Athena Dreams Design

Don't Walk .:. Sometimes a Good Sign

This morning, in the midst of accomplishing a hiddledy-piggledy list of: 

• things that must be done 
• places that must be visited 
• items that must be delivered.

I was stopped at a crosswalk looking at the red flashing Don't Walk imperative, and wishing I had stepped up to the curb a few seconds earlier so that I might have had time to run for it.  And then I stopped, collected my thoughts, told myself to settle down, that I still had time to accomplish all my musts, and then I looked around the intersection. 

Cars. Bicycles. Pedestrians across the street from me also waiting to cross. The sun shining, a perfect breeze blowing down from the mountain. And to my left, sitting at the same light that I was standing at, a creamy coloured 21st century VW bug, with a bright orange and gold flower resting in the Bug's flower cup.

It made me smile. A big uncontrollable smile, full of teeth with lips stretched wide. I smiled at the driver, and she nodded at me with a little grin.

And then I looked again at the driver, and thought: I know her. Looked again, thinking maybe it was an old friend, and realised it was Anne Lamott. 

You see, I have been re-reading her book Bird by Bird this past week. Reading again all the notes and marks I have made inside the book during previous read-throughs, and laughing out loud (with her) and delving ever more deeply into her writing, her ideas, and thinking about my own writing, my own art. 

This read through I have been circling back and then back again to her chapter on Perfectionism. It is a chapter I have made copious notes in before. For me, it is a chapter that has volumes to teach.

. . . Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently I'm sure) forget to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here—and, by extension, what we're supposed to be writing [creating]. -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird [my parentheses]

I tell you this story because I think we all have those little moments, unexpected and yet small little sparks that turn an otherwise lackluster, dreary, or even just regular old day into something that has an edge of magical serendipity to it.  The difficult part is recognizing that moment of kismet, that millisecond of magic that can change your whole outlook. Recognising the signs that are meant for us is the trick, and in this case Don't Walk has never looked so fortuitously good to me.

And so, that moment at the crosswalk has made me want to begin the weekend differently. Friday is usually clean up day: put things away, neaten up the piles, decide if I really need all those supplies out on my painting table. I have made a huge mess in my studio this afternoon and I am not cleaning it up. Not today, nor tomorrow, not even the next day. 

This weekend has been deemed the Weekend of Making Messes. I am daring myself not to pick up even one little piece of paper, not to put one book away on the shelf. I am daring myself to look more clearly at all the things I want to be doing/creating with my life. And for you reading: I wish you too, a weekend of happy, creative, discovery-filled soul-lifting mess. 

Oh, and the pile of laundry on the bedroom floor that has begun to growl at me when I walk past, I'm planning to ignore that too . . .

Visiting the Underworlds

Recently, a friend who had been out of touch for a little while wrote and told me that she had been visiting the underworlds and would let me know when she surfaced again. I quickly wrote back to her saying something like: I hope the swimming is good. I thought, but didn't write, that perhaps I had seen her down in the turquoise depths, amid the shimmering kelp and coral and sand, because I have been a bit in the netherworlds myself: This trip, the underworlds have been a balm. 

There are times gone past in anyone's life that can be pointed to as pivotal moments for change, for growth, for the beginnings of new and different dreams, or for the realisation of a long-held dream, and also, that moment that life pulls the rug out. You all have those kind of moments that you look back on, right?

I am guessing that for this period of my life I will look back and say: "oh, yeah, that was the time that all those carefully constructed walls that I had been building for various and sundry reasons, pretty much all my life, they all started coming down. And when I say coming down, I don't mean toppling over, or being deluged by a big wave, I mean, they are dismantling themselves, stone by brick by mortar by plank. They are taking themselves apart, and neatly piling the materials safely out of sight.

And so, my response? I am swimming, not drowning, but steadily swimming: Deep under the shadowy waters, gliding with the fishes. Then long stretches of the crawl, with treading water rest breaks, followed by the slow rhythms of the breast stroke, and when I want a different view, I spend some time with the back stroke, or even the side stroke.

I find myself wanting to look for markers a long the way, maybe a buoy, or some shipwreck remains, but I am practicing not looking for them. In fact, if I glimpse anything from the corner of my eye, I have been turning away. Any markers that I might find along this way were put up by someone else who maybe traveled this same body of water, in order to help whoever might come after them, but my brief glimpses over those walls that are coming down have confirmed my suspicions: It's about finding my Own Way, not following someone else's.

I feel myself starting to swim for shore, and I quickly pull myself back under, thinking: Not Yet. But somehow, when the body wants to surface, there's nothing that can hold it back. There are things to be done. There are thoughts to think through. There are building materials to be put away, and there are so many things that I can see sparkling, just ahead. For today though, it's a lazy back stroke back to shore, and a look around to see what might be waiting.

Staying on (a) Path - Monthly Goals

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement."   My new greeting cards  just in from the overseas printer... and such a fitting quote for this post topic...

Here is the lofty list of goals I created for myself for April. 

1. Paint all day, one day a week, and see if I can make time for that.

2. Organise and clean studio AND then keep my working spaces clutter-free and organised

3. Spend at least 5 hours a week looking at ways to market my Etsy shop and increase monthly sales by 15%

4. Re-brand etsy shop and re-design my design website and create a new art website

5. Research and submit work for group shows

6. Advertise and market my design work and get 2-5 new freelance clients for smaller end jobs

7. Develop an editorial calendar and post more regularly to my blog

8. Keep up to date with expenses and tax records

9. Create and post new paper product for the 2 Marketplaces I paid for at Etsy for April

10. Find an intern or assistant to help with some of the design production work*

11. Allot more time to work on developing designs for an exciting collaborative project with another artist

Overall a B- I'd say, eh, maybe a C+. I noticed as I was crossing off the did-do's, that the ones that remain un-done are the ones that I have historically always avoided: marketing and business plans. So, apparently I need to add to my May goals, "do not avoid the things that make you nervous". 

And so my May Goals List, which I will make shorter and much to the point:

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

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

OK, there it is. Marketing 101 here I come...

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