Sticky Fingers

This ATC project of my sisters has turned out to be the best thing ever for me in terms of getting creative juices flowing.  Making a very small piece of art is so much less intimidating than the big high-pressure projects that I had take on in the last couple of years.  Initially, I feared that the single-subject of ocean themed would prove to be difficult because it is a topic I never, ever incorporate into the kind of art that I make.  But is has forced me out of my comfort zone and actually proven to be fun and stress free!

Today I got out some of the blank ATCs that I bought a long time ago, not really knowing how to use them.  One package said they were meant for acrylic paint, so I painted them.  This is such an experiment for me.  I feel like I'm cheating on some of the ATCs because these are for little kids and I remember what my kids liked at that age - sparkles!  I broke down and bought some of those Jolee's boutique stickers that are meant to be used for scrapbook pages, figuring it would help me get started.  I've painted a few backgrounds, collaged a pinch of paper and then used the stickers on them.  I'll work toward weaning myself off of the stickers, but at least I've produced a few ATCs for the project.  That's a step in the right direction.  They're silly, but I had fun with paper, paint, glue and glitter and that counts for something right now while dealing with the stress of selling and (eventually) buying a new house.

Saying no to making a big art commitment to the holiday auction this year was hard at first, but I just couldn't do it.  The stress of trying to balance creative time with keeping a house model perfect for selling would have caused me to burst into flames.  This is a manageable project with limited mess (not quite so limited since the house has now sold), and I can continue to make ATCs even when we move into our temporary little rental house and I'm having to commute with my son to his school here in our "old" home town. 

I'm a much happier mom and feeling more like an artist this week.  I'm making cheesy art, but it's art :-)

I Made Something!

It was hard to focus today.  We are at day 13 of a 30 day escrow in selling our house, the first house we've ever sold.  My nerves are shot.  Today is the day that the buyers had to either lift all contingencies off the house, or throw in the towel.  And at the 11th hour, they decided they wanted a camera inspection of the sewer line.  Really?  Since more people would be tromping through the house today, my wonderful husband got up early and, before his dentist appointment, cleaned as fast as he could so that I would save myself from further back injury and I would have time to maybe make something while dudes were scoping out the sewer line.

It was hard to work with men grunting and groaning as they dragged themselves under the house.  It was even harder to concentrate when they came in asking if they could flush the toilet a few times because there was bathroom tissue over the camera lens.  I chuckled in the studio for a long time over that one.

Distractions aside, I decided to try to make some oceanic-themed ATC's for my sister's friend's project (the one where the cards will be given to school kids as an award of some type).  At first, I regressed to old bad habits, Googling ocean themed ATC's.  Then I shut down the computer and dug out my box of blank ATCs.  What a happy surprise to find a few where I'd already applied paint as a starting point.  I finally had to admit that a bunch of elementary school kids across the country just weren't going to bust my chops about my work, and so I was just going to have fun.  I was thinking about when my daughter moved to Australia to study for a portion of her junior year of college, and all of her tales of jellyfish and barracuda and all other manner of scary biting and stinging beasts when she was getting her dive license in the Great Barrier Reef and I was inspired!  I'm an amateur, but an amateur having a good time making art today and not beating myself up because it isn't commercial.  It was just fun.  The only way I'm going to get better at anything is to keep trying.  Heaven knows they can't get any worse, right? 

Being creative in an area that is way, way, way out of my comfort zone is hard.  Sharing the pictures is even harder.  If I don't give it a try, I'll remain a scaredy-cat and I want to stop feeling so tentative and nervous about not being great at art.  What the heck.  I made something today, even though it was a tiny and silly something, and that's more than I've done in quite a while.

Selling the Studio

Most of my art supplies are either in storage or hidden away so that the house would look perfect and clean while prospective buyers tromped through.  This isn't my home any longer.  It's my house, but not my home and not really my studio.  It's a room with a desk, a partially filled bookshelf and a cabinet with my art supplies hidden behind polka-dotted wrapping paper in the glass windows.

It was hard to have to remove all signs of art with a single exception (a painting too large and delicate to move or store).  Frustrated by the realtor's and stager's suggestion to "put a mirror or a simple print" over the fireplace and find nothing but junk or items too heavy to hang, I decided to make something.  It was pretty funny, actually, as I flipped through the pages of a book about encaustic work that I acquired with the intention of learning how to do it.  There was a simple piece that inspired me, so I raced off to Michael's and bought a canvas.  Working on the outdoor table, I quickly painted the surface, let it dry, then mixed more acrylic with a heavier body medium for texture and scraped it over the first layer.  Fine line details were added with a paint pen, and remnants of handmade paper proved perfect to whack up and apply with a matte medium.  I think I spent a total of fifteen minutes on this cheesy quick piece to fill a space on the wall.  The best part is that my funny husband wants to frame and keep it.

How fun to make something like a kid, not worrying about what anyone would think and just getting messy for a while!  I am inspired.

So the house hunting begins.  It will take 30 days from today for the house to transfer title to the new owners and we hand over the keys.  I love that fact that every house we look at to consider buying, the first thing my husband asks is which room would be best for a studio.

This is going to be a wild month.

Contractor's Silent Motto

Spray now, say "Oops" later and spend less time on the job.  I think that's it.

These last two weeks have been spent entirely in looney mode.  The only art I've produced is what a former co-worker called, "painting the sky blue."  This is code for cursing like a sailor.  My sky is a beautiful, deep shade of very, very blue.

The process of getting our house ready to sell is whackier than anything I could have imagined, not because of the mundane work of packing or tossing out junk (why do I have keys to cars I no longer own?), but because I have had a string of unbelievably poor quality workmanship on the part of the contractors.  Every day we take a couple of steps forward, then I discover a disaster and we take a huge step backward, the next day spent trying to repair or undo the damage. 

There were several days when we, along with all of our worldly goods, had to be out of the house so that the carpet could be removed and the hardwood floors, covered for decades, could be refinished.  All rooms of the house with hardwood floors were to be painted before the refinishing since it was not possible to tape down tarps to newly finished wood.  Alas, the floor guy did not take the same care on his end, leaving hand prints of stain on every single brushed nickel doorknob, some freshly painted walls and freshly painted doors.  Then there's the painter that painted windows shut (all of them), painted all of the hinges on the kitchen cabinets (46 of them) after we had several explicit conversations about not painting them, and the gentleman who repaired our deck, leaving old steel pipes sticking up out of the deck.  He was kind enough to paint them to match, but seriously?!?  Having the contractors fix their mistakes is necessary, but the time consumed with taking three steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, etc. is making me lose my mind and my patience. 

Is it just me?  I think like an artist and I look at these jobs as I would art.  The fact that these people are OK with sloppy work shocks me.  I can't imagine framing a piece of art crooked and ignoring that fact, or sewing a piece and having seams not quite closed and some stuffing popping out with dangling threads, or working on a collage piece and have a bit of trash stuck to it to be left behind and ignored as if no one would notice.  I would notice.  I would fix it.  I would be ashamed to do an incomplete or sloppy job and charge someone for the slop.

While we were away from the house and it was like a construction zone, we boarded my poor studio kitty Tabitha at the veterinarian.  The heat and humidity have been brutal recently, so we gave her a couple of extra days there while we tried to make the house inhabitable.  Look who is enjoying some sofa time indoors!  Poor Tabitha has been terrified of all of the new voices and the activity, retreating to her old "hidey hole" down by the pool, tucked away in the garden.  She's happy when everyone goes home and I can convince her to come indoors.  There is some good in the day after all :-)

Lastly, I have begun to rebuild my indoor studio.  The amount of furniture must be limited for the sake of showing the house, but I've got my desk, my cabinet of paints and glues and other goodies, plus my bookshelf.  I kept my dresser full of art bits and bobbles in the garage and hope to tackle at least a few ATCs this week, for sanity's sake of no other.

As a reward for neither committing homicide nor just flat out losing our minds with each other these last few weeks, my husband and I are going to enjoy seeing Tommy Chong at the local comedy club.  We could use a few laughs!

Who Dropped This Bomb?

Good grief, my house looks like a bomb has blown up.  Today was the first day with the movers, taking everything from both attics, the garage and the kitchen to a storage facility.  We'll stay a few days in a hotel, a week or two in the rental house, but most of our time in this house (after the repairs/remodeling is finished in a couple of weeks) until it is sold.  My daughter is in the rental with the cats, thus reducing mess by quite a bit.  Trying to figure out how to manage all of this is causing me to lose a lot of sleep.  I think I'm exhausted enough for this insomniac to be able to sleep leaning against a wall in a train station. 

In the hope of retaining SOME semblance of sanity, I agreed to participate in an art project that my sister is coordinating with a friend.  The project involves making inspirational ATC's with an ocean theme that will be given to school children as a reward of some sort.  That is something I can manage, even with limited studio supplies.  With my daughter moved into the rental house, the middle bedroom can, once again, become a studio.  It will have to be super neat, clean and tidy (I'm worried about that), but at least I'll be able to do something.  I've made the difficult decision to pack away all of my darned magazines and reference books into storage which, frankly, will force me to just make art and not get lost in other's works.  We'll see how that works :-)

Why Is My Mind Blank?

Today was a day with no excuses.  With increasing problems with back pain, ending up on medication and a heating pad every time I try scrubbing or tasks like vacuuming, I finally gave up and hired help.  So I've got two ladies cleaning away while I hide out in the studio, the perfect opportunity to make art and struggle with the guilt.  But my mind is blank.  I'm wrestling with the vast array of books and magazines at my fingertips and am trying not to pick them up and start flipping pages.  Flipping pages leads to more flipping of pages and not getting anything done.  Yikes!  OK, time to close the computer, pick up a tool or material and do something with it.  Get ready, get set, slam shut!

Moving On

Though I have moved frequently in my life (if I only count places where I lived six months or more, that's 19 by the time I was 29 years old), the logistics of the move were managed by my parents or, later in life, by my husband and I calling on all of our friends to help us load up the rental truck while we moved ourselves from one rented house or apartment to another in exchange for pizza and beer.  This time is going to be different and is quite likely to bring on an anxiety attack before the month is over.  We have never sold a home before or had real estate agents peeking into every nook and cranny of our house.  One doesn't realize how much crap one has accumulated until one has to open and expose the contents of closets, cabinets and drawers just prior to one having a coronary brought on by unbearable humiliation and embarrassment. Why did I feel the need to have what looks like 70 rolls of gift wrap?  Or save all of my holiday-themed magazine because there was a recipe or decorating idea somewhere in there that I might remember I had and wanted to use?  Good grief.  There's an entire forest worth of paper in my house.

So the drama begins.  I'm going to hire a housekeeper which makes me feel unbearably guilty, but my raggedy and worn out back won't let me do it all and keep up.  I'll take advantage of that time to go sweat in the studio so I am not underfoot while a total stranger tries to make my home look like a fabulous hotel.  I feel the coronary coming on now.  I finally have an excuse to replace the mailbox that has taken a few too many whacks from a baseball bat in the hands of teenagers with a car and too much time on their hands.  The new one will be installed out of teen arm reach.  There is so much to do, little of which includes making art.  I am going to make the effort to fit art time in, just so I don't totally lose my mind from the stress of it all.