entertaining infinity

life as art, everyday

My head is still spinning from the weekend.   Hard to capsulize it; I'm going to need to simmer a while and see what it leads me to.  Didn't do any art for AEM when I was gone - unless you call paying attention to my life art (...and I kinda do). 

I was thinking quite a bit about Sydney while I was driving home, cause like the retreat, living there spun my head about what might be possible in my life.

I moved to Sydney in the winter of 1993. 

I left NJ on a snowy day, and arrived about 24 hours later to a warm, clear blue sky day in Sydney.  I slept off my jet-lag on Bondi (pronounce it bond-eye) - the city beach that was about 10 minutes from our house.  I felt at home in Australia right from the start; I arrived during Sydney's famous Gay/Lesbian Marti Gras - and the night of my arrival the main street near my home (that's my neighborhood in paddington in the photo there...) was blocked off for the parade.  I figured that any city that rolled back the streets for the gay/lesbian community was my kinda town ... but I digress. 

Australia - and my home in Sydney - was an amazing place: great weather, wonderful beaches, vibrant culture, and easy-going people who really made art of their lives; I was in heaven - but one thing that I loved about Sydney was the contrast it provided when compared to my life in the US.  It's not that my life sucked in the states - it was actually pretty good, but I was so "in it" that I couldn't really get perspective about it.

In "A Moveable Feast" Hemingway says that "Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris, as in Paris I could write about Michigan."  And that was true for me ... living in Sydney, I could see myself and my life with a new clarity.  I could see things that were simply part of my upbringing and the culture that I was raised in that I'd bought into ... I could see how I limited myself by accepting these things as fixed and "true."  In my community in Sydney I saw a way of life that was richer, and included far more of a balance between friends, work and play than I'd ever known.  I had a love affair with Sydney that I'll never completely get over.  It was a completely life changing relationship.  (that's 'my beach' - in the photo there...)

In my career retreat we did a lot of looking at my life, the story of my work and the path I've taken - with all its zigs and zags - and in some ways it was like going to Sydney.  Cause I got some cool perspectives stepping outside my day-to-day and looking with new eyes.  And it's good to be reminded that my life is my canvas.

Now, I'll have to see what I get from over here.  (still on the road...)

art, as prezzie

Art-ish: for my niece and nephew - as part of the the prezzie parade for their 3rd birthday(s).  I've never quite graduated from scarves, but I can whip 'em off with ease - and I enjoy doing them.  (and yes, i got 'em kid-like prezzies too, i know scarves are not the stuff of 3 year old dreams...) (although pink is the stuff of little jessie's dreams...)

growth opportunities

Feels like I ran a marathon last week (i put on a huge fundraising event at work) and I'm just starting to come out of the fog.

...and I find it really difficult to write "at work" because I still haven't fully accepted that I have "a job" again. 

Last year I had work that really jazzed me (my own biz: coaching writers, giving writing and personal growth workshops, freelance writing - and peppered with some of my 'old stuff' - arts marketing/pr) but the financial stuff had been really challenging in the last couple of years.  I never felt particularly well suited for the business of my business, but I liked the work itself.  When the financial forecast failed to improve significantly the work became less jazzified; I felt like Sisyphus, but I kept on keepin' on ... hoping things would improve.

Then in March (at the anniversary of my mother's death) I joined my father for a week at the "snowbird home" in Florida they'd bought when he retired.  While I was there I spent much of my time stressed about how I really couldn't afford to take a week off and how shitty it was that things were so tight that I couldn't take a week off around the anniversary of my mother's death without stressing and how horribly that sucked.  Was I crazy?

I know that some people around me were beginning to wonder; I invested my life savings in this biz and it wasn't flying.  Maybe I was nuts.  Something had to change, and since I'd tried just about everything I could think of to infuse the biz with some real juice (except hire help, which i couldn't afford to do) (ah, the catch 22!), I had to consider some radical options.  Maybe I didn't have what it took to be a solopreneur.  Maybe I wasn't cut out for the solo life.  (for those of you who know the myers briggs stuff, i'm an ENFP - can you imagine it?  i must be crazy to think about being a one-person shop!)

And so I began thinking about getting a job again. 

When I got home from Florida I began doing some preliminary networking.  And within 5 weeks, I had a job offer.  The gig wasn't ideal, but the company does good work, they aren't far from my home, and they have good benefits (the all important health insurance that we solo folk pay out the wazoo for); I decided to believe that the universe was behind this nearly effortless job hunt, and so I took the gig. 

I still think the universe conspired to get me into this job - so I'd get a bit more financial breathing room - and a chance to re-think my work and my direction.  But the job itself?  Not a great fit.

I'm still doing a bit of my biz on my off hours, and it's nice not to feel urgency when potential new clients call.  If they want to work with me, fine - let's hope I can fit them in my schedule.  If they don't, no biggie - I'll still pay all my bills and sock some dinero away too.  I love my writing groups but instead of struggling to grow them, I now host just one per month.  Every once in a while I take a speaking engagement or do a specialty workshop, which I enjoy.  I do miss being able to take all the writing assignments that come my way, but I have less free time now; thank goodness I do most of my work with an editor who is a goddess who still sends me on lots of fun assignments, takes me with her on fun outings, and doesn't stop calling if I can't do every article she'd like me to.

I have no idea what's next for my work/direction. I'm in this challenging, exciting, scary place of exploration.  I'd like to find work that uses my experience, strengths and gifts in an environment that I feel aligned with/to ... and one that will make it possible for me to pay my bills now, and (wow, wouldn't this be nice?) retire while I'm young-ish enough to enjoy it.

For years I thought I had to find "the job" or THE line of work, but now I'm thinking that maybe it isn't just one thing. (in spite of what jack palance said in city slickers)  For a while I thought coaching/writing and workshopping was it.  Maybe it still is; I'm not sure. What I find particularly curious is that the coaching part of my biz has primarily centered around helping people find their voice/road (usually with the help of a writing practice) and then encouraging them to unleash all that stuff in their lives.  So why has it been such a challenge for me?  (we teach what we need to learn?)

Well, this weekend I'm going to do a one-on-one 'career retreat' to help me make some sense of it all.  Hope to get some insight, new perspective and an idea of where to start moving next.

When I look back on my life I can't remember when I wasn't on a journey of exploration, but sometimes I wish I could just coast.  Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who was content to work at Bigbusiness Corp. with my 401K and pension and all that.  Sometimes I wish I didn't hear that different drummer. 

But as a dear friend of mine used to say (hide your eyes here young ones): Wish in one hand, shit in the other ... and see which fills up faster. 

So it is what it is, and I'm on the journey.

Oh, thank you universe (she said with just a hint of irony), another delightful !#%@! growth opportunity!

fun link/art...

Today's AEM project sends you to a website where you can create virtual paintings.  What fun, what fun. 

Couldn't figure out how to save/post what I'd done on my site (if anyone figures that out - please share...).  I also made a bunch of stuff that I didn't save - it was just fun to play with something experimental and impermanent.  Kind of eased the pressure of the whole it's-gotta-be-good-and-brilliant-and-insightful-and-moving-and-blahblahblah capital A "art" thing for me.  (not that the other day's photo offering was brilliant - i was going for 'drag' for godsake!)  (and i failed delightfully at the drag part, didn't i?)

The piece I did save in 'artpad' is a pattern I've been playing with in other media for a while - tried it in pencil ... tried it with my old (leaky) rapidograph ... didn't like them.  It's a similar to the pattern on a ring that my mother used to wear that now belongs to me.  It's a wonderful squiggle of gold (on my otherwise silverly adorned hand/bod) and I've never seen a ring like it before.  She wore it all the time.  (it was the only piece of jewelery of hers that I really wanted after she died). 

When I first started wearing it, I couldn't look down without visualizing my mother's hand in my head.  Talking to her friend Jean a little while after she'd died, Jean kept glancing at my hand, finally saying: It's so strange to see that ring on anyone but her. 

I know what she meant, but I've gotten used to it now.  I no longer look down at my hand surprised to see it there.  I toy around with having it 'dipped' in white gold so it blends in with my silver stuff, but for now I've decided to keep it as it is; it's still Mom's ring, I just wear it now.

art every(couple of)day(s) month...

self portrait, drag. 7pm

I did a major eye make up job - it was totally 'drag' - but I forgot how the camera 'reads' make-up (you need tons more than you think to have any impact).  But when all was said and done, I kinda liked the look - and the view of me shooting the photo in the mirror in the background.  (and if you look really close, you can just about make out me shooting the photo in my pupil...) (...whoa artsy mon.)  (click on the photo to get a little bit more of the fab-wah make up effect...sparkles and all...)  (fabulous!)

This past week was beyond nuttified.  Should be back in a more art-producing swing this week.

well, every day-ish...

Signed on to participate in Kat's Art Everyday Month, and had fun picking through my  old craft stuff yesterday, but mostly goofed around with materials rather than doing any focused creation.  So I'm posting something I fooled around with while experimenting with colored glitter glue.  I don't think it's much (and the scan doesn't pick up the colors well at all - there's yellow, green, and two colors of blue and pink in there if you can believe it).  Part of me would rather not post at all than to post something that isn't (in my thinking) fabulous and brilliant.  But I'm posting it anyway because nobody said it had to be brilliant.  The point (or my interpretation of the point) of AEM is to get the creative juices flowing without judgment, so here it is: the thing I played with yesterday. 

Didn't make any art today...unless my pasta dinner (which was delish) counts.  (i should have taken a picture of it!)

art every day

Inspired to try this thing that Kat's Paws is doing, called Art Every Day Month (aka AEM). (here are the general guidelines, from her site: Let me know that you're participating and if you can, post your art on your blog. Art is very loosely defined (painting, drawing, doodle, jewelry, photo, craft, whatever!!) The idea is to have fun and play in a no pressure way.")

Love that.

I haven't been collaging lately and I used to do it all the time - in my old place I had my magazines and scraps and decoupage glue out most of the time (i could hide it fast and make the place look presentable when company came...).  But since moving in with the schweetie, I find that I do way less of it.  I don't have my dedicated craft area where I can leave things mid-project all wonderfully chaotic and messy.  (but tonight when the schweetie walked into the office/guest room to find me cutting/pasting on the bed, he suggested i take over the loft space for my craft table.  hm...will have to think about how to work that out...)

For now, here's a quick little somethin' I put together earlier this evening while sitting cross legged on the bed.  Fun city.