40 Works In 40 Days - The Halfway Point

Hi. It's March 19. It's the last day of winter 2015. I actually just realized that, just now. Tomorrow is the first day of spring. Spring: a time of new beginnings and life and color and warmth. Why is spring always so symbolic to me? Is it to you? It's like a weight being lifted, like the winter is this long, dull, tough journey, and every year it's a drag, but every year we emerge on the other side.

I remember where I was at the beginning of last spring. Heartbroken after the end of a relationship, trying my damnedest to enjoy the things I look forward to every year in the spring: walking in the woods, visiting the magnolias, photographing the whole beautiful process of the world waking up again. I was biding my time until going on a week-long cruise with my mom, which was incredible, and I came back home anew... the pain of heartbreak dulled, and life carried on.

So what's going on this year? A lot of things are different. There is no heartbreak. My little business continues to grow, but there are still hardships. I don't know what I was expecting as far as how I would be able to manage selling art as a career financially. I knew it was going to be hard, but I think I only expected it to be hard the first year. This is year three (WOW), and it's still hard. Better than before, but still something that's on my mind all the time. Will that ever stop? I don't know. Will it change my faith in what I'm doing if it's a continuous financial struggle? Nope.

What's going on this year, on the last day of winter? I'm halfway through my 40 Works In 40 Days project. I've allowed myself to take my time, and not force the inspiration when it's not there. Inspiration can be a fickle creature, and I've learned that you have to be patient with it, cultivate it. Maybe I'll make the 40 In 40 project a yearly thing, something to help pass the dead of winter. Because it really flew by. It felt SO agonizingly long last year. The heartbreak situation may have had something to do with that. Who knows. But alas, spring always arrives. We always get through it.

Okay so enough rambling. That happens a lot in the spring when my head is in the clouds. Such an inspirational time... No really, must stay on track. 40 Works in 40 Days. I've learned a lot of new things, and here is a mini trip through the first half!

It started like this:

Find prints HERE.

Because really, what are we waiting for? Why do we tend to wait for this non-existent "perfect time" to start something? "I'll wait til Monday," or "I'll wait til the beginning of the month," or "I'll wait until it's exactly 30 days away." I do it all the time. Why not start now? I was overjoyed when someone purchased the original of this piece. She included a simple note with her order; it read "Thank you passing on your inspiration." It made my day, week, month, year.

After a few days, I decided to create some bohemian ladies, one of my favorite things to create:

"Mermaid Hair" prints are available HERE and the original is still available HERE.

"Of the Forest" prints are available HERE and the original is still available HERE.

After having fun with these, I got an idea. I wanted to use book pages and pretty paper, with themes (think: stars, flowers, etc.) to create their hair. After literally pacing around my apartment trying to figure out how to create the idea in my head on paper, when it seemed like I had done something similar before, it dawned on me. Make them like a stained glass pattern. My dad does amazing beautiful wonderful stained glass. Lamps and windows in my parents' house, handmade by him. He taught me stained glass when I was younger, and while I enjoyed it, my patience is MUCH thinner than his. But now, I have figured out a way to incorporate his inspiration with my own work in these lovely ladies:

Stella (above) came first. She was the idea that started it all: a bohemian girl with starry hair. 

(You can find prints of Stella HERE and the original is available HERE.)

Since I created a Stella, I had to do an earthy Terra. Then came Flora (with flowery hair), then Aqua, made of water. Odessa came next, named after the word "odyssey" and her hair is made of maps. Flora is my favorite:

She is busy and bright and colorful and everything my college professors would have rolled their eyes at and gagged on their Starbucks over. And I love her. (Find prints of Flora HERE and the original is still available HERE.) I am going to create a friend for her, named Violet. Violet will be made of all purpley-bluey flowers. I actually have plans for about 10 more of these ladies, all with themes. Bringing them to life is so far my favorite thing I've discovered while doing this project.

After a few days, I wanted to take a break from the ladies. Making patterns for their hair, cutting the paper out, then putting them together like a puzzle is fun and even kinda zen, but I needed to switch to a looser process for a while. Of course, I gravitated towards the stars and creating fictional cosmic scenes:

"Often Wander Always Wonder" prints are available HERE and the original is still available HERE.

I also finally created a piece that I dreamed up two years ago, while I was bartending during a very slow night and doodling away on receipt paper:

"The Center" prints are available HERE and the original is still available HERE.

There are of course many more pieces that I wish I could talk about. Perhaps I should be better about blogging (how many times am I going to say that??) and I can talk about each piece in more detail. My goal is to be finished with this project by the time my mom and I leave for this year's cruise: April 17. We will be visiting Aruba, Grand Turk, the Dominican Republic, and Curacao, and I know the inspiration from those places will be begging to be released. I keep looking over at my little pile of originals and smiling. It seems that for once, I am going to finish something I started :)

Happy last day of winter everyone! We made it. Now onto spring. Life is good.

Winter Blues and Other News

Is it lame to rhyme blog post titles? Not that I would know much about blogs lately, since I haven't posted in about A HUNDRED YEARS.

I started thinking about how and why this may have happened. In the beginning, when my secret plan to quit my crappy desk job was just that, a secret, this was like my outlet. I needed to talk about the things I was feeling, so I poured my heart out... to a computer screen. But in that process, I met some amazing, encouraging people who helped me to get where I am today.

One of my goals for this year is to get back into sharing things on here. Adventures, photos, new work, new artists that I find. What once was a place where I shared my fears will now be a place where I share my inspiration. So there's that.

Backtracking a bit, a little over two years ago when I first quit my job, I was laying in bed, awake and mid-panic attack in the wee hours of the morning. Thoughts of money, instability, and an uncertain future were choking me. What had I done? Left a job that paid well to do something that most people don't even credit as a job? Eventually I calmed down and decided to turn my balled up, worried energy into something positive, and began a project that I called 40 Works In 40 Days (you can read it HERE). Which went great... for a while. Are you one of those people who has a real problem finishing what you start? Yeah... me too. My project went uncompleted, and I honestly still shame myself over it from time to time.

Soooo, now here we are in the dreaded dead of winter, the time of year that just makes everyone cringe. I have lots of wonderful travel plans lined up for the spring, which may make this time drag by even more painfully slowly. I decided I need a project. One that I swear on all that I know I WILL FINISH. To prove to myself that I can, to have something to focus on rather than the cold and snow and ice and slush, and to complete something I can be proud of. One of my favorite artists, Mae Chevrette, did a 30 Works In 30 Days project last year and it was such a joy to watch her challenge herself. So I'm trying again, from the beginning. More on all this later.

Back to winter. While the fresh blanket of snow that fell last night is definitely beautiful, I am already longing for color, leaves, green grass, and flowers. My Adobe Lightroom library has about 4700 photos in it, some organized, some not, and getting lost in them is a regular happening during these months. Revisiting old adventures and favorite places, remembering what I was thinking and feeling... it's a little journey I can take without leaving my desk. Here are some of my favorite memories and places:

Summer adventures at the Dawes Arboretum. Hours spent wandering the gardens, orchards, and woods. This place has everything: a swing by a lake, a cute old farmhouse with lace curtains, Japanese gardens, hiking trails, an overgrown old well, flowery meadows... Read that as Stefon from Saturday Night Live would say it ;)

Dawes in the spring is equally beautiful, and there was one day last year that I sat in the grass under the blooming apple trees just overcome with how amazing the world is.

Speaking of spring, It is also when I go on one of my favorite adventures. To my "secret place." Which really isn't secret at all, because it is off of a well-traveled bike trail. But I still think of it that way. A place in the woods where little yellow flowers carpet the ground, and each year it is just as magical as the last.

And also in the spring... the magnolias. The ever-impressive, beautiful magnolias.

There's another arboretum in northeast Ohio, in a tiny town called Kirtland. Holden Arboretum is quite a drive from Columbus, but I've made the journey a couple of times now:

And going the opposite direction, down into southeast Ohio, there is a dreamy place called Clear Creek Metro Park. I've only been once, on a gorgeous summer day where there wasn't another human for miles. Sunny meadows, rushing water, thick woods... I can't wait to go back this year:

Lastly, I always have to revisit my beloved Hobbit Trail experience. A surreal, mossy forest on the Oregon Coast that I WILL return to sooner than later: 

Aaaaand then I look outside and see white, with some brown and gray mixed in for good measure. 54 Days until spring, 145 until summer, and plenty of time for me to finish one ambitious creative project :)

31 Candles.

Birthdays are so weird. Especially in today's age of constant connectedness with cell phones and social media. Your phone goes off like crazy all day... calls, texts, 1000 Facebook alerts from people that you rarely hear from. Unexpected sweet messages. Unexpected, sweet phone calls that make you feel like you are doing something right. It's weird, but it's nice to have an excuse to feel important for a day.

Again on my birthday this year, I found myself thinking back to when I turned 29. That was the year that winter never really showed up, and on March 22 spring was in full bloom. I was working my 9-5 job, and was about to enter into a summer that I knew would change my life. I worked on my birthday, then went to my favorite cemetery afterwards to take pictures. (I know... Who spends their birthday alone in a cemetery, right?) I wandered around thinking about what was about to come: putting in my notice at work, leaving my job, embarking on my biggest (and possibly craziest) adventure yet. So many doubts had started to kick in at that point. This is one of my favorite photos that came out of that day:

Year 30 was a pretty big one for me. It's mind-boggling to sit here and think about all of the things that have happened. This was my first entire year of being a self-employed artist. My little Etsy shop is creeping towards 900 sales. Then will come 1000. It's truly astonishing to me, to think that weird little things I make in my studio are admired enough by people that they purchase them, and hang them in their homes. They give them as gifts. Sometimes people ask me to include little notes to the recipient, and being able to do something so personal and special is overwhelming. And that's my job? Wow.

This year I crossed some things off of my bucket list, including taking a road trip up the west coast. I had never even seen the Pacific Ocean before! My friend Amber and I flew into LA and made our way up Highway 1 to Portland. We saw the Hollywood sign (and oh yes, totally sang the Miley Cyrus song quietly in the back of our taxi), visited wine country, saw Big Sur, hiked in an Oregon forest, saw the Mrs. Doubtfire house in San Francisco... Made memories that will last a lifetime.

This year I got to travel with my family to New York to visit all of our extended family. It was the first time in years that all five of us went together - family road trip! That car ride brought back so many memories; we used to drive every summer from Springboro, Ohio to Schenectady to visit our family after we moved away from Syracuse. Then being in my Grandmas' houses is like being in a memory tornado. We have a big awesome family full of gifted story-tellers, so there is always laughter. Especially when my mom's brothers get together. Watch out.

I also went to the Outer Banks for the second year in a row with my brothers and their friends. This trip is also special to me because the first time I went, it was right after I quit my job. I packed up my office, left the building, and went straight to my brother's place and we started to drive. I could go on and on about the symbolism... but I won't ;)

The summer of my 30th year was one of the best summers of my life. Not because it was a constant party full of drinking and minor criminal mischief like the summers of my earlier 20's, but because I spent it taking little weekly adventures to take photos. Metro parks, state parks, gardens, arboretums - you name it. I sketched by the pool, I walked by the river at night. I lived slowly, and purposefully. Not just letting the days go by, but being sure to live all of them. And never forgetting to be grateful that I am doing what I love.

This year I also opened my heart to someone, for the first time in ages. It was kind of a weird crazy whirlwind: two completely different people living two completely different lives. When it came down to it, we actually had next to nothing in common except for this electric attraction to each other. There's this old Indigo Girls song that says, "The dice were loaded from the start. And I bet... And you exploded into my heart." It's a pretty terrible song (although I do love the Indigo Girls), but those words sum up this situation so well. These situations tend to end badly, and this one definitely did. And I am definitely still reeling from it, trying to process everything that happened, and sort through everything that I am feeling. As much as it sucks right now, I don't regret a thing.

This year I traveled to Chicago a bunch of times to visit my friend Amber. The local photo lab that processed and printed all of my photos closed its doors. (Shoutout to Cord Camera on 5th Avenue in Grandview. You guys were awesome to me. Thank you.) I saw two wonderful friends get married (okay... I saw the reception because I missed my flight which caused me to miss the wedding). I got through my first big Etsy holiday rush. My microwave exploded when I was standing five feet away from it. Someone tried to break into my apartment for the first time ever - when I was home too! I designed a tattoo for a friend I met through Etsy. My work was published in a book for the first time. I experienced my first case of crappy internet backlash about my work - and I survived it, let it go, and moved on.

It's crazy to think about. One year.

And now I can't stop wondering what this year will bring. It is starting off pretty awesome, with a cruise for my mom and I in April! We both have never been on a cruise before and are super excited; we'll be visiting Belize, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Honduras. All new places for me. Spring is taking its sweet time this year, but I think that yesterday was the last of the snow that we will see, and today looks like it may be the last bitterly cold day. I cannot wait to be able to work with the windows and my patio door open.

Speaking of work. I've been doing a lot of it lately, and will end with the last creations of my 30th year:

"A Skilled Sailor"

"Divenire"

"Scattering Stars Like Dust"

"Snow Jar"

"The Universe Was Ours"

"Moon Garden"

"Wild Hearts (Can't Be Broken)"

Finding Beauty In A World of Gray

Whoa. It's been a while since I've written a blog post. This time of year is so bleak; I get swept up in it and spend too much time dreaming of warmer days rather than living in the moment. January and February are admittedly my least favorite months. It seems like the world has no color, the sun seldom shines, and days spent outside are some kind of faraway dream.

This part of winter just sucks.

But... there's also something about it that makes us think of bigger things. Fantasize about warmer days. There is this hope that comes in the spring, when the world starts to thaw and bloom and breathe.

I've been completely lost in my own thoughts lately, to the point that when I'm driving I've completely passed my destination, I've spent almost an hour wandering the grocery store only to leave with one thing (wine, usually), and today I accidentally maced myself. Yeah. That actually happened.

Life is so funny, how it unfolds itself to us. I remember being in 12th grade English class, with everyone talking excitedly about graduation and college. One week early in the year, the guidance counselor set up a desk outside the door and called us out one by one, to talk about college plans, what we wanted to major in, what we wanted to do with our future.

I had no clue. I knew I wanted to go to Ohio State. Major? Yeah right. Absolutely no idea. It seemed like everyone else knew... they wanted to be a teacher, or a physical therapist, or an attorney. I felt like some kind of freak, like I was the only one who didn't know.

But life unfolded for me the way it was supposed to, and after a wild few years of bartending after college, then a miserable few years of a desk job following that, I am where I'm supposed to be. I found my way. And we all do somehow. We just have to trust our instincts, keep moving forward, keep doing what feels right in the moment. In the end it will lead us where we are supposed to be.

Finding love seems to be unfolding the same way for me... an unknown journey that differs from everyone else's.

I thought a lot about that while wandering through Three Creeks Metropark today. After weeks of being buried in snow, temperatures warmed up this week, everything started to melt, and once again we could see the grass. Today the weather called for 55 and sunny. My cabin fever was seriously at fever-pitch. Time for one of the mini adventures that I live for in the warmer months.

There's still snow and ice. There's mud everywhere. The landscape is a muted mix of brown and gray. But today the air smelled sweet and the sun felt magical. I started walking with no map, purposely getting lost, and felt like I could breathe again.

I've never dangled my feet off of a dock over a frozen lake. Lately I have these dreams about sitting on the end of a dock with someone, a man. We are dipping our feet in icy water, and the sky above us is just exploding with stars. I have no idea who he is, but in the dream, I am head over heels in love with him.

No one else was braving the muddy and often flooded unpaved trails but me (story of my life haha), and the complete solitude of being the only human being in the woods was energizing. Good thing I wore boots, because the mud was not messing around.

At one point I crossed a bridge, and there was a couple standing on it together. Hugging so tight that you couldn't fit a piece of paper between them. Just looking out at the water, the muddy, gross brown water, and smiling. They matched my thoughts. I wanted that. I wanted to be doing the same thing with someone. I almost asked to take their picture, but felt shy about it and didn't want to seem like a creeper.

I probably stared at this frozen puddle for ten minutes. Good thing no one else was around to call the men in white coats. It just looked like a weird martian world or something. It was beautiful.

Little moments, frozen in time. Kind of like memories.

Finding love has never been my forte. Pretty much any situation that even somewhat resembles a relationship that I get into results in disaster. After this happened a few too many times for my liking, I just gave up on it. I wanted to find myself, my purpose in this random world that we are all living in. No time for anyone else.

I always think back to high school. I swear half of my graduating class married each other. All the people who told the guidance counselor with such affirmation what they wanted to do with their lives, at age 18. They had jobs two months after graduating college, were married a year after that, and had kids a year later. At age 25, so many people were settled into a one-way track that was never going to deviate.

I never wanted that.

But it's funny... Now that I have figured out what I want to be doing, and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's the right thing, I want someone to share it with.

I was seeing this guy for a while. I guess that's what it's called. Seeing. (Remember I'm not good at this.) From the very beginning, I felt hesitant to go all-in. Spending time with him was great and he was warming me up to all of these ideas that I had previously locked up and threw away the key. But there was something holding me back.

Turns out there was a very solid reason, a very solid something, causing those feelings... which I found out about months after we had been seeing each other. It was something that made me realize what I was, what I wasn't, and what I probably never would be to him. But after finding that out, and after three days of misery, a steady diet of nothing but wine, and blasting November Rain (it happened in November) on repeat, I sent a text. And we kept on seeing each other.

Sometimes you just have to do what feels good. Even if it doesn't make sense. If it feels good, just go with it. Just be sure to keep an open mind and pay attention.

And again, life has unfolded in the weird, mysterious way it always seems to for me. Because now I have realized that I want more. All of the things I have sworn off in the past: putting all of your faith into one person, opening up to someone unabashedly, letting someone pay for my dinner. I want that. I want a partner in crime. Someone to go on random adventures with, whether that be hikes in the mud or a random trip to Belize. I want someone who I will fight fiercely for, and he will do the same for me. Someone to talk about everything and nothing with. Someone to walk to the edge of the world for. Someone to travel with world with.

Am I jumping on match.com in order to expedite this process immediately? No way. But the fact that my mind is now open to letting someone inside has already made the world even more exciting. Maybe I'll go to the store and find love in the frozen food section. Who knows. I think my mom is even more excited about this idea than I am. We are going on a cruise together in April and she said, "Maybe you will find him on the ship!" That would be awesome. Because I want a story. It's amazing to me that someone could be out there right now, and we are living not knowing that each other exists.

I keep seeing the ice and snow melting as this big metaphoric thing.

Also... the recent passing of Valentine's Day and seeing a romantic love story with my friend Lizzie (we have a Valentine's Day tradition - we spend it together) has only fueled the fire to these feelings. And now spring is coming?? I am completely swept up in the thoughts of a reckless summer love. Even if it ends in disaster. I just want to try. 

There's this song called San Francisco by a band called The Mowgli's, and it starts out like this:

I've been in love with love
And the idea of something
Binding us together
You know that love is strong enough
And I've seen time tell tales 
about that systematic drug
Yeah, that heart that beats as one
It's collectively, unconsciously composed.

That's exactly how I am feeling right now. 25 days until spring, and I could not be more excited about what lies ahead.