I started the day out well, with a swim, then some reading. I'm re-reading Stephen King's Secret Windows, which is more or less a book of essays about writing. I'm a huge fan of SK for many reasons. I don't like everything he writes and I rarely like the last quarter of any of his novels because he has a terrible habit of showing too much of the monster. He knows better---he said so in regards to Dracula, "In that book, if no other, Stoker grasped the fact that shadows always stand taller than flesh and blood." Despite sputtering over the endings I continue to buy his books and read them because the flavor is right and the truth shines through his spooky/fun filter so we get it without hurting our eyes. That's what he's good at, the truth.
Secret Windows is an excellent book to read before starting a new project or for stirring up the creative juices. I'm about to start work on art for the World Fantasy Convention and I consider this my 'mental yawn and stretch' in preparation.

I started reading it last night. I was a bad, bad girl. While reading I munched on a bowl of tater tots that were forgotten in the oven until they were mere cocoons of greasy, crunchy outside with nothing but air in the middle. Eating while reading is a nasty habit. I broke it years ago but made an exception last night because those tots were too deliciously nasty to ignore and because I trust my brother's advice on such. He told me, "It doesn't matter what you do, this time. What matters is what you do overall, the patterns you develop. If you're going to drink, or break a diet or take a risk or be an asshole, do it consciously. Make your decision, be aware of the consequences, then proceed without guilt and with joyful abandon."

My brother is an extremely intelligent human being. In comparison, I am but a gnat.

But now it's morning, I've had a vigorous swim and healthy breakfast. I'm dressed in my summer uniform--a beach skirt and tank that are interesting together if you're an artist but look sadly mismatched if you're not. My hair is pulled up into a wet knot and outside, I see palm trees swaying in the breeze, hummingbirds flitting in and around the feeders and sunlight sparkling off the water.

I'll pour a cup of coffee, tie on my apron and attempt to make something that scares even me. If I can do that here, I can do that anywhere.

drive

Many years ago I read a classic science fiction story. I remember reading the story---I read it as I sat on the bank of a pond while my dad fished for our supper. (what? I said it was a classic)
I even remember some of the visuals in my head. But I don't remember the name of the story or the author.

I've tried to look it up, but I don't know enough to create a decent search. So, tell me if this sounds familiar:

Astronauts are traveling from one planet to another. Told from the perspective of one of them (not sure on this detail) it seems that at a certain distance from the planet they left, each of the astronauts experiences great clarity, vision and peace. Then, immediately upon entering the influence of the planet they're traveling to, all their previous fears and mental blocks return.

Does this ring a mental bell with anyone?

Little unexpected things, as thinking how much I need a new journal for sketches and finding one in the mailbox only moments after.

It was 112 degrees today.

Even now, nearly midnight, the ground is still very warm.

Time for swimming.

Motion

We are always in motion.

Something like 67,000 miles per hour.

We forget.

Silly humans!

I was going to write here tonight, really. I have notes and everything. But we spent a long day in the studio and it was one hundred and eleven degrees today, and Orion and I are going to have a late swim before bed. I knew you'd agree that's the best idea.

I did actually take some photos. I'm having way too much fun with Mini Poppets. Spencer and I are chomping at the bit to get back to our video projects. We like Poppets that move. Obviously, given the latest work, I'm ready to make that happen. The funny thing is that I know (now) that the video projects will be better because of the delay.

Now we are having fun.

wow---

the difference a trip around the sun makes.

Orion has waited patiently and waves 'hello' to everyone.

Time for swimming.

g'night

fireworks: audio on the outside, sparks on the inside

Our fourth of July celebration turned out to be exceedingly quiet. Orion went to a fireworks show with Aubrey and her boyfriend, Matthew. Spencer and I decided to watch the show from deck chairs on our roof, yet we discovered to our surprise the neighbor's trees grown enough to partially obscure the view. It's a fair trade for the extra shade. We agreed that we'd seen enough fireworks. So we enjoyed our outdoor space, playing "Endless Summer" on the television on the deck, sitting in beach chairs with our feet in the water and drinking Smirnoff. Recluse and Hermit were we, watching other people surf.

But we heard the fireworks explosions and speculated on future works and even solved a couple of small technical problems, geeks that we are.

One thing that came up in our discussions is an aspect of creativity we both recognized, but didn't have a name for. Maybe you can help. It's hard to describe in the way that it's hard to explain to someone how it feels to whistle. You must first discover it by casting around, trial and error style, until your brain associates the position of mouth with sound.

I get this mental sensation when I'm close to solving a puzzle (e.g., slider puzzles in video games --as in Finding Nemo.) I've also experienced it when close to solving equations. It goes beyond 'the zone,' but that state of concentration often precedes the sensation I refer to.

Does this sound familiar?

Multiply it by several factors and it aptly describes the experience of honing in on a complex work of art---one of those where the metaphors click into place. When it happens there, it's accompanied by a rush of adrenaline. Not a good time to interrupt me.

(and no, I'm honestly not smoking anything. ;)

It is indeed difficult to define a process without terminology. So I put it to you for clarity and, well, fun! Either someone will find a name for it, or we'll just make one up.

Time for swimming. g'night

July 4

Change comes of its own free will

ok. So now it's Friday.



Thank you to the readers who contributed to yesterday's post. I've considered your comments. At its best, this blog becomes a sort of collaboration, illuminating questions from different angles, allowing us to see more clearly. It can be difficult digging into deeper emotions and fears, yet these issues carry into the creative process, show up in the finished work.

It seems worth the effort to sort these things out. The frankness and eloquence of the comments tells me others think so too.

From them I've gathered the following: (if you haven't, you might want to read the comments---the moments will be well spent and this post will make slightly more sense.)

*Rituals are helpful. They allow us to release emotions, yet moderate them with a time frame.

*The need for these rituals has been recognized throughout history.

*We humans tend to create filters that skew objectivity and sometimes even reason.

*The one-year mourning period is significant for humans. It predates calendars-- it's about the planet we travel on.

*Joy returns on its own. Actually, I like "...it tends to sneak up on you." much better.



****

Today I considered these things while floating in clear water in a blue pool under blue skies in Palm Springs. I made a mental note that my profession often entails floating and thinking. Not everyone would count that as a positive, but on this one I'm with Bugs.
I mentally examined the work I've created this year. Some elements that are new(like very stylized skies) , others moved from background to foreground (crows.) I thought about the works in progress. I see symbolic connections in some places, others won't begin to make sense until much later, with hindsight and context.

They're time travelers, these symbols, messages to ourselves, in bottles or in backs of drawers, the handwriting familiar but the writing forgotten.

I've decided to have some sort of ritual--- I'll think of something---to mark the year's passing.
It will be something simple and quiet and...huh... oddly anticlimatic.

g'night

There is a season, human.

Well now it's Thursday morning. Another day in what I've come to see as the 'worst year in my life'. How dramatic. We get these concepts stuck in our heads. Last July, my marriage ended catastrophically and, for all the months and weeks after, the damage spread from the blast radius and daily I watched details fall like dominoes. I've tried to be more politically correct, saying things like "it's the most challenging year of my life, so far." Bullshit. It's sucked. I don't even feel like the person I started with.
Here's my point. Humans are funny, with these notions we get. How did I decide upon a year? Is this some period of time I chose to allow myself to be miserable? Does this mean that on day 366, I'll be all better?
Or does it mean that on day 366 I'll decide to be better? The two are quite different animals.

I called Neil and asked him to clarify something he's told me several times over the years, about troubles, and work. Did he mean that these things would resolve themselves through the work? Or that I would resolve them through the work?
He says it's the latter, for sure.

Reason tells me that "things' are not going to suddenly improve on any given date, because dates and clocks were created to coordinate human activities. Reason also tells me that human beings use dates and landmarks to help themselves navigate through all the messy events that make up the human curriculum. We like birthdays and anniversaries----or did we create those just to sell cards? I'd guess we use them to measure and mark because it's our nature to measure and mark. One only needs to look at music and art and sentence structure (mostly ignored on this blog) to see this is true.

Possibly I subconsciously chose this one-year period. I've come to realize these last weeks, as the date approaches, that it has been a year of mourning, I just wasn't seeing it, no matter how plain it should have been. Maybe I didn't want to.

Possibly allowing ourselves a given time period to process events is just what it seems, a tool for coping.
On the other hand, by using this tool, did I decide to be miserable for a year? Did I pull unrelated events, like losing Gurtie, under this umbrella of "the bad year", giving it more strength? Could I have put it behind me much sooner?

All that said, the date is coming up fast and I find myself anticipating it. By logic, I could decide to make the day today. But we're not entirely logical and I do believe there's some value in these rituals we share.
This asks for a bit of research and reading.

What are your thoughts on this particular odd bit of being human?

Stumbling forward. Is small the new big?

*This morning I put my apron back on. I'm taking that as a sign of repair. It's supposed to be 110 today. In protest, we've released this year's "anti summer Poppet." Later, we shall shake our fists at the sun, glimpsed between strips of shade, and we in the thankfully-still-cool water, holding drinks with little umbrellas, in plastic cups, of course. It seems the best way to face this whole summer thing.

**A friend suggested that the only way to appreciate the Poppet Mini is to hold it in one's fingers, so that it can be felt and turned and seen close up and that if I get these 'tiny pieces of art' into other's hands, they'd see them as I do. This friend has a long history of giving me good advice, so I've put our Steampunk Mini up at an introduction price, to get them out into the world where they can watch over their Poppet fellows and help humans think differently about size.

Is small the new big? Only Poppets know, and they're not telling.

*** We're trying to get our collectors moved over to the Etsy store for open editions. I really like the community of Etsy. I'm collaborating with other artists to create cool things for the winter holidays, like silver poppet jewelry and journals, and soft squeezy Poppets.

But for hard-core eBay shoppers, we put the Steampunk Mini's there too.

****Yikes. When putting the Steampunk Mini's in the eBay store, we discovered a typo in the listing of the Mini Red Poppet. A big one. It was listed for $30 and was meant to be $20. Sorry about that, it's now corrected so that the price matches the one's on Etsy. Good Grief and Sheesh.

*****We're moving our very cramped shipping department to a new space next week. We've had a few slow ships and some other minor mess-ups these last months. Now we can spread out, be more organized and kick ass like we used to. Thank you all ever so much for your patience while we were in transition. As collectors go, Poppet collectors are the cheese (to our macaroni.)

****** So today, simple things. Extra time underwater. Stumbling forward, at least.

have a great weekend.

strength and skies, friends and poppets

I'm still feeling fragile. Too fragile. There was the slow burnout, then the smashing upon the floor, then losing Gurtie. Sent me into a real tailspin.

Damn. But I don't give up. I use the tools I've acquired to stop the descent so I can start pulling myself up again. That doesn't mean that occasionally I don't cry like a baby.

I'm starting to gather up the catnip mouses and other things that set me off.

The temps are 'normal' now, (106 today) so there's little going outside until evening, except to be underwater.

I tend (as if you haven't noticed) to turn my attention often to the sky. Clouds by day and stars at night. I tend also (I've noticed recently) to use the analogy of flight for describing emotions.

I did finally get "Amelia's Skies" finished. It's been sitting for weeks, so very nearly done. Getting her finished and photographed feels good.

She's the first of a new series of Poppet sculptures honoring humans Poppets love. We made these really cool hand painted boxes for her ---good enough to keep---with a replica of Amelia Earhart's pilot's license inside the lid, acquired from the excellently cool Propnomicon. Very worth checking out.

So. there you are. I told you I'd keep you posted on the 'fixing' of your burnt -out artist. It's been anything but a straight line so far. I keep hoping some wonderfully helpful advice will come out of this, because I know a lot of you deal with similar issues. So far, I have no all-encompassing formula. But maybe you'll glean something useful from my sharing the experience. I hope so.

Spencer and I have some really interesting pieces (that do things) in the works for Halloween and the World Fantasy Convention. That helps. This weekend I'll spend some time with my buddy the Neil Gaiman and meet Amanda Palmer, whom I already feel I know. That will help too. The house is tired of me and really wants me to go away.

be safe