Real life distractions

Yesterday started off just terrific. My husband arranged for my son and a friend to get a private and personal tour of Blizzard, the company that creates the computer game World of Warcraft, among others. The kids were absolutely vibrating with happiness. We went from Blizzard to a tour of the university's fabulous film school, escorted by the dean himself (whose contact was the fantastic guy at Blizzard!) After a long day, I took my son's friend home and headed to our place over the big hill. I was stopped at a red light, giving a subtle "stink eye" to the guy to my left who had been tailgating me for miles. I'm a serious follow-the-road-rules kind of girl and get very grumpy about people who drive dangerously because they are in a hurry to get nowhere. A slow truck I had driven past a few minutes before apparently lost his brakes on the ride down this very large hill (not quite mountain) and absolutely bombed into the cars immediately to my left. He smashed their cars through the intersection, hitting cars in the cross traffic. A total of eight cars were involved in the accident. One victim had to be taken by helicopter to the trauma center in Los Angeles; the other driver (the man I'd been giving the stink eye) was not as seriously injured, but is in the hospital and the cars destroyed. My son and I were terribly shaken, but grateful that all we suffered was rattled nerves, a blown out back window and scuffs from flying debris to one side of the van. A witness to the accident told me she observed it from behind and saw the truck heading toward my vehicle, when he swerved a little left and missed us.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep much last night. When I did, I had terrible dreams, recalling the car I was looking at getting hit at full speed while he was stopped. It was terrifying. To top matters, I had another close call today when a fool pulled in front of my car from a side street and then stopped. I slammed on the brakes of my rental car and swerved to avoid hitting him. I think I'll stay home for the rest of the weekend and lock myself in the studio. I'm safe there.

What a day.

I have cooties

This is a sad, sad day. I have had cooties for a few days now and have finally, totally lost my voice. There is no reason to get in the car with my husband if I can't backseat drive, crying out directions intended to save my life, the car, pedestrians and any squirrels that may be in the street. This is a disaster! Tonight I tried to lay down the law with Kevin about how clean his room must be before he can watch television or have friends to the house, but all I could do was flap my arms and squeak. Then I saw his toy megaphone. What a find! I grabbed it and renewed my attempt at conducting the tidying of his room. Alas, the megaphone has a nifty little feature that alters one's voice to sound robotic. We both started laughing. Well, he laughed while I wheezed and honked. There's really no taking a wheezing, honking robotic-sounding mother seriously, so I've given up. I'm going to have a glass of chardonnay in silence. Sigh.

Exposed

I am just a wreck. In my usual hunt for inspiration for ideas on a project, I ran across a YouTube video which led me to "Milliande Art Community," a "mixed media art community for creative women." It was painful, but I added a post and a picture. I have to take steps to expose myself to comments and even criticism to thicken my skin. The reason I chose this group is that the creator/owner stresses the positive vibe of the site. We encourage, not bust chops. Yeah! I need that.

Yesterday I had an epiphany. Well, I think I'm overstating the thought process, but I realized and really admitted to myself that I keep spending hours of time looking at the books and internet for "inspiration," but I think I'm just really just delaying doing the work. As I looked around on Amazon for a book that I saw and wish I'd bought but can't find at the store any longer, I kept seeing books I already own. After so many, "I've got that one, oops I've already got that one," it hit me that I need to just stop. Stop looking at someone else to direct my creativity. Stop looking for something that will make my art better, i.e. more like theirs. So I zoomed around and cleaned up today so that I can get in the studio and really work. There will be no reference books open or off the shelf! Let's see what I can do.

I have a date

My teen son has a friend that is very artistic and spends a lot of time alone. They've known each other since they were four. She lives with her mother, a single parent for a few years now that works and attends school in the evening. I give the girl a ride home from school every day, so we have a lot of opportunity to chat. Last week, she timidly mentioned that since her mother was in class Monday and Tuesday evenings, she was free and wondered if she could come over and work on art projects with me in the studio. What a lovely way to spend time! So I have a creative date every week with someone who will inspire me to work on schedule. That, in turn, will inspire me to spread my creative wings a little as we work side-by-side on our projects for the magazine and learn new techniques together.

Recently I discovered the treasure of a multitude of instructional and demonstration art videos on YouTube. What a great find! Through these videos, I found a group that inspires and encourage women artists. My nerves were a little rattled when signing up for the web site and group, I was asked a question about what I wanted to get out of the group and what I might contribute. I never think of myself as having anything to contribute, so the question caused some serious pause in the signing up process! I realized that I'm not alone in feeling that I need encouragement, so I can certainly contribute encouragement to other people like me. That's the short version. Anyway, I was thrilled to get the, "You're in!" email and will visit the site today and start my first motivation project and just read, read, read the site. This is a good, creative day.

Family Ties

Today I was totally sidetracked and distracted. Instead of working on art, I decided to go back to working on my family tree. With half of my family having been here for generations and then being first generation American on the other side of the family, I have quite the task before me.

I decided to take a shot in the dark and Google the name of one of my cousin's kids. I was stunned with what popped up. He was shot and killed a little over a year ago, the victim of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time while bad guys with guns were chasing someone else in a bad neighborhood. He was only 44 years old and had five children, three of which are very young.

On a more positive note, I found another family member from the other side of the tree. Quite by accident, I found her husband on Facebook. I love the internet! He was able to provide me with her email address and I was able to send her information I had as well as ask for information to fill in the blanks. For whatever reason, I seem to have been the sole recipient of all old family photos and film (it's a good thing since I'm the only one into genealogy). Being a source for these items gives me a good foot in the door when swapping information.

I miss having a sense of family. The life of a military brat means constantly moving. We were the only military family in our clan, so everyone else stayed in generally the same area while we moved around the country and across the globe. While my cousins were able to spend a lot of time with each other and with grandparents, we were lucky to see them every three years. Now that we're all adults, everyone is scattered and no one keeps in touch any longer. I am vowing to assume to role of "family gatherer" and we ARE going to reconnect! I am determined. How fun it would be for my children to have cousins from my side of the family that are more than just a faded photo to them.

Progress at last

OK, it wasn't great progress, but I did get something done. I just forgot to post the pic which I'll do tomorrow. Today I started on Round II with this dopey magazine swap project. I decided to play around with Photoshop and a photo that I've had for a long time, but didn't dare use without permission of the subject :-) I've tweaked the photo and will do more altering tomorrow. It's too dark right now to do fine details. At least I did it! So there's not much more to share other than the photo in its early stage and prior to other-than-digital alteration.

Frustrated and Unproductive Again

Time to fuss. I am at an absolute standstill on my current project. That would be the one I wanted to have completed this week. My mind races with mediocre ideas. There are a lot of them floating around in my head, but all lousy. However, I will not give up! I spent a long time in the studio today sketching, then more time perusing books and magazines for inspiration. I kept thinking of my earlier blog entry about people who copy other artists' work and am probably being overly cautious. With my husband out of town and leftover pizza for dinner (thank goodness for having had a little party here yesterday), that gives me more time to work - no cooking and no cleanup. Time to get back at it.