Back on track.

Last week I quit my job – well I was asked if I wanted to quit and I eagerly said yes. It wasn’t me. Money be damned!  I can’t say, “how do I get myself into jobs like this??” Because I KNOW how I turn on the “I can be whatever you want me to be” during the interview. I do myself a great disservice wanting to be liked. Gah.  2009 was the year of unsuitable jobs, jobs I took because I went, I can do THIS and then… meh.  When I know and believe all good things in life require effort, time and work – including a finding a job that suits me. So with my newly found hindsight and with the 30+ days left in 2009 I’m laying new tracks for a new direction.

If you know me, you know Goody. Over this past weekend the idea of doing a blog on Goody resurfaced, but this time it was a larger idea, a “this could be my job” idea. With photos, reviews, resources, video and more, like sponsorships and advertising and writing by me, partnerships with local rescue agencies, therapy dog, and volunteering. And it all clicked. The Daily Goods….ta-dahh! My brain fired YES! What fun! What a lot of work I have ahead of me!  As I am in the planning phase of my new adventure, I’m open to feedback, opinions and ideas from you. Feel free to email me at catslye at gmail dot com.

 

 

5/6

Tempe IS totally different. I want to do Tucson next, then come back to Phoenix. I don’t know why, this is just what feels right. It’s my job to pay attention to the artist when she says, Tucson, I do Tucson.  It’s much more of a following role than a leading role and it’s very very interesting.

Autonomy

As an artist, I can literally die from boredom. I kill myself when I fail to nurture my artist child because I am acting like somebody else’s idea of an adult. The more I nurture my artist child, the more adult I am able to appear. Spoiling my artist means it will let me type a business letter. Ignoring my artist means a grinding depression.

From Chapter 11 of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

The book, TAW, is 12 chapters, or 12 steps if you will, with one more to go I can look back and say the book has helped me tremendously. Right at chapter 8 is when everything clicked, when the door unlocked and I KNEW what to do with my art, and everything, and I mean everything fell into place. No more ignoring my artist.

Tempe is Different

Tempe is very different. Mmmh, the process is the same but the pieces are coming together much differently. I don’t know how to describe it right now, maybe when I’m through the process on the other side looking back I’ll have some answers.

Colored

after round two, it’s colored.

And so it starts

…a new series. Tempe.

Oh, so this is happiness.

BEING IN the place where you belong. DOING what you feel is right.  THAT’S how I feel about my art right now.  It’s what I need to be doing right now, there’s no pressure, no “have to’s”, just “this is what I do” feelings. There’s no “I have to make it perfect = I have to BE perfect” either (which I’m finding is extending into other areas of my life), just doing what I’m doing feel exactly right, calm and settled, peaceful with a great deal of joy.  So, this must be happiness.  I didn’t know that.

Sunday, JP and I went over to Tempe and I took 70 shots of the area around the Tempe Center for the Arts, the Hayden Flour Mill building, the bridges from both sides of Tempe Town Lake and more. I have an idea that I want to explore in doing Tempe, larger composite pieces with overlays of multiple perspectives onto one. (Thanks JP! I couldn’t have photographed it like I wanted to without you).

I have to say the books I read this Summer helped tremendously to get me where I am right now,  The Artist’s Way (I’m still on Chapter Nine), among others – The Right to Write and the Writer’s Portable Therapist were all instrumental.  I highly recommend them if you feel there’s something you could be doing creatively but can’t quite put your finger on it or you’re feeling frustrated and annoyed with life in general and it always seems like “other people” have IT figured out and are living these fantastic lives while you are just plodding through. Because that’s what I felt like. As if what I wanted was just always outside of my reach. It seems so simple now, I make this art and now I’m happy?  I mean, can it be that easy?  Does the road to happiness have to be a bed of coals or can it be that it was simply lined with books?  Am I healed? Can I get off the Rx’s now? Am I all better? Does life from here on out become one long continuous joyful stroll?

I’m saying Yes to those questions.

Advance Notice

SOLO SHOW : Practical Art : January 8, 2010

art >

Nifty

In Process

I’ve completed No. 5 and have No.’s 6 and 7 in the works.  When something just feels so good and so right, ahh…it’s a hard concept to explain. I’ve been in process on this project for about a year and a half and to “finally” get to where I feel they’re finished, that I’ve come full circle, that I’ve DISCOVERED what I am to do with the My Beautiful City project…well. All I can say is I love them.

Know of a good frame shop that won’t cost me an arm & a leg?   I see them finished off under glass framed in light colored wood.

Ok, I’ve been working on them all afternoon, no.’s 5 and 6 are completed. Up on flickr.