely blog! I have been in all sorts of projects. I can't seem to sufficiently compartmentalize my different tasks in a way that allows for everything to get equal attention. This is a story I either need to embrace or find a way to shift. Not sure which quite yet...
I'm learning things. Continuting to slowing get comfortable with a digital SLR, and exploring my visions while wielding such an amazing tool. And Photoshop! I love Photoshop! Everyday its a new discovery. I long for those days in my early 20s when I could stay up all night completely immersed in some project or another. These days, I'm immersed until sleep demands my presence, or another responsibility yanks me away. My head swirls quite a bit these days though. I find myself making lists not to keep track of what needs to be done, but to remind myself of what it is I am actually in the process of working on. Does that make sense? Its as if my brain can't hold it all.
Just typing this makes me want to create a list again. Its like an itch on my brain. Is it age, do you think?
Ok... here goes:
Sacred Pregnancy Book Project
Preparation for WomanSpirit Faire
Is It In My Eye Art Exhibition
Summer Zine Issue
Photo Transfer Project
3 Custom made journals
Learn everything there is to know about InDesign!
This list isn't helping me. I was talking to a friend today and she mentioned getting a huge white erase board that I can outline every project on so that I would have a visual of it all as each project progresses. I like the idea but have absolutely no room for something like this on any of my walls. We are at capacity here!
I need to practice the balance. And still savor the many details of my life and options right now. I miss my blog. I miss all of you, and I miss visiting your beautiful corners of this wonderful Web we have woven. I am dancing about... and will continue to poke my head in as often as I can!
The lovely Leah from Creative Everyday featured one of my journals on Rare Bird Finds! Go check it out and support fellow artistes!
Last night, after my grump fest, Jon and I went to a Flow Temple Party. Dan, the organizer is a friend of Jon's from Thailand. It was such an amazing experience. Essentially, anyone who is an artist is invited to come and participate in the creative Flow. Dancers, musicians, painters, sculptors, fire spinners, acrobats, photographers... The purpose is to come together and allow the energy to move us all in creating. It was fabulous, and last night was especially wonderful because some of the best Poi Spinners in the world came by. The video you see below is of a fire dancer named Yuta, who hails from Japan, and has quite a following. I am trying to find videos of last night on Youtube to share with others, and this one is the best so far. You can actually see me in the background in the first half of this video! The last half of the video is at the end of the evening with the musicians left their instruments, and just let loose vocally. So much fun!
I must say that this evening was the perfect remedy for how cranky I was feeling early in that day. It was such an inspiration and energy rush to be in a room full of creative people celebrating each others art. Most were performance artists, but there is room for all, as there are tables set up around the parameter of the space so artists can paint, sculpt, draw, etc while the music and the dancing is being performed. I also got a chance to see Jon spin fire for the first time and it was quite frankly the sexiest thing I have ever seen. No words... :) I will be posting some of the photos I took last night on my Flickr stream in the upcoming days. Stay tuned!
Update: Here is another fabulous video!
I just posted this to my shop. I got so wordy in my description of it, that I thought I would just add it here, as it became a journal entry anyway!
"I remember over 12 years ago, I traveled to Cuba with my family for a few weeks. I had left behind my Love at the time, one of those intense loves that are prone to crazy longing and perhaps more drama then I cared to admit at the time. :) Communication was impossible from Cuba at that time, and I had so much I wanted to say to him.
After a few days of this, my artist self grabbed the few markers that I had and began using those magazines as stationary for my letters to him. As the days passed, my writing became less about my then Love, and more about how fun and inspiring it was to write whole pages of words over glossy colors, contours of faces, smaller text that served as boundaries for my extravagant handwriting. It was a whole new way of experiencing the magazines I sooo love still to this day.
So this lovely journal is an entire book, of glossy colors, text, shapes that are just waiting for some marker flair. I love it! And I know that the Arty Soul who grabs this sweet book will love it too!"
Did you ever do that? Write whole magazines worth of letters? I had an acquaintance one that had done that as well. I haven't done it since, but creating this journal has definitely inspired me to give it another try. It saddens me to think of all the handwritten letters I have created in my day, and how I just don't do that anymore. Emails, blog posts, voicemails... all the time. Actually writing a letter? Haven't done it in years. And I was such a pen pal in my youth... (Francesca love, I miss our mail art! Perhaps? :)
So my lovelies, go find some magazines to write letters in, or to use as a journal, or buy my journal! :) Whatever you do, find some time to write. Its an art that transcends time.
Sending you all inspired Saturday conversations with yourself, those you love, and new acquaintances.
The last few weeks have been a flurry of painting, reading and prepping for the launching of my Etsy store! Tada!!!!
There is also a nifty Mini Etsy on my side bar that you can peek at and click on to take you there.
I don't think that I will ever feel done with it, so I am finally unveiling it here. I have been watching myself as I go from blissful art mode, where I am lost in the colors, to stressed out production mode. Which isn't at all the energy I want to infuse my art with. So what you have is what is done, while the other bigger undone pieces stare at me from their corner of the room daring me to defy them and their very own process of becoming.
The image above is of a Mandala piece I was making last week. I was so into finally seeing the end results that I pulled out the hair dryer and began trying to speed dry the paint so that I could move on to the next layer of work. I laughed at myself. I have done this before, but I finally saw how completely impatient I am for things to develop as they need to. This is such a metaphor for every single other thing in my life. Its painful sometimes. Another reminder to breathe. Just breathe with what is wanting to happen right in the moment.
I'm excited about doing this. My dream has always been to work for myself creating art and writing. This is the first step to doing that. I love being home and feeling like I am playing, but its actually work, but play, but prayer, but love... All of it. Its also a beginning. My love right now is the journals. But the bigger vision are the Book/zines. Not quite a book, but much much more then a zine. Yes.
Thanks to all of you who have sent me words of support and excitement. Its a fun time.
Blessings!
e
"If you cannot do an action with joy and reverance, then maybe you should reconsider whether you should be doing that action."
~Jiva Diva
Paint brushes, blank canvases, basket full of paint tubes in a quiet cabin in the mountains...
The simplest joy a girl can ask for.
For reasons too long and quite possibly too controversial to get into here at this time, I am in no way a church goer. I don't proscribe to any mainstream religion and therefore haven't found myself inside of a church for the purposes of worship in years. I love photographing churches, I also go to attend the many weddings I have been privileged to witness in the last few years. But for my own personal spiritual connection... a church and its service isn't a likely place for me to go. I have never been able to find what my spirit longs for there.
For me, there is nothing as sacred, hallowed and Divinely inspiring then the inside of a museum. Museums hold within them a repository of human expression, discovery, truth, imagination, attempts to reach from within and then take what is found and attempt to connect without - that for me is the epitome of our spiritual drive manifest.
I love the hushed tones, the echo throughout the halls, the smells, and the awe that is shared by those standing for seconds, minutes and hours before a piece that has magnetically pulled you into meditation.
I have planned whole vacations around seeing a particular exhibit. One of my favorite was the Salvador Dali Retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art last year. I had spent 7 days touring the museums of Washington DC for the second time in two years, when I drove myself over to Philly to see the exhibit. It was the best vacation I have gifted myself with and I did it solo, which gave the whole trip a wonderfully nourishing quality. Now, when I travel I check the museums around the area where I will be in order to catch anything interesting that may be going on. That is how I discovered a wonderful Cuban artist by the name of Ana Mendieta. I was in Miami for a yoga conference and popped over to the Miami Museum of Art.
The Sunday before leaving for the east (which is where I am now) I was immersed in my pretrip chores when I decided to drop everything and head up to downtown Los Angeles and catch the Robert Rauschenberg's Combines exhibit at the MOCA. The exhibit was only going to last until September 4th, and because I was leaving town, this would be the only time I would be able to see it. I knew that if I missed it I would regret it deeply, as I so love this mans work. It was a great afternoon and I stayed there so much longer then I had anticipated! I took pictures of the surrounding buildings, and shopped at the museum store and then just lingered inside.
Sadly, I can't find a site online that covers the breadth of Rauschenbergs work. But please feel free to do a search on him! His art spans over 40 years and has evolved dramatically over time. His Combines are from the late 50's and into the 60's. From the documentary that was playing I learned that he is the artist that has created more then perhaps even Picasso. He is that prolific. It was also stated by those close to him that he has never been a man ridden with the angst and morose depression that can be characteristic of great artists. Rauschenberg merely loves life, and lives to create. Daily. Minute by minute.
I was so inspired and moved by this. Creativity for its own sake. Because he is compelled to. How is that not the act of spirit? To create as our Creator/Creatrix does/did? If we were made in the image of God, isn't this what our spirits were created to do. To create in the world, whether it is to create art, life, love, beauty... whatever it is that our spirit can express in action, thought, word, hope?
I lingered for as long as I could and then I left feeling that centered and peaceful feeling I get when I have been meditating for a while, or when I have done yoga. Completely still, open and Connected. Such a gift of the soul...
A few years ago I took a class on mask making. We gathered to meditate and create the face of that part of us that Travels the other worlds. Those places we go as our own Shamans to gather the spiritual tools needed to create the world we inhabit daily.
With the slow low rhythm of a drum beat to guide our circle into a journey, I found myself walking my all to familiar territory that I travel to find my ancestors/guides. Our meeting place is a wet cavern on the edge of what can best be described as an ocean, only its not really like any ocean that exists in our world. Only this time, rather then sitting with my Mothers, I was allowed to walk past the walls of our cavern into yet another realm.
Here, I held the map in my cells. I had no eyes, because I could See with a core knowing. I had the glimmer of stars, and the darkness of the universe, and the wisdom of the different parts of me as my face and body. Transparent, but dense with millennia of generations, lifetimes, and experience.
Masks can be so many things. It is said that often times all we ever present to the world is a series of masks. Or that being in ones truth is to dispense of all masks. They can be sacred representations of our Gods and Goddesses. And in this case, keys to a deeper doorway into the Self.
Creating masks in this sacred context has been very powerful for me. I have made others to facilitate me in meeting my shadow, my Creatrix self, and my expression of the place I am presently in my journey.
This is the face of my Self as Shaman.
