Everyone needs a guardian angel

Tried something new this week - an "art doll" that can be personalized.  It took me some fiddling to figure out how to do the face tile, but now that I've worked out the kinks I've listed it on Etsy as a customize-able art piece.  Not sure if there is a market out there for guardian angel art dolls - guess I'll find out!

The important thing is that I had fun with it, and churned up some ideas for my family for the holidays...  :-)

Punning around

A teeny little commission from a friend - collage on card stock, coated with encaustic medium.  It was fun to play with (and will absolutely crack up the intended recipient, who currently has 4 shelties under her roof).  Sometimes it's hard to get going on big "art with a capital A" projects - often, a little "goofing around" is all it takes to get the creative juices flowing again.  :-)

Look within

This year, my goal with my art is to elevate it in my OWN mind to the level of art.  Sounds stupid, but there you go - in my head, I'm still a "crafter" and a scribbler and a dabbler, not really an artist.  Yes, I'm my own worst enemy - thanks for noticing!

I've been tossing around the idea of doing something a little more intricate with my little altars, and my first attempt at translating what's in my head to an actual thing came out pretty fun.  It's an interactive piece, with little doors that open to reveal mirrors and messages - sort of a punny little play on the "look within" theme.  I wish I had made the backer board larger (or mounted the whole thing on a separate background to give it more presence), but overall I'm fairly pleased with it.

I surprised myself when I listed this in my shop at considerably more than I have historically sold my work for in the past.  Given the amount of time and effort that went into it, I should have charged about double the amount I eventually listed it for - but I'm still on that journey to believing that my unique "artist's voice" has value to anyone but me.  I doubt that I am alone in this struggle between wanting my work to actually be affordable enough to *sell*, and wanting to place a reasonable value on my time and talent.   :-)

So, there we are.  Thinking about trying something else new and different with polymer clay next - stay tuned!

Perfectionism

As I'm sure many creative people have experienced, getting stuck in one's perfectionism can be sadly crippling.  I have taken several "process art" workshops, all of which were highly beneficial and wonderfully freeing - but the lessons never seem to "stick".  The bogeyman in my head always seems to have something to say about the end product, which sometimes keeps me from even getting started on a project, let alone finishing it.  I know how pleasurable the creative process can be, and most of the time I embrace it fully when I am in the midst of it, but letting go of the end product and just letting it be what it is continues to be a huge stumbling block.

Last year I started this oil painting (my first) at the encouragement of a dear friend of mine who is a very talented artist.  I was really intimidated by the medium (which is vastly different from anything I'm used to) and had a hard time finding the fun in it.  Then I did finally find the fun and got the painting mostly finished - and then the perfectionism set in.  It didn't turn out the way I had pictured it in my head (at all), and I didn't know how to "fix" it, so I let it sit. And sit.  And sit.  And then started telling myself that I really needed to finish it before I could start any other artistic projects, and because I couldn't figure out *how* to finish it, I just denied myself a lot of creativity.   How stupid is that?

Last night I decided that this was NOT going to be a project I wanted to have blocking my creativity for one more minute, so I finished it.  I still don't like the way it turned out, but I am going to let it go and move on to the next thing and hope that I have learned *something* from this.

Perfectionism - go find yourself a brain surgeon to latch onto, and leave me the hell alone!

Obsessions

Obsessions - doesn't everybody have at least one?  Chocolate, reality TV, shoes - pick your poison. Some of them are quite benign (looking at you, SMF, and thinking of all the cooking network shows you have somehow managed to sneak onto my DVR to watch when you visit), but some of them ... well, you know you have latched onto one of those not-so-healthy ones when you find yourself longing for something that you don't really feel you can talk about with anybody else.  And of course, the worst of the WORST is that unrequited passion for something you just can't (or shouldn't, or absolutely must not) have.  The desire that teeters on the precipice of being an addiction, and which takes up time and attention that could be far better spent.  Yeah, that one...

I am trying to make healthier life choices as I grow older and wiser, yet I still find myself occasionally running full tilt into obstacles sitting squarely in the middle of this oh-so-noble life path.  When does it start getting easier to say no??

tempus fugit

I recently had (yet another damn) birthday, which of course prompted a whole host of ponderings about how quickly my meager time here on earth seems to be flying past.  Of course, having my son stride off confidently into the beginning of his second grade year at school (no longer clinging - and in fact, not even looking backwards ONE TIME) only served to pound the point home. 

Is there really such a thing as aging gracefully, with loving acceptance of the inevitable?  The bazillion potions, lotions, creams, exercises, surgeries, injectables and other similar devices available these days to help us cheat time would point to a definite trend toward "NO".  I used to scoff at the ads in women's magazines, thinking that people who fall for that sort of snake oil deserved to have their money go up in a puff of Botox.  Lately, though, I've found myself wondering, wondering, wondering if there possibly IS a way to steal back a little of what nature has so ungraciously taken.  Could I perhaps purchase a couple more years of no crow's feet?  Would the fantastic new "shake weight" (available only on TV!) really help to erase that crazy old lady flap jiggling around under my arms?   Could I have prevented the egregious error of writing "tempest fugit" instead of "tempus fugit" on my latest art journal page if only I had been taking nuclear-strength brain boosting vitamins?

Fantastically unclear about whether to surrender to the inevitable or go out swinging (and seriously peeved that I am old enough to have to ask myself that question). 

An attitude of gratitude

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted a movie clip from Joe vs. the Volcano on her Facebook page.  It featured Tom Hanks as Joe, adrift on a raft in the middle of the ocean, watching the moon come up and having a moment of awe and gratitude for his life.  It really got me thinking...  and it inspired the above little altar, which I just listed for sale in my Etsy shop.

It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day routine of life, entirely forgetting to stop once in a while and look at the big picture.  It's also easy to take the whole thing for granted. 

So this is me, stopping for a moment and being grateful for both the many blessings in my life and the many challenges (which have, more often than not, led me to an even richer and deeper understanding of myself and my purpose).