Gleaming Lark:

this american life.
a renewed sense of purpose
this blog.
this blog too.
when my co-teacher said today "and now for our weekly friday radical politics lesson. . ."
and miles, our acrobatic student said to his neighbor "did she say it's our weekly rice cake lesson?"
and finally, the blessing of friends coming to visit me while i am holed up in my studio. it feels downright communal.

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patience is a virtue.

first off, let me invite ya'all to my show at Porcelynne Boutique and Gallery on June 1st (friday) @7.
now for my harrowing story of the work i will be showing there. i'll start from the end:
this is the outcome that makes me sing with glee. but yesterday was a cacophony of swearing.

as some of you know- i've been looking in the field of graphic design lately and trying to do some skill building in that area. i thought a good place to start would be to design my own postcard and not pay the extra fees to convert my files to be print ready. i was even more excited when i found out that my brother had given me photoshop and illustrator some years ago- and it was just sitting in a stack of 'important' cds that i shouldn't throw out- but had no idea what they were. i felt pretty dumb- but was happy ot have the programs. well- i thought it might take me a morning to figure out how to resize and image and put my name on the back- but in fact it took me ALL DAY YESTERDAY, NIGHT AND THIS MORNING. and when i say ALL DAY YESTERDAY, NIGHT AND THIS MORNING, i mean from 8am to 11:30 pm with a break for a meal, and when adi was working on it. and let me just tell you- when i was ready to kill the computer- adi came over and tried to work her magic-
and even SHE (my technology magician in times like these) couldn't do it. by the end of the night, i had called everyone i knew, interupted their work days, their private time, their meals- just to try to solve my postcard problem. by 11:30 pm last night i had a folder on my desktop named 'postcard vendetta', was convinced that i would never be able to go into graphic design, and was doing deep breathing exercises in letting the project go (and my pride, and my stubborness, and my future hopes- however small- in a certain field), and paying the extra to get someone to format it for me. grrrrrrrrr.
this is not counting the fact that when i did take a break yesterday and let adi work on it for awhile- i discovered that adhering my birds to wood made them wrinkle and bubble and smear. which meant that the panels that i had so carefully stained were picking up smeared paint, the drawings that i had done were turning to a muddy mess, and i was apparently embarking on a SCULPTURE project (they looked like relief maps) instead of a nice clean flat piece of art. as i was swearing at my paintings, and the computer, and the stomachache i had collected over the day of stress i even thought to myself 'if i work all this out- i am going to charge MILLIONS for these paintings because people just DO NOT KNOW how much trial and error and blood and sweat and tears and TIME go into all this!!!!' at that point i had to ask adi why i make art. i'm telling you- it was SERIOUS. it is a rare thing that i question why i make when i am making.
anyways. i went to sleep trying to remember not to define myself by what i produce- but not doing a very good job of it. and at 7am the next morning- i popped out of bed and immediately walked into my studio (which is really just my eat-in kitchen). the drawings had dried miraculously flat- with wethered looking lines from where the paper wrinkled that somehow made them look tough and vintage this morning. i couldn't believe it. i mean, my extent of science knowledge did rationalize that things swell when they are wet and shrink when it's dry- but i really hadn't ever seen anything like it!!
but i did indeed like it.
i kept pecking away at my paintings- painting the sides black, touching up some colors that had smeared the night before and by 10 am i hadn't called the postcard company to place my order and pay a graphic designer to convert my files and lay it all out. meaning- i just had not let go of the fact that i couldn't figure it out.
so, stubborn taurus that i am. . .i sat back down and opened the template for the postcard in photoshop instead of illustrator. i thought i would just look again. maybe it would be like the shrinking paper.
well- it wasn't quite that easy but by 12:45 i was uploading the files to the postcard company. AND THEY WERE ACCEPTED. i couldn't believe it. I HAD DONE IT! well- with some help from everyone close to me in my life- but finally, at the end of it all, i had worked it out. it was magnificent. it was glorious. i did a full living room happy dance and kissed every single one of my paintings.
my dad always said that i was perserverant. i always thought it was a nice way of saying that i am stubborn. they say patience is a virtue- but really if you have to even think about being patient- you are probably feeling impatient on the inside. all i know is- try again and again and again and you will actually get somewhere. you may not get where you thought your destination would be- but you get somewhere. and somewhere is better than nowhere. (unless of course, you want to be nowhere- in which case i suggest driving cross country and listening to this episode of 'this american life' before you go. . but i'll save my thoughts on nowhereness for another post. . .)