Athena Dreams Design

Place of Reflection .:. Corner View

Just as some of my best thoughts come to me in the shower, my best reflecting happens when I am out walking on the mountain. The air is sweet, the grasses rustling, birds in conversation, the sky opening out in front of me, and the dusty trail keeps my feet on the path. I usually bring a small notebook or sketch pad, and write down ideas for paintings, possible solutions for a design job that has been troubling me, or just some words about the present moment. These thoughts and reflections that happen when walking, almost always get used in some way, shape or form.

Some days the skies are clear, some days the fog is laying gently on the hills, and other days there is a misty rain: but each and every day that I make it out onto a trail, my day is better for doing it. Getting away from the phone and the computer, and my never ending to do list, and the general distractions of a life; and putting one foot in front of the other, moving through the landscape, and remembering that breathing is essential for keeping my head clear and my heart light, then let the reflecting begin.

Now if only I could develop a waterproof pen and paper that is impervious to water, and all my great shower thoughts could be remembered in detail instead of forgotten in the foggy midst of waking up in the morning.

Where do you do your best reflecting?

For see more Places of Reflection, visit here.

June to July .:. Monthly Goals with Modish Biz Tips

So June was short and sweet. My focus was working on promoting the etsy shop, and my work. 

JUNE Goals:

1. Look for some more ways to promote my shop that are not the paid for kind. Send out more e-mails to folks asking them if they would be interested in writing about my work.  
2. Website Re-Design, back on again, third time's a charm (?) 
3. Develop editorial calendar with regular column ideas for the blog

#1: I sent out e-mails to 15 blog sites that cover art/artists, and got responses from all but one that they would have a look at my work and get back to me. Nothing for sure, but it was a really good start I think, and I am feeling more comfortable approaching people and writing some words about my art and my work.

#2: Website. Got some ideas together and realised that I want to re-think how I want/need to use a website to show my artwork. There are a lot more questions I need to answer for myself before I jump into a big re-design. And, this is not a stall. I realised as I was sketching up some ideas  that the whole time I was sketching, I was thinking to myself: what is the web site for, and I couldn't answer the question. So, more questions to ask of myself.

#3 Blog. No streamlined editorial calendar developed but a bunch of ideas for topics I want to start doing as series. 

JULY Goals:

1. Send out 15-20 more e-mails to blogs who cover art and artists
2. Work on developing web site that will work for my art as well as tying together etsy shop, and blog 
3. Work up ideas for the 3 different series of posts for blog: goal is to launch first series in early August: So You Want to Be a Freelance Designer 
4. Write and send out my first newsletter by 15 July. Plan ahead, and send out once a month at mid month
5. Create 3 new card sets for the shop.  
6. Update the shop with new prints of paintings 
7. And finally, remind myself in the lulls of activity, that there are so many others out there doing and trying and experimenting and learning and working with their art, with their craft, with their skills and with their full hearts... I may not know them all by name, but they are out there, and there is huge comfort in that.

Word for the Year .:. A Peek Halfway Through

airy • buoyant • effervescent • elastic • expansive • hardy • irrepressible • pliable • quick to recover • rebounding • rolling with punches • rubbery • snapping back • springy • stretchy • strong • supple • tough

Back in January I chose the word Resilient as my word of the year. I talked about taking more chances, stretching and growing in my life and in my art, creating new connections and deepening existing ones, and I talked about letting go of my need for validation from others. So, I wondered this morning, how am I doing with this year's word?  And so the list:

1. I have submitted art to 5 group shows and am working on sending out packages to galleries who are looking for solo artists to show. I have felt strong about all the submissions, not over-confident, not cocky and "I've got it in the bag" but really good.  
2. Turned down design work that I just don't want to do anymore in order to make more time for painting. It is time, it needs to happen, and I did it, but I had to shush the voice that kept chattering in my head about "what if you never get paying work again". I will, and I can't listen to that voice anymore. It's a tired old voice that really has nothing important to say to me.
3. Talking to people about my art. This is a funny one, and I thought I was doing better with it, but it's probably 40-60. There is a shyness, a tenderness, a fearfulness that all coalesce around the worry that people won't like my work. And you know, I think to myself this morning, some won't. And I need to make peace with that one. (NOTE to SELF: Let Go of the Need for Validation from Others)
4. Advertising, showing in on-line galleries and sending out promo e-mails to blogs that review and show artists work. Started out slow with the promo stuff, but have gotten into a fun rhythm with it, and have gotten responses from just about everyone that I sent mail to, no firm dates to review, but it's a step forward. 

And moving away from the list, and on to what is happening "inside", the main feeling I keep coming back to when I think about my Word for 2009 is: Just Be Myself. 

The ability to be Resilient

to bounce back

to be and feel buoyant and effervescent

to rebound and recover from the tough moments

to balance supple and stretchy with tough and strong

to strive to embody the word expansive

all come from the desire and the ability and the "work" to be my self 

as truly and honestly and fully as I possibly can. 

So, when put that way, any fearfulness, any shyness about showing my art, talking about my art, writing about my art is just plain and simple bull shit. There. I said it. 

Resilience = Be Myself. Full stop. Now move along and Be True.

OK, so that's me half way through a Year of Resilience. 

Does anyone else do a Word of the Year and want to share their journey? 

Corner View .:. Music

In our little corner of the world the summer music festival season kicks off with the Fairfax Festival. What is that phrase? Something about where have all the "old" hippies gone? Well, all the hippies, young and old, seem to congregate in Fairfax in the month of June.

 

It's a wonderful weekend of music and dancing and tie-die and little tents filled with wares from local artists and crafters, and if you stand very still and smell the summer breezes, you can catch a whiff of that green herb floating through the air.

This is the weekend that always feels like summer has officially begun: barefeet, summer dresses, hawaiian shirts and dancing in the park.

Mmm-hmmm, music and summer are in the air.

Want to see more corner views around the world? Visit Jane here.

Some Things You Might Want to Know

For the month of June I have been spotlighted over on Jena's blog Modish. This is the last week of discounts at my etsy shop, through the Modish blog. So stop on over to Jena's Modish and read all about it! 

And since we are on the topic of Modish, some of you may have read my monthly goal posts and linked back to Jena's other blog Modish BizTips where she has organised a group meet up to help keep us all accountable with our "to-do", "need-to-do", and "i-really-want-to-do-but..." lists. Many of you noticed the top thing on my list for the month of June: 

Look for some more ways to promote my shop that are not the paid for kind. Send out more e-mails to folks asking them if they would be interested in writing about my work.  

And asked me to let them know how that went. Well, bring it on Jena... she recently did an Etsy Virtual Lab about how to submit your work to Bloggers. If you missed it, you can read her recap, and see the cutest video grabs of her talking, as well as follow the links to an incredibly generous and informative list of submission sources and a step by step tutorial on how to approach bloggers about your work.

With her design and style blog Modish, Jena is one of the most supportive voices out there for the handmade-artist-community. And with her new-er blog she has opened up even more opportunity and information for the creative business entrepreneur.

Visit Jena's blogs, and don't forget to check out the Modish discount at my etsy shop that runs for the rest of June.  

Corner View .:. "Street Fashion"

Street fashion . . . usually you think of what people out and about on the street are wearing, this street fashion is all about what the streets were wearing in my neighborhood this weekend . . . 

The Italian Street Painting Festival! The center of downtown is all blocked off to traffic and artists move in for 2 days to create amazing work on the street with chalks. I always spend a few hours walking around while the artists are still "painting" and hordes of people are milling and watching, but truly, my favourite part of the event is Monday morning when the barricades are taken down and the cars and bicycles start driving on the roads.

Yes, a little eerie, especially early in the morning, but there is also something quite magical and freeing. It's kind of akin to the tradition of the Tibetan Mandala Sand Painting where a beautiful piece of art is created and then destroyed - all to reflect the impermanence of life.

In this case, perhaps the symbolism is less about demonstrating the impermanence of life, and more about life just goes on, and people have to get to work on a Monday morning . . .  

I have never driven on top of these paintings, but I do go downtown almost every year on the Monday morning after, to look at the images fading and watch the car tires turning all different colours of chalk. It's kind of fascinating to watch, but I don't think I could drive my car over them.  

And, the one piece remaining mostly intact, in the driveway of the Mission School . . .  "street fashion" in my neighborhood this week.

For more Corner Views, visit here.

More Thoughts on Time from Someone Wiser than I

This week I have been revisiting a favourite book - Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte. His thoughts about time, work and creativity in this book are a beautiful melody sung with a pitch perfect tenor voice (in my mind), and they sum up beautifully my thoughts this week about time. Time to create, time to do the things that need to be done in this life, and time to experience the spaciousness of how we can experience the time of our lives...

Our relationship to time has become corrupted exactly because we allow ourselves very little experience of the timeless. We speak continually of saving time, but time in its richness is most often lost to us when we are busy without relief . . . We speak of stealing time as if it no longer belonged to us. We speak of needing time as if it wasn't around us already in every moment. We want to make time for ourselves as if it were in our power to do so. Time is the conversation with absence and visitation, the frontier between ourselves and those we love; the hours become ripe with happening only when we are attentive, patient and present. 

-David Whyte, from Crossing the Unknown Sea

Attention

Patience

Presence

Could it be that these are the ingredients for living a life filled with a spaciousness, a connection, a depth, a breadth and an appreciation for all the time we truly have? 

Could it be that revelling in any brief moments of stillness - rather than filling every moment to the brim with movement, sound and colour - could it be that the stillness might bring us back to feeling that the days are as long and timeless as those dreamy summer afternoons of being a child. A child with a whole day in front of him or her, and no plans but to play?

Note to Self: Add some Stillness to the Time Budget and see what might happen.

"Spending" Time .:. A New Life Budget

This pile of laundry has been sitting here since Sunday. It is clean, it is (was) fresh off the line, or out of the dryer. Some was folded while talking on the phone, then the conversation ended, and so did the folding. And as you can see nothing made it to a drawer or a closet.

We have already begun to fish through the pile for a pair of socks, a t-shirt, some jeans, or a towel. Folding laundry is not the way I want to spend my time this week. Have you ever thought about the concept of spending time in the same way you would think about how you are spending your money? Well, I have been. A lot.

With 2 self-employed people, one household, no children, and an occasional stray cat, some months we have a surplus of money, other months not, and so we have defined for ourselves a budget of sorts. 

This is loosely how the "budget" works: 

• We each have a list of things we want. 
• We each have a list of things that we need. 
• When there is a surplus, we each get to choose something from one of our two lists. 
• When there is no surplus, nothing is bought from any list, but bills are paid, and there is food in the fridge and gas in our cars, and etc and etc.

So, again, maybe not so much a budget, but the system works for us.

So, now if I apply this same idea to Time, what would the options be? 

Here's my First Draft:

• I have a list of work deadlines I must meet.  
• I have a list of things that I want to experiment with, play with, paint on and otherwise create in my painting studio or on my computer. These are things I may never be paid for, these are things that no one else may ever see, and yet, I must do them, for my own happiness and peace of mind.
• Then there is the list of general things that must be done, let's call them chores. Much like the list of things that I want to experiment with and etc.: I may never be paid for them, no one may completely notice that I accomplished them, and in a few hours/days/weeks, they will all need to be done again, and yet, since we do like clean clothes, dishes, and etc., this list will continue to be done, though perhaps a little differently [Exhibit A: Clean Laundry Reclining on a Couch]. 
• And, when there is a surplus of Time, I will look at my 2 lists: Art things I want to do with that time, and Chore things I might need to do with that time, and I will choose one.

When I detailed this Time Budget out in my head I thought that Chores might never make it on to the Surplus Time list, but look here, I managed to strike a balance: the clothes are clean, just not put away, and a new watercolour series has been started that perhaps someone will see. 

Time budgets anyone?

May to June .:. Monthly Goal Meet up with Modish Biz Tips

My May Goals List was:

1. Spend at least 5 hours a week looking at ways to market/advertise my Etsy shop and increase monthly sales by 7%

2. Re-design my design website and create a new art website

3. Re-brand etsy shop 

(and I redesigned the Blog along with the shop, AND it will give me a jumping off point for the art website design). Not something on my list, but it needed to be done simultaneously. (extra point?). Also developed a mailing list for a soon to come monthly newsletter.

4. Develop an editorial calendar/weekly ideas and post more regularly to my blog

----------------

#1 I did the first half and am back with my etsy shop on Paper n Stitch, am advertising on Modish for May and June (thanks Jena), participated in Jen Wallace's Feed Your Soul project on Indie Fixx, and am running a couple of different specials in my shop. So things have been started, but I realised that the percentage of increased sales was not realistic given I just started advertising (again).

As to #4 I did NOT develop an editorial calendar, but I have been posting more regularly, so I will put one half of #4 back on my June goals.

JUNE Goals:

1. Look for some more ways to promote my shop that are not the paid for kind. Send out more e-mails to folks asking them if they would be interested in writing about my work.  
2. Website Re-Design, back on again, third time's a charm (?) 
3. Develop editorial calendar with regular column ideas for the blog

I am going to leave it at that for this month. So, for June I am all about promoting my work, and making more contacts. OK, Go June!

[You can participate in the Monthly Goal Meetup by visiting Jena at Modish Biz Tips]

A Little Renovation Goes a Long Way

More often than not a little cleaning up, dusting off, some furniture rearranged, maybe some new curtains and a different throw rug make you feel completely different about a room that you spend lots of time in. It always makes me feel happier and, lighter. But then this is coming from a girl who as a kid rearranged her bedroom every Sunday morning for many many years.

I have now discovered that blog renovations have the same happy effect on my disposition. And so, in honour of the blog re-design, and the addition of my soon to be new Monthly Newsletter (see button over there to the left), for the month of June I am offering discounts on all the product in my Etsy shop. Sign up for the newsletter, and you will receive a coupon by e-mail, easy!

Hope you all are having a happy start to June!