FEELINGARTY

How cool is this???

I was looking at Somerset's (Stampington) latest newsletter and they are featuring the coolest new thing that is being advertised for showing off ATC 's....although it could be used for SO much more!!!!  It is just too much coolness in one package!

STAMPINGTON ATC DISPLAY

I wish I had the money for this (and about a million other things, money is kinda tight at the moment) because how cool would this be for cards and letters and drying tiny canvas pieces and showing off photos and hanging bric-a-brack? I think I would also tie ribbons on it, just to give it extra color.....ugh! I WANT THIS!!!

Quitting? Really?

I got a message on facebook from an old art buddy that I knew through a year long altered art book project. She says she is quitting art and that it just isn't fun for her anymore. She was selling off and getting rid of all her inspirational books, magazines, and art supplies....

During the past year or so, I have been art challenged. I've considered a few different canvas or wood backed ideas that I'd like to try. But everytime I get behind my desk and look around at the mess, I think "ugh, i can't do ANY art until this place gets cleaned up". Granted it wasn't this messy a year ago when my arty block started. I pondered wheather I might be having an issue with my depression meds. Maybe I just need more vitamin D and to be getting more sunlight. With the days growing warmer and it staying light later, I AM feeling a bit more motivated.

But this friend's push to empty her life and home of all art supplies was kind of a shock to my system. I like the idea of purging. Purging always feels good. But purging art supplies? YIKES! Those are my treasures, collected carefully over the years. How could I give them up (unless there was a significant house fire) ? But then, if I am not going to get rid of them, shouldn't I start USING THEM, for crying out loud???

Things need to change.

I quit.

Well, that's that. I've been writing for an entrepreneurial website for over a year now. http://www.businessideafactory.com/
....And it has been sucking my creative juices DRY. I haven't worked on an art project in the last year because there was just nothing left in me to do it. Meanwhile, I sit in my art room at my laptop, surrounded my art supplies and a desire to have the time and creative energy to do it.

So I quit.

I quit my writing job. Frankly, writing doesn't pay jack. I would discourage anyone from pursuing a career in writing or at least encourage them to have a serious plan B waiting in the wings. It IS creatively gratifying to have a body of work that you can look at and say, "Look! I did this!". But your bank account will be sadly empty. Sooo...after weighing the pros and cons and really wrangling with myself, I finally called it quits on the writing job.

Now I feel like I have some non-guilt-laden time (because i felt like i should be doing something else) to actually do something that I love to do. Ironically I have a lot of guilt over not working on my art as well. Guilt really seems to be a reoccurring theme with me lately.

So onwards and upwards! Time for some art!

Need I Say More?

There is no fatigue so wearisome 
as that which comes from lack of work.
 -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Reaching the light at the end of the tunnel

I am feeling SUCH a sense of relief now that I've finished writing my business articles and there aren't anymore due for a couple of weeks. Although I love to write in general, I dread writing them so much these days. It's not that they are always difficult. Usually they just require me to sit down and focus and not let myself get distracted for a few hours. (I apparently have developed ADD as an adult because I can't focus for hours - or even a large number of minutes -  anymore....) It's just that I have developed a deep-seated dread of any and all deadlines.

I never used to. As a kid and young adult I made a habit of carrying a book around because I made a point of getting to all appointments early. I finished assignments ontime. I was never, EVER late anywhere. Deadlines were nothing more than a time to be finished. No sweat!

These days though.....I just get so stressed out knowing that the deadline is out there looming like a scary monster hiding out in the shadows of my closet, tucked in to the dark recesses where the spiders live, even if it is weeks away. Just knowing it is THERE means that I should be working towards it as a goal and I don't want to. So I stress and stress and stress, all the while procrastination with "shoulds" ....even if I technically don't have to even be working on it. What is with that?

I mean I totally believe in the old addage about not worrying about tomorrow because it robs today of it's joy. DUH. It's like the half of my brain and heart that belives in that is not speaking to the other half of my brain that insists on dwelling on the dark shadows of deadlines. Sometimes I really believe those theories that each half of our brain has it's own personality. Sometimes they fight each other. Sometimes they are ignored and sometimes they are just too tired to use their own voice. Why can't I hack away the half that is gloom and doom and insists on trying to convince me that I will fail so why start. I mean, I take drugs to keep me from obsessing over negatives. Mostly they work. But still, that half of my brain digs in it's teeth and nails and wont' let go of the possiblities of failure and missing those deadlines. I wish I could take a shovel and just BASH IN that half. *BAM!** BAM!* BAM!*

But now the deadline load has lifted, the dark clouds of 'deadline' have moved on and the sunny skies of 'no plans' is shining once more. Now I can play! So my glue is out and I'm ripping paper and gluing and happy happy happy!

Art & Play Room

Here is a link to photos of my art room now that the paint is on the walls, the curtains are hemmed and hung and the furniture is all in place. Most of the pictures are hung but they will still need some tweaking.

I tried to upload more of them here to typepad but typepad keeps crashing my browser. ARRGGGHHH

http://flickr.com/photos/feelingarty/?saved=1

 

These two photos show my immediate view while sitting at my art table. Sitting in my chair looking forward is the photo above. The photo below is what I see when I look to my right and up.....

Cheap Pens and My Art Space

  First off, I have to admit to an addiction....beyond just the addiction to collecting art supplies, I'm terribly addicted to PENS. Because there always seems to be pens in a new color or tip size or or or....whatever....you can just NEVER have enough pens!!!

If you also suffer from this addiction, you might be interested to know that I was at Big Lots today and they have American Crafts' "Ultimate Marker", "Galaxy Marker", and "Slick Writer" pens for ONE DOLLAR each! They are each in their own little individual packaging, not sold loose like at the art store. But a buck! AWE and might I add, SOME!

Also, the art room is finally feeling like a space I can work in....so I'm going to post some pictures. There are none showing the floor yet because there are still toys everywhere and a bunch of my own stuff that needs organizing....vintage suitcases, piles of notebooks, random papers, etc....those photos will follow soon (hopefully). If you want to see any of the images larger, you should be able to click them and they'll launch a separate window.

So here you can see the IKEA curtains that I got back in May that I based the color scheme on. Also, my racks of 12x12 paper. My blank canvases are stored inside this cabinet as well as other art supplies. The top of the cabinet used to hold a tv before I inheirited it and reapainted and repurposed it. Now it holds the trays of my 12 x12 scrapbook paper.

more photos to follow.....

BE MORE DARING

 

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.

Not to dare is to lose oneself.

-- Soren Kierkegaard

 

Everytime I sit down to write an article or a blog post or to stare at a blank canvas, I am afraid. Afraid that the ideas may not come, afraid that I will be disappointed in the end result, afraid that I will waste the supplies and wish that I had them to use later....

And yet, if I do not dare....there are no blog posts, no articles written (no $$ !), and bare walls because there are no canvas pieces to fill them....and worse than that, no reflection of who I am inside....the side that no one else will ever see if I do not dare to create. That is truly losing oneself.

(here is a link to the site I write articles for:

Business Idea Factory )

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.

Not to dare is to lose oneself.

-- Soren Kierkegaard

 

Everytime I sit down to write an article or a blog post or to stare at a blank canvas, I am afraid. Afraid that the ideas may not come, afraid that I will be disappointed in the end result, afraid that I will waste the supplies and wish that I had them to use later....

And yet, if I do not dare....there are no blog posts, no articles written (no $$ !), and bare walls because there are no canvas pieces to fill them....and worse than that, no reflection of who I am inside....the side that no one else will ever see if I do not dare to create. That is truly losing oneself.

(here is a link to the site I write articles for:

Business Idea Factory )

Betsy Thompson

Update on artroom:...furniture in place, paint on walls, decorations on walls, still not finished organizing so not clean enough for pictures. (ugh)

Okay, OTHER stuff ---

I have a new favorite artist! Here is a link to some of her work on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/urchinmama/

She is local (Portland, ME) which, of course, tickles my fancy. She is the featured artist at the moment on https://www.enormoustinyart.com . VERY COOL SITE. I signed up for their email list and so received a brief interview with her...she sounded like such an interesting person (loved her musical tastes) and they mentioned that she used school books in her mixed media collage work so I checked out her work, hoping to find a kindred spirit. Oooooo....loveeee her work! 

Here is a link to her site on enormous tiny art:

https://www.enormoustinyart.com/Artists/s-u/Thompson,-Betsy.aspx

And here are a couple of excerpts from her interview on enormous tiny artist:

ETA: What is your most vivid, earliest memory of encountering or creating art in your childhood?

BT: This isn't a great memory but it is vivid. I remember my elementary art teacher Mrs. Hayden. And at that point there must have been some art funding cuts because there wasn't an art room but rather "art-on-a-cart" which meant the art teacher came to the classroom with the art supplies on a cart. I think I was in 3rd or 4th grade. We were painting winter-y trees - blue paper and black trees with white snow. A child in my class painted an interesting tree with black paint: a trunk with branches sticking out of the trunk. "No," the teacher said, "no trees look like that." And then she proceeded to show the student just how trees looked. Fifteen years later I was traveling in South Africa and I saw the tree. The very tree the student had painted with branches coming straight out of the trunk. It did exist. I wasn't surprised. Somehow I knew it would. Either in reality or in the mind of the student. Did it really matter which? But it was certainly then that I realized that an idea, one person's idea, was a single perspective and neither right nor wrong.. "

"ETA: Do you listen to music while you draw/create?

BT: Yes, I rarely work without music.. At the moment I'm listening to Pandora quite a bit but I've also put together several studio mixes that include music by The Innocence Mission, Bread, Hank Dogs, Eva Cassidy, Iron & Wine, The Beatles, Mazzy Star, Coldplay, Sarah Vaughn, Andrés Segovia, Morcheeba, Nick Drake, Bach, Cat Stevens, and Imogen Heap"

Hmmm.....

If you need encouragement, praise,
pats on the back from everybody,
then you make everybody your judge.
 -- Fritz Perls

.....Hmm.....apparently I make everybody my judge.....probably not a good thing....