I May Wander But I Am Not Lost, Turning Failures into Something New

Sometimes, when I am printing up one of my paintings that someone ordered, something will go wrong. The ink will splotch or an unnoticed spot will appear or the colors will be off or I tried to use the wrong paper or something will smudge or the printer will break down or it just won't be right.

I won't send those prints out. I will stick them in a box and pray the next print comes out. Every once in a while, that one doesn't, or the next one doesn't. So every once in a while, I go through my boxes and files of failures and look for something that I can take and do something with, make something of.

I had a whole series of prints where the color was off. I finally just took them out and chopped them up into little bookmarks. This is one. You can see the tip of a flying girl's foot right above the 'wander.'

I thought this was a kind of fitting metaphor for life, and a good illustration of Tolkien's quote.

I wander from my path. I fail in my endeavors. I get lost in the details or in the living. Then I unpack all my mistakes, and see what I have learned, how I have grown, what I can make from my failures.

Interestingly, I'm doing the same thing with writing. I'm doing Nanowrimo in a few days where I will write 50k words in a new novel in the month of November. I've done nano for the last 7 years. I dropped out last year because life was just in too much upheaval, but even the two years before that, where I met my wordcount goal, I wrote stories that were failures as stories. The first of those stories didn't work, so I tried again the next year, and that one didn't work either.

They wandered. They wandered terribly into places that didn't make sense and didn't seem to get me where I needed to go, narratively speaking. I explored paths the story wasn't ready to take, and so the "novels" I wrote never went anywhere. That would be 100k words of a novel that wandered, without ever getting where it needed to go.

So here I am again, getting ready to write that novel that I failed at twice before. Unpacking those hundred thousand words, reading them, salvaging what I could.

And I chopped that sucker up, just like the bookmark. My new outline starts with the one scene that worked in the first novelistic failure.The same scene that I started again with the second novelistic failure. After reading both drafts, I realize that my second draft improved greatly on the first draft of the scene, so I got ONE thing out of rewriting it twice.

My new outline for this twice attempted book is taking an entirely different direction. The book, while it has the same characters and basic premise, will have an entirely different flavor. I believe it will be richer and smarter and darker. It will mean more.

Because the thing is, I have learned things over these last three years of failed noveling that have actually gotten me past the struggle I was having with writing the new story. Some of those lessons are about writing and character and plot, but some of those things are about myself, living, love, fear and pain.

I am very optimistic about my writing for this nano, and about the story I am going to tell. Is it because this time I put my energy into planning and outlining instead of winging it like I tried for the last three years? Quite possibly. Or is it because in my wanderings I have grown and am now ready to write the story that needs to be written? Maybe that, too.  I may wander, but I am not lost.

Look Out Now or Flying Girl Makes It Through The Storm

Look Out Now, or Flying Girl Makes It Through The Storm
Pencil, Ink and Acrylic paint on vintage Alice in Wonderland book page
7 1/4" x 4 3/4" on 8 1/2"x 11"

This is my first flying girl in quite some time.

I'm not sure what the lesson here is, unless it's about learning how to breathe again after being buffeted about by the winds of fate.

Or perhaps remembering the lessons that I have already learned.

Or perhaps life is guaranteed to knock you around a bit, but if you manage to come out the other side, it is a lesson, not the doom that it felt like when you were caught in the middle of it.

That sounds suspiciously like "this too shall pass," but that's ok since that's one of my favorite old sayings.

Maybe the wisdom of getting older is learning to hunker down and wait it out, and understanding that there is  always going to be something better on the other side. Time goes faster than we think and we are stronger than we know.

Maybe this is just a reminder. It gets better. We get stronger.

Prints of this painting is for sale here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/122841807/look-out-now-or-flying-girl-makes-it

But Wait, There's More, 85-92/100

 There's a light
acrylic and gel pen on paper
85/100

Spent yesterday and this morning trying some stuff. I had this page of dark blue, awaiting something or other. I think I managed something or other.

Be Present
acrylic on paper
86/100

Then I thought I'd try painting a bit of something around me. Sometimes, when I don't know what to paint, I remember that I can look outside of me and paint something in the real world, not just in my imagination.

But I added some imagination anyway. Scallops take a long time to paint, did you know that? They take a bit of attention. Sometimes painting almost feels like meditation.

Green Hand
acrylic on paper
87/100

 More scallops. Smaller. More attention. More hands.

Blue Chair
acrylic on paper
88/100

 Back to real life. Sometimes I like to practice my visual acuity, paint what I see. This turned out pretty well except I did not judge my paper very well and the chair ran off the edge of the page. :( Oh well. That's part of what you do when you paint. Composition. Maybe I'll try painting this lovely antique desk chair again, and this time have it stay on the page. I did like how I managed the cane back, though. And the dark and light of the shadows, that was nice. I love to watch the paint bleed into the water, I like the spontaneity it gives. It's lively.

one step at a time
acrylic on paper
89/100

One of the things I do when I paint is try to use all of my paint. I had a whole bunch on my palette, was I supposed to let it dry up and go on to the rest of my day?  I refused. Still didn't know what to paint though, so I wrote myself a message.

Upon retrospect, I think I should have tried the chair again, just to see what came of it.

but wait there's more
acrylic on paper
90/100

Maybe this is because of the extra paint I was still trying to get rid of.  Or maybe it's a message. Transitions are hard. Very often they feel like endings, deaths, losses. But there's always something beginning, being born, and gained. Kind of like that whole Aztec calendar thing. The world might end. Then it will begin again.

 Revel
acrylic on paper
91/100

Or maybe because there was actually more painting coming. I'm feeling the scallops, and decided to go back to some past imagery from my 100 days. The silhouette.

Aloft
acrylic on paper
92/100

And here was a tiny sketch that I started and never managed to finish. So I went back and painted it in and gave it some scallops, because why not? and I was feeling the scallops. It took most of the morning to do a lot of these paintings, although a couple of them were finished last night.

I am working hard on catching up. I have 4 more days and 8 more pieces to go. Almost there. I'd love to get back to the place where I can just post one piece a day. And I need to get started on Christmas, too. Phew.

Well like the drawing said, but wait, there's more. There's always more.

Pulling it Together 67-71/100

 Head of a Girl 8 (Tilly Losch)
ink on vintage Alice in Wonderland Page
67/100

Like I said before, I am trying to put my house together, trying to pull together all the pieces of myself and my art and make it whole again.

It's remarkable how confusing and disorganized things can get. Or sometimes maybe we just need a break. Maybe we just need to step back and get some distance so that we can look at things and say "yes, this is what I want," or "no, this is not where I want to go."

So sometimes it helps to stop the go go going and be silent, to see what once was there, what is there now, and what you want to be there.

Found Still Life
(flowers, pencil, miniature houses, toy leash, and vintage contact paper on the counter)
68/100

This one is a case of looking and seeing what is already there.

I looked down at the corner of my craft cabinet counter, and saw this little still life, just sitting there. I gasped and grabbed my camera and started snapping away. It's where I'd tossed a few things that I was done with, the little houses from yesterday, the handful of garden flowers that my daughter gave me, whose stems were too short for a vase, the yellow pencil, and the broken purple toy leash that I told my daughter I'd fix.

It's interesting, because although it took me a few tries to frame it right, and I did remove extraneous items away from the composition, when I tried to "make it right", when I took away the junky purple toy leash, the composition went flat.

It was there. And I needed to pay attention to it, to see it for what it was, a snap shot of life, color, line and texture. Movement in stillness and discards. There's something about those bleeding heart flowers that seem to me to be always moving, even when they are just sitting there, wilting.

"Day" Flying Girl Articulated Paper Doll
acrylic on paper, metal brads
69/100

And then, sometimes, you have to work and think about something, plan it out and put it together.

I've been thinking about making a Flying Girl Paper Doll for a while, but never got around to it, because I knew it would be a bit of work and commitment.  Sometimes life is like that. You take ideas from the past and finally sit down to work on them, make them into something, even if you're not sure that they really will work out.

 Reveal
Pen and watercolor on paper
70/100

Here's a sketch I made, without real plans, just allowing it to come to be, although, again, I am pulling on past sketches and motifs.  I don't think that everything is actually revealed, here, even though it's called reveal. Perhaps time will be the big reveal.

Belated Bunny with Big Legs
Repurposed velour, cotton knit, buttons, thread, polyfill
71/100

And here's the stuffed bunny I started almost three years ago and never got around to finishing. It went three years without eyes or legs.

Even now, my daughter tells me that the legs are wrong and I need to make them smaller. I guess she's right, they don't really fit this bunny.

Belated Bunny (detail)

But she's kinda cute anyway.

Well, I continue to try to pull together my house, and my art and my writing. I'm working on my synopsis for my novel and my query letter... something that has needed to be done for quite some time.

Like I said, sometimes it takes a commitment to pull together all the disparate efforts, all the history and the knowledge and the ideas. And sometimes it takes a re-commitment, after a period of silence.

We shall see.

Flight, Figure It Out, Ambiguous 26-27/100 in 100 Days

Flight
26/100 in 100 Days Creative Challenge
acrylic on paper

I am falling behind in my challenge. I'm afraid that I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew and it's overwhelming me.

It isn't over yet and I'm still working on things and I still have a couple of finished things that I haven't prepared for posting yet and I have a couple of things that I've started and haven't finished yet, but I'm still feeling overwhelmed by everything.

Having a hard time integrating my wishes for things with how to get them all done.

Figure It Out
27/100 in 100 Days Creative Challenge

Heh heh. Maybe that explains this painting. Trying to figure out all the details. Sometimes I'm just trying to figure out all the artistic urges, but more often than not I'm trying to figure out how to make life work, how to balance life and work and art and kids and all.

Ambiguous
28/100 in 100 days creative challenge.

My paintings are making me a bit dizzy. This one reminds me of Vertigo for some reason, or some other Hitchcockian movie. Maybe it's North By Northwest. Falling, flying, running, tripping, surrendering?

Caught between things.

Lets see if art helps me make sense of it all.

Flying Girl and the Wave, or I Am a Part of It All

Flying Girl and the Waves, or I Am a Part of It All (revised)
Acrylic Paint on Moleskine, 8"x5"


This painting is actually a revision of a previous painting, done almost three years ago. I was not comfortable with the original green in all those years, I'd look at the painting and then put it away again. There was something I liked, yes, but also something that I just didn't like.

Flying Girl and the Waves, or Go With the Flow

Oh, okay. Here it is. I didn't change that much except I painted over the green with various shades of blue. And then, all of a sudden, I was not only okay with it, but I really liked it.  The problem was the color scheme, I'm sure. It was all too hot, and too close, with the yellow green and the yellow gold and the goldy brown. There wasn't enough contrast, or something.

Sometimes I takes a while for me to get a handle on what is not exactly working. Sometimes I need to take a break from whatever it is, ignore it, put it away and just not bother with it.

There's nothing wrong with failures. Isn't that an odd thought?

It's okay to fail.

Getting things wrong is good.

I'm just trying to get a handle on this concept. But how? you say. How is it okay to fail? Failure is bad, isn't it? Failure means you can't do it, you messed up, you didn't live up to expectation, you got it all wrong, oh woe is me I'm just not good enough. Right?

But here's the thing... from failures, we learn. When we make a mistake, we learn what DOESN'T work. By understanding the not-no-negative, we can discover the outline of the positive. Just like you can draw a chair by focusing on what the chair is not, the air around it, the negative space. What isn't the negative space is, ta-da! The Chair.

And here's the other thing. Just because something doesn't turn out doesn't mean it's a dead end. Once you have something to work on, you have the ability to work on it. Sometimes a blank page is much harder to tackle. I took out this old painting and I had a place to start. I fixed it up and started to love it. If you can look at something old with new eyes, if you can objectively see the good in something, and also see what fails, then you can work on making it succeed. Sometimes the distance of time allows you to see things without all your old feelings and thoughts and preconceived notions attached. You can re-vision it. You can revise it.

I am comforted by the fact that I can look back on my archive, on my history, on my past and find things that I can use today. I can learn from past mistakes and bring those lessons into the present. I can also use what I've learned in the intervening years and improve on the failures of the past. I can go back to the things that I have done and bring them back. I can do it with an old painting or I can do it with an experience. For instance, I am not teaching High School anymore, but I learned so much from the experience, and I can pull on those skills I learned, in many, many areas of my life.

Think back in your life to an experience or project or lesson that did not work out the way you expected it to, something you gave up on or put away. Are there things that you can take from that and bring into today? Are there unfinished projects that you gave up on that are ready to see the light of day again? Any trunk novels or afghan squares that need to be crocheted into a blanket?  Are there "bad" projects that you can now give a new life to? Take some time and look at your own archive, your own history. Is anything ready for your re-vision?

Stamp Carving Tutorial-- It's Fun!

 After sitting on this block of stamp carving material for a year or two, I finally got off my butt and decided to make a little stamp for my flying girl. Let's show you the process. It's really not that complicated.

First I drew out a little design in heavy #2 pencil. As you can see from this picture, my original plan was to use a champagne cork. I drew a circle around it on the paper so I would know the size for the stamp, but upon further reflection, I decided that the cork was too firm to easily cut into for the delicate shapes I wanted, so I went into my craft drawer and dug out the hunk of soft stamp carving medium. It is MUCH softer and easier to carve. For something of this size, I could also have used a rubber eraser. That is almost as soft and quite effective for rubber stamping.                                                                            

Then I cut out my drawing and pressed it onto the rubber carving medium. I rubbed it firmly so the graphite from the drawing would show up on the rubber. You can also draw straight onto the rubber, but I have learned to remember that you want to draw the reverse of what you want your image to be or your stamp will be backwards, but the graphite rubbing technique will get rid of that problem. I once made a flying girl stamp out of a rubber eraser and she was flying backwards. (Does it really matter? not really, but if she's facing left, she seems to be flying backward in time to me. Don't question my logic.) Then I use my xacto knife to cut my drawing out of the block of rubber. I don't want to waste it, so I cut pretty close to the drawing.

 Now is carving time. I actually have a set of carving tools, but I found that with something this small, the xacto knife works better. I carefully run the xacto knife around the drawing, only going into the rubber about a 1/4 inch. Maybe less. Try also to keep your knife straight, you don't want to undercut your image, because it might crumble after use. I actually started with tiny straight lines, even though it's not that hard to curve the blade, I was playing it safe, knowing that I could go back in and fix the detail later. For that reason, I also carved slightly outside of my drawing. You can remove rubber later, but you can't put it back.

 Then I, very carefully, cut off the excess rubber. I put my blade about 1/8 inch from the top and slowly slid it toward my image that I had already cut around. Be careful not to cut into the image. For the longer pieces, I actually sliced those off in stages, cutting off bit by bit, rather than being macho and trying to get it off in one larger piece. I didn't want to risk it with such a small, delicate image.

 Here she is cut out all the way. Ok that's not a 1/4 of an inch. It's more like a millimeter. Next step is to test it. I took out my little ink pad and gave it a go.

The first stamp I made was the image in the middle. I found the legs and arms to be too blunt and the edges of the stamp too prominent, as they showed up when I pressed. No problem. I went back in with my razor blade and narrowed the limbs, as well as cutting off the edges so they were more rounded away from the image and no longer made marks on my paper. You can see the fixed image in the other stamps.

Ta da. All done. Easier than I thought. If I had picked a simpler image like a heart it would have been easier still.

And here is a bonus image. I still had that champagne cork, so I decided I would make something from that. I'd seen an intriguing scallop stamp among the multiple stamp carving pins on my "projects to try" pinterest board, and since I love scallops, and that's a much simpler shape for the more difficult cork medium, I gave it a go. There's another step if you're carving a cork, and that is to cut off the bottom edge of the cork to make it flat, as the champagne cork is rather rounded on the edge. If you can find a smooth flat cork, you can skip that step. The original scallop stamp tutorial is actually made of wood and a little bit more labor intensive than mine.

I simply drew my scallop edge on the cork, following the round edge, and then sliced it out. It took more effort to cut through the cork, but if you go slowly and carefully, it's not that hard. When stamping, it leaves an interesting texture. The texture wouldn't have worked with the flying girl, but I can use it for the scallop.

I can't wait to see what I can do with my new stamps. I'd like to find a wooden block to glue the flying girl onto, but the cork scallop is ready to go. It might be interesting to use it in my journal, or to make my own wrapping paper, or maybe a scalloped edge decoration. And I'm looking forward to using the flying girl on correspondence or maybe I'll even make my own business cards or stationery.

I can see that this stamp making might be a little addictive. Try it and you'll see.

Standing Still and Dreams

Standing Still/Porch Steps

I took out my camera to take a picture of Ivy riding her bike, and when I turned it on, this is the image I saw in the screen. I said, hells yeah, and snapped a picture. I loved all the textures, the different colors of gray, the leaves, the slippers, and then my constant companions, a journal and my big honking bag.

And then when I was looking for a work of art to post today, I was choosing between two paintings, (yes I have a back log of paintings) one of which I like better, and then this one

Standing Still/Flying Girl

acrylic on paper, 8x5"

I said, it's the same thing.

Standing still, grounding oneself, and still managing to fly.

This is the tension of life, my life, at least. Finding a way to be grounded in the every day living while still letting the imagination fly, while still being creative. A balance between ideas and reality. The dance of the dreams and the what-is.

I can't say I've mastered this dance. I'm still learning the steps. And these steps keep changing. Always new ones to learn.

How do you manage to balance the real world with your dreams?

Flying Girl Goes Head First, or Dive In

Flying Girl Goes Head First or Dive In...

acrylic and pencil on paper

AEDM 13, 11/13/10

Where have I been? I skipped posting yesterday. I have been cranky and sick and not all that creative. Well. I've been creative, but low energy.

Plus I've been obsessed with pinterest. It's fun, but it's definitely a time suck. I guess I prefer a time suck when I'm still sick. So oh well.

But I have been slowly recovering, regaining brain power and such. I've been trying to get back into writing for nanowrimo and I've been afraid.

Writing while I was sick and brain dead took me far off course and got me really confused as to what was supposed to be happening.

Yesterday, before work, I sketched out this.

Dive in sketch

pencil on paper

11/12/10 aedm #12

This was me trying to tell myself that it was time to just dive right in, beyond the fear, beyond the uncertainty, beyond the laziness, to just commit. Take the steps. Write the words.

And I did. I lay in bed (because I didn't feel well enough to go downstairs and sit up right) and I just started writing.

I completely skipped the scene that was giving me trouble. I just went to the next part.

And it helped me figure it out.

The act of committing. The act of writing. The act of just doing carried me past the fear and the confusion.

Am I perfectly clear about what comes next? Nope. But I have somewhere to begin.

Remember also, this is week two of the big November challenges, when the excitement and the anticipation and the stored up ideas all start to run out. When life starts to interfere. When it just ain't as easy as it was in the beginning. This is part of the process. Keep going. Dive back in. We shall pass through this and move on to the next phase.

I'll tell you about when i get there.

How is your November going? How is your creativity moving?

Live This, or A Prayer

Live This, or A Prayer

Ink on Antique Book Page (Alice in Wonderland)

8/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/18/10

I am trying to find my voice.

"WhaaAT?" say you. "Ain't you the girl who has all these Flying Girls floating around the internet?"

Why yes, yes I am, and yet still, I am searching for my voice.

I mean, I have a voice. I have been singing out loud for many years now, writing, drawing, painting, teaching, creating things, standing my ground. And yet, sometimes I feel as if there is more to discover.

I have no answers. I have no definitive description of my voice. And maybe this is good. It's possible when we have "figured out" who we are, we become landlocked in our own understanding of ourselves, and stop growing.

I go through periods where I explore certain things. I think Flying Girl lasted more than a year. That's pretty intense. And even now, she pops up without much conscious thought. She's still part of who I am. She is still part of my vocabulary. She shows up in different media. And the different media end up becoming part of my vocabulary.

Hmm. What if Flying Girl is actually my way into the new explorations. A kind of rosetta stone that can open up new languages in my creativity? That makes her pretty valuable.

This drawing, for example. No. There's no Flying Girl, not yet, but don't count her out. Actually, this drawing is pulling on an older language in my art. The doodles. The flowers. The houses. I really want the houses to come back, but I am looking for their way in. I just haven't found it yet. But I am liking the doodles/botanical inspiration.

To tell you the truth, drawing these is almost like meditation. It's kind of nice. I forget about that aspect of art sometimes. I forget how close to spirituality my art feels sometimes. I don't know if anyone else gets that when I they look at my work, but for me, art is near to my religion. My mixed up, made up, anti establishment, personally created spirituality/religion.

This piece here... this is like a prayer.

This Is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessing in the Branches

This Is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessing in the Branches
cotton, felt, embroidery floss, polyfill, beads, paper, acrylic paint, acrylic gel medium

Here she is. This is the finished sneak peak I showed you yesterday.

She is a stuffed flying girl, a mobile, I suppose.
This is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessings in the Branches

Here is the whole of her, from the top of her cotton thread, to the felt birdie, to the million times worked on girl to the paper banner that was not changed from the original.
Here is the original. Well one side of her, because I didn't like her very much and she wouldn't fly straight, having wonky fiber fill and arms that kept flopping and bending. The other side was embroidered with branches in silver and black and appliqued with a felt heart and leaf. So you see... I kept the inspiration in the piece, I just painted over everything else.

First of all I didn't like the color. It just didn't feel right to me. Second of all, there were problems with the sewing. It was at this point that I gave up making the tiny dolls out of cotton and just went to straight felt, where I didn't have to turn delicate arms and get that head caught in the spindly neck. SOOO frustrating. Oh yeah, and did I mention the wonky not flying straight and floppy arms? Ugh.

However, I still had this Flying Girl, and there was something about her I liked, not to mention all the work I put into her. And I did want to try painting on fabric, if you remember.

So one day I just stopped stalling and took out the long neglected paints and gave it a shot.

I was surprised to find that this project felt very familiar. Painting the doll wasn't that different from painting on paper, honestly. Yes it's three dimensional, but I found myself doing the same techniques on fabric as I do on paper. I guess when you find something that feels right, it keeps popping up. Like the layering of colors. I find I am layering colors whether it's felt or paint.

After layering the blues and whites and creams, and adding the branches, shifting the colors around a bit, I finally felt satisfied.

I think this experimentation of mine might lead somewhere.

This is why I love taking something old and turning it into something new and unknown. Your stakes are low, because the original wasn't what you wanted, but the payouts are potentially limitless.

What are some things that you have given up on that you could take up anew? Look at them without all the attachment and create something potentially awesome.

Flying Girl in the Desert, or Sometimes The Ocean Comes To Me

Flying Girl in the Desert, or Sometimes The Ocean Comes To Me
Acrylic Paint, Watercolor Pencils on Moleskine Paper, 5.5"x8"

This is my first painting in quite a while. I've been doing so much else, but two days ago, I felt the urge to paint.

It started while playing with my son. He was watching some cartoons on tv, and they were on an imaginary boat. One of the characters got seasick. Duck, I think, from Little Bear. Then my boy ran around saying he was seasick.

I said, "Silly boy, there is no ocean here."

He said, "Sometimes the ocean comes to me."

And then I had to paint.

Had to.

It was a compulsion. Like the eyes fog over and the world fades away a bit while I run about searching for just the right supplies. The spot to paint while still being able to supervise the kids. The right underpainting. The right interpretation. The right details. The right brushstrokes.

Until it was done, and I had to run off to the grocery store and left all my supplies and art out, so when I came home with bags to put away, I had no room in the kitchen for the groceries, and the first thing I saw was the painting, open on the kitchen table.

And I said, "hmm, sometimes the ocean does come to us, even when the land is dry."

Thank The Rain for Falling

Thank the Rain for Raining Flying Girl Wish
lizard print felt, button thread, felt, thread, fiber fill, silver chain, silver embroidery floss

Today I thought I'd join in with Magpie Girl's 8 Things I Have Learned in the Past Little Bit.

So here's the kind of stuff I've been learning:

1. Don't leave the living for when life is better. You'll miss out on opportunities, fun, new things, old favorite things, and just generally be less happy.

2. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself the way you would treat a friend. We generally don't beat up on friends for imperfections. We support them, rather than tear them apart. And sometimes, instead of mothering other people, try mothering yourself. Remind yourself to eat well and sleep enough. Give yourself unconditional love. Give yourself time outs for bad behavior. Treats just because.

3. Say YES to life. The one that you have. Yup. This one. Not the one that you'd rather have, or the one that looks great when you see others living it. Not the one that you'd have if you were cooler or richer. This one. Yes, this is your life. Yes, it is great. Yes, it is giving you so many gifts that all you have to do is accept.

4. Be Brave. Lately, if I realize I am putting something off because it frightens me, I have to do it. Face the fears. If you are afraid of something, and it doesn't actually offer a danger to your life, there must be some reason why you are afraid. Chances are because you really want something attached to the fear. There are some high stakes there, and you are afraid of the outcome if you go for it. So, be afraid, and do it anyway.

5. Baby Steps, Baby. This is how I manage to get anything done, because it all seems to overwhelming when you look at the big picture. So don't. Don't look at the big picture other than to orient yourself as to direction. Look instead only at this baby step you take down this road. This page of writing. This question to ask someone. This day of to do's. This "yes." This apology. Don't read into what any of it "might" mean. Just take the one step.

6. Rest. Allow yourself to go fallow. Allow yourself to sleep late, or go to bed early or take naps. Allow yourself to not be so busy all the time. It doesn't mean there's something bad about you if you are not always gogogoing. Stare out the window and drink tea. Doodle aimlessly. Watch dumb tv. Take a hot bubble bath. Accept that you are not a machine and that you need down time.

7. Nothing Is Ever Wasted. All those great ideas that you had and didn't do anything with? If they really are great, they'll be back. That education you don't seem to be using or career you left? You gained valuable skills and experience that you can pull on. Those books you've read your whole life? They've gone into the soup of your creativity. The friends who are now scattered across the world? There's always facebook, email, or good old snail mail to renew your friendships. The point is, don't mourn the loss of things no longer in your life. Realize that they have made your living so much richer, and are still giving to you, even now.


(reverse)

and lastly
8. Thank the Rain for Raining. Much like the last one, nothing is ever wasted, valuing the dark times of life can be the most valuable experience. We think we are failures when we fail at things. When things don't work out or we make mistakes or we don't do what we feel we should have done. It makes us feel bad about ourselves. It makes us feel as if we are worth less. It makes us want to give up, maybe. But the metaphor says something. We look at rain storms as something bad, taking the sun away, right? But no. Those dark clouds, bringing wind and rain and cold, they also bring nutrients, they clear the air, the help us take stock.
Hard times make us better people. Pain makes us more resilient. Loss makes us value what we have more. Lack makes us think creatively to create new solutions. So don't feel bad when times are bad, but accept the struggle as a really good, intense master's course on yourself. And quite possibly, those tough, rainy times will lead you to where you need to be for a new season, a new path, the flowers to bloom.


Oh yeah, and if anyone has any hints on photographing black and white things, I would appreciate some suggestions. Either the white is washed out or the black loses all detail. I'm stumped.

Lost In The Wild, or Do You Trust Yourself Enough?

Lost in the Wild Flying Girl Brooch Set
wool and polyester felt, thread, acrylic paint, pin backings
(that black one is lizard patterned. Funky.)


I have lots older stuff to show you, but I've been completely taken away by this new project of mine. I'm making felt pins!

I've been cutting out silhouettes, painting, embroidering, appliqueing, sewing, stitching, arranging. It's been lots of fun. I have a bunch of this beautiful gray wool felt, and have been spicing it up with the brighter colors of regular felt.

I've been playing with embroidery, which I really haven't done since my seamstress grandma taught me back when I was seven.

(As a little side story, after my sister and I moved into our apartment on Elizabeth Street in Nolita in 1994, an incredibly "hip" New York neighborhood, my grandmother came to visit us and told us that the sweat shop she sewed in all day was right across the street. And thus does a grimy, industrial and ghetto neighborhood become chi chi.)

I do not know where I am going with these little pins, although I have already branched out into more images and brighter colors, but I am doing them because I am having fun. I like putting the colors together. I like arranging the pins into little stories. I like that each pin I make, I like better than the last. I like that my sewing and embroidering is getting better with each one. I like the way each pin is at least three layers of felt, and you can see just a hint of color of the inside layer. Just like my paintings, interestingly.

I am planning to put these pins up in my etsy shop, but I haven't figured out the details yet. Gosh. I have so many things to list, but no time/focus to do it. Someday, I will just have half a million new works up, over night.

Now... all I need is the etsy fairy to come and put it all together for me.

Ah, well.

As I said, I am enjoying them, but I have no idea if anyone else will. I have no idea what will come of them. Maybe I'll move off into other kinds of jewelry... rings, necklaces. OH MY GOD now I want a felt cuff. I can't stop coming up with ideas here. So I'm just going to go with it, even if it might not lead anywhere at all.

I believe that if you follow your heart, and face your dreams bravely and honestly, you can't really go wrong. Even if something doesn't work out... well, you gain so much knowledge, wisdom and understanding from failure that you still end up ahead of the game.

So, now I'm asking you... where does your heart tell you to go, even if your brain is afraid it's a bad idea? If you think honestly about what would happen if you failed at that goal, is it really all that bad? Would you be able to pick yourself up and dust yourself off if your heart-goal collapsed? Do you think you are strong enough, resilient enough, brave enough to aim for what you really want, and possibly fail?

I think the real question here is, "Do you trust yourself enough to follow your heart?"

This is Where Love Resides

This is Where Love Resides
Cotton fabric, felt, silver embroidery floss, glass beads, paper, acrylic paint, fiber fill, thread

My mind is not in posting today.

I am in a whirl of new creating. My mind is burbling with ideas.

I am behind on photo shoots, posting, listing in my etsy shop and emails.

It's kind of a fun period, but I do get the feeling sometimes as if somebody is looking down at me going, "what is she doing sitting on her arse all day sewing and painting and messing around when there is work to be done, kids to be taken outside and money to be made."

Hmph.

I was wondering what my thoughts today would have to do with this piece of artwork, which was made, really, quite a long time ago. It was the only one I had a photo of that I hadn't posted already... the only Blessing Flying Girl that I have finished so far in fabric, rather than felt. I discovered that the felt actually works better than the fabric for my purposes. I do have more things to show. The stacks of works in progress are rising, and the items that haven't had the opportunity for camera time, too.

But there it is, the connection.

"This Is Where Love Resides."

These feelings I have that I should be productive, that I should be realistic, that I should be making money and be a better housekeeper and a better mom, this is not love, this is fear and insecurity.

This internalized harangue is not where Love resides.

Where does it reside? Where I allow myself to sit and create for the duration of my cold (oh yeah, I'm sick again)? Does it reside in believing that my dreams will get me where I want to go? Sticking with it, even if the returns have not really come in yet? I have the sinking feeling that I'm going to have to give up part of my dreams to make a more concrete, realistic life choice. But then again, that doesn't mean that I have to give up the whole thing. Maybe I just have to reorganize and reorder things a bit. I do love to organize things, although you would not be able to tell if you looked in my bedroom.

(reverse) this is where Love resides

I like experimenting with art. I like trying new media and working out new solutions for my little problems.

I believe that this skill helps in real life too (and contrary to that silly idea that I see from time to time, Life is NOT Art. Life is Life. Art is how we make sense of Life). Sometimes I think I do better in Art than in Life. But, I can go about living creatively, and if I do so, perhaps I will get better at the realistic, concreteness of Life.

But remember, this is where Love resides, too. We have to temper the need for living realistically with things like Love, Beauty, Kindness and Art.

Perhaps the key to balancing the concrete aspects of living with the more ephemeral aspects is to really live in the NOW. Being present to what is there. Not putting off things that you really want, or conversely, are really afraid of. (Is that "or conversely" or should it be "and consequently"?)

Oh it all feels quite like being a juggler, dancing on a high wire, trying to keep those balls in the air... hmmm.... am I getting another idea?

Flying Girl Wishes You Love and Light

Flying Girl Wishes You Love and Light
white and cream felt, thread, silver and blue embroidery floss, beads, fiberfill

I am enjoying making these things.

Especially late at night after the kids have gone to bed and I'm too tired to do much thinking. Sewing can be meditative.

I also enjoy the way the sculpture arises out of the medium.

Yes, I have the same pattern for all of the flying girls in the same medium, but the color of the felt or the thoughts in my head, or the time of the year, or whatever happened that day it all combines to make an individual piece that is unlike any other.

I know I am not the best seamstress in the world, but I also enjoy something about the hand made quality, the visibility of the stitches and the knots.

I guess I think that light and love (and life itself) is made of knots and threads and bobbles and mistakes... and sometimes we can turn the accidents of life into something that fairly glows with the livingness of it all.
(rev) Love in blue embroidery

I particularly like the little white bird hanging below, "LIGHT" written in silver thread.

I hadn't planned to go that way, but all while I was embroidering the geometric silver light/shapes I was thinking about what it all meant.

Instead of a banner, I went with a bird.

Sometimes you can just let things flow, you know what I mean?

Trust that it will come out and make sense and become something that you can value, even if it isn't exactly what you thought it would be when you started out.

Oh, hey. Speaking of trusting.... I just posted this in my etsy shop, despite needing to make dinner and being afraid (the real issue) of starting in with a new medium. You can check it out here.

Brave

Flying Boy Blessings, or Brave Boy
felt, thread, embroidery floss, fiberfill

One for the girl, one for the boy. They made their requests. I filled their requests.

The requests might change tomorrow.

It's all about moving and changing and adapting and fitting things together so they work.

Maybe that's how I'm going about making these flying blessings. I'm just playing. Poking my fingers with needles and shouting at stuffing that won't go in or knots that happen in innocent thread, but still, just playing.

Sometimes, here's a confession, I get bored of these suckers. Just like I get bored of the paintings, or the cooking, or the potty training, or the list making. Sometimes I wonder what's the point, because, you know what? My kid is still wearing diapers. Or whatever. I mean, things all seem to still be the same as before, so why keep trying to change things or do things over again, perfect them, make something work?
(reverse) please note the felt pennants on the string. I like them.

Oh. Fudge.

Change happens in increments, right?

You have to take the small steps before you take the big leaps. You have to get there before you are there, right?

Do you have to be brave, also? To keep putting all that energy into something that doesn't seem to be getting you where you want to go? Do you have to have faith that what you are doing will take you there, no matter what other people think?

Brave boy tells me sometimes it is brave just to live your life and not apologize for who you are.

Let me tell you, this post started out with a lot of whining, and I had to erase it all...well, most of it. I wondered what the heck it was doing in a post about Brave blessings.

But I just realized. Brave is not being unafraid. It is continuing on in your path, even though you ARE afraid.

So me and my (now deleted) whining was all about fear. Am I wasting my time? Should I choose another path? Is any of this going to work out? Am I ever going to get where I want to go?

Fear. Fear that I'm doing the wrong thing, made the wrong choices, am somehow just wrong all around.

Fear is normal. Fear can be valuable. Fear can point us in the direction we really need to go. Fear can make us take care of things that must be taken care of. Fear can keep us from being hurt.

But it's bravery that helps us to use fear as a tool for reaching our dreams. It's bravery that makes us fight until we are strong enough to stand up to all those fears and succeed.

So, to my Brave Boy, and to all my Brave Readers out there, I wish you good fears, fears that spur you on to find your own inner bravery, your own strength and determination, so that you may go for your dreams.

As scary as that may be.

Flying Girl Blessings, or Imperfection (in progress)

Flying Girl Blessings, or Imperfection (in progress)
cotton, fiberfill, thread.

I couldn't get online all day today and only have fifteen minutes to post before I have to do the bedtime routine, and I thought this would be the perfect time to post my meditation on imperfection. And this would be the perfect piece to illustrate it.

So, I had the brilliant idea to do soft sculpture Flying Girls, and the top girl here was my first attempt. I crashed and burned. The fabric burst and I couldn't get the little pieces stuffed and didn't know how to handle the leg that I left unsewn for turning and filling.

I moved on to the felt and had more success and enjoyed putting together new flying girls in 3d (more to come in the near future). Then I came back and tried again, since I'd cut two girls out of the fabric, before I'd tried to sew it and discovered it wouldn't work.

It didn't work again.

Or did it?

I'm thinking there's something here in the Flying Girls abject failure. I'm thinking I like the broken feel to them, the wonkiness, the mess. I'm thinking something profound may come from Imperfection. Or not. They may remain failures.

The truth is, I need to stop waiting for things to be perfect before I go forward. I need to stop waiting for the perfect timing and total mastery and not a stitch out of place.

All the time I am waiting to be perfect, I am not living, I am not getting out there, I am not creating, I am not making dreams happen. I know this, because I've spent much of the last 18 years trying to perfect all sorts of things about me, rather than just diving in.

Dreams don't happen because we are perfect. They happen because we put ourselves out there, we are willing to show our work, willing to stumble, willing to be hurt.

Willing to fail.

Failure is the most important thing I am learning about.

Failure is how we succeed.

The mess of life is actually living.

It's not about living in a perfect home and pristine surroundings, it is about getting things dirty and saying, hell yes.

There is not perfect time to finally be happy, to finally have the life that you've been longing for. There is only now.

Now in it's imperfection, is perfect and true.

You in your imperfection, did you know you were perfect, too?

Flying Girl Blessings, or I am as open as the night sky

Flying Girl Blessings, or I am as open as the night sky
felt, polyfill, thread, silver embroidery floss, recycled bead, paper and golden fluid acrylic
about 6" from top of head to bottom of banner? I forgot to measure. Hanging thread adds another six inches.

Yesterday while browsing about the web, I got the burning urge to make a 3-D flying girl. Something that could exist in our very own world, not just the world on the page.

Sometimes I get tired of just painting. I've never really been a one medium kind of gal, but I've spent the last couple of years mainly diving into paint. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but sometimes I start to feel a little bit confined doing just one thing.

All growing up, I made stuff out of everything. Doll dresses. A little stuffed shmoo that I made with my sister. Crocheted slippers. Little plasticene figurines. Balloon farms. Paper dolls. Bracelets out of purloined telephone wire. Radio shows on tape. Horror stories to read to my Junior High School friends. Macrame friendship bracelets. Beaded necklaces. Lipgloss out of vaseline. Cut paper animals. Twig houses. Sculpee christmas ornaments, beads, dragons and wizards, dice, brooches. And this was all before I ever took being an artist really seriously. It was just something I did because I enjoyed it and it kept my hands busy.

Over the past year or two, I've been watching other artists explore the breadth of creativity, while I was trying to focus down on one or two media. I suppose it makes sense. I needed to explore one medium, rather than bounce around like a jumping bean.

But yesterday, after seeing other people do stuff that I just thought was cool, it was like I bust out and HAD to do something.

I don't have as many odds and ends as I used to. They are either in storage or have been purged. No silver beads or glass mosaic tiles. No sculpee or fabric stashes. No folders of magazine clippings or that package of copper leaf I've been hoarding.

So I went with my leftover supplies from making Christmas softies for my kids.
Flying Girl Blessings, or I am as open as the night sky (back view)
(here you can see the hanging cord and bead)

This ornament is the result of my fevered multi-media jones.

She is actually the second version. The first version was in black cotton and I found her too delicate to turn and stuff. I nearly tore my hair out trying to manage. I still might be able to salvage something of her, but these are both prototypes.

I am not pleased with the materials. Polyester felt is not my medium of choice, but it was what I had on hand. And good for learning.

I do, however like something in the idea, here. I am planning to make more of her. I am thinking I might like to sell these in my etsy shop. I particularly feel like these pieces, more so than a 2-D work of art are about making something real in the world (HA! There's my focus word for the year-- "realize"). To me, this flying girl seems like a wish made real. An idea to focus down on.

That's why I called her a blessing. In my mind, I think this piece is a concrete manifestation of someone wanting to be open to love. You cannot find love if you do not open yourself to it... open yourself to the possibility of love, the possiblity of being hurt, of depending upon someone, or being there for someone else.

I suppose I was thinking about Valentines Day. You know, love and kisses and pink candy. I've never been very good at pink and candy. Well, candy yes, pink hearts and flowers not so much.

Ironically, I have already been commissioned to create another flying girl doll made of pink, for my almost three year old. She wanted this one, actually. I said I'd make her one of ther own. She chose pink.

I suppose I will need to come to peace with my own pink cottoncandy heart and give my daughter her own Flying Girl blessings.