I haven't posted anything to this blog since about a week after we moved back to Winston-Salem in August. It's not that I haven't thought about it, but it's been a whilrlwind of stuff going on, and I couldn't make myself sit down long enough to actually do it. I feel like I have had A.D.D. recently. My mind hopping from one thing to the next, and it's kind of hard to concentrate and get the things done that need to get done. Here is an example of a week's to-do list.
Don't know if you can actually read my handwriting, but I divide it into categories based on my specific jobs: Home, CopperTide, CopperDog Studio, Teaching, NC Black, and my own work for upcoming shows, etc. I try to prioritize within each category, and then check stuff off as I get it done. But I think I'm going to have to go back to a schedule like the one I had in Richmond, too, where I have certain allotments of time each day for certain things.
Anyway, I'll be honest, I think maybe that one reason I have felt so weird the past few months is that I didn't really want to move to Winston. Not yet anyway. Don't get me wrong, I love being back closer to family and friends, and I have enjoyed every moment I've spent with them. But in Richmond, I was getting things done, I was making things happen in a way that, for whatever reason, I didn't when I lived here in Winston before.
I had moved to Winston-Salem after college. My parents live about 20 minutes south of the city, so I had grown up nearby. I never meant to move back so close. But when I graduated from college, I had no job lined up and no money (and was seriously just starting to think that maybe a degree in Art was a touch on the crazy side.) So I moved back in with my parents for six months. Which I never meant to do. I love my parents, and we are the best of friends now, but after you've been on your own for almost five years, it's a little tough to go back to living under their roof. I got a part time job at a gallery in Winston. Then I added another part time job at Jon Kuhn's glass studio. All of this hoping that I would still have time to work on my own artwork. Which I didn't do. I was a little depressed. Quarter Life Crisis and the whatnot. After a few months of that, I cut back to weekends at the gallery and went on full-time at the studio, and soon earned enough to rent a small apartment in the city. I lived there for four years and set up a tiny studio space on one side of my living room. Then moved across the hall into a slightly larger apartment, where I finally had a whole room devoted to my studio! Yay! Progress! But still, I wasn't getting that much done. I felt kind of trapped and stagnant in my career. It wasn't until the economy went sour, the glass studio was shut down, and I lost my job that I really started to formulate a business plan. But I was also planning my wedding, commisserating with my fellow glass artisans, and trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do to make some cash. Easy distractions from getting actual work done. We got married, which was fabulous, and Mark moved in, which was glorious, but then we had two people and two people's (packrats') stuff in a tiny apartment meant for one. So yes, all of these things are excuses.
It wasn't until we moved to Richmond, and I was on my own during the day without distractions of the familiar life I knew in Winston, that I really started making things happen for my business. I was really proud of myself and everything I had worked so hard to get rolling over the year and a half we had been in Richmond, and I wasn't ready to leave. I know it wasn't Richmond itself, but it was being away from everything comfortable and forcing myself into these new challenges. I was afraid that moving back to Winston-Salem and that comfort zone would be a step backwards for me career-wise. That I would be easily distracted by friends and family, and that I wouldn't be able to carry on quite like I was. I just wasn't ready to leave this place where I was making things really happen for the first time in my life. And I was kind of right. I have been distracted. But it's my fault for letting myself get distracted. For getting away from that daily schedule I had for myself. I felt myself fighting off a certain kind of depression... maybe more like complacency... and that was distracting.
When the Christmas season rolled around this year, I kind of threw myself into it. I made production work for holiday shows and filled orders for dog tags and ornaments. And baked my little heart out.
I think I needed that break from thinking about things too seriously and getting all worked up in my brain about getting (and not getting) things done. Now that the new year is here, I have plans to get back to it, balls to the wall. I start teaching at Sawtooth School for Visual Art on the 15th. (Winter class/workshop schedule coming soon!) I start an apprenticeship with an amazing metalsmith on the 16th. Details on that forthcoming as well. I have a show at Quirk Gallery in Richmond in April, and a whole lot of work to make for that.
Things have a way of happening, whether you're ready for them or not. And things have a way of working themselves out. It's all a matter of perspective.
Soooo.... back on my game. Ready?? Go!!!
I can read your handwriting well enough to say, "We still need Nano photos." Thanks
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