Linked In

Well never really cared about signing on to Linkedin but guess it can’t hurt. Networking is a good thing in this small artist world. You never know who may know of a job or a freelance gig. Ironically I added my old boss to my contacts and he called me today telling me he had a position open. I got so excited thinking I had an out already and could give my two weeks. But I would have to take a 20k pay cut and the more I though about it the more it seemed like a step backwards. He was a great boss to work for and I enjoyed the work but It would be a longer commute (don’t need that) and his main clients now are all hospitals. I just don’t need more of that in my portfolio. I have enough from the last time I worked for him. But one good thing is I may be able to get some freelance out of him after I get canned. Client number 2…ding!

Back to work

Well the impending reality of being laid off is getting me back on track. Basically my boss told me that if I wasn’t looking already I should start. He doesn’t want to get rid of me its an upper management thing. I’ve literally had nothing to do for two weeks (but I’ve been catching up on my own things so it has not been wasted). But I’ll tell you the more I am there the more I realize how fucked up this company is and how I really need to leave it anyway. There are just no jobs out there. I’ve been looking. But I’ve already crunched the numbers and we would be ok if I got unemployment. it would suck for a bit but we could still make it. Especially if I can defer the student loans. The waiting is killing me though. But all I can do is just take it day by day. The longer I stay the more I get done on my end to prepare for it and the more money in my pocket.

Call to other non art making artists!

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/ats/954204211.html

Make art or ….
I wanted to call this the
Make art or through it all in the garbage group.
or the
Make art or keep your corporate job for life group.
or the
Make art or stop calling yourself an artist group
or the
Make art not excuses group!!!
YES
Thats it!

Ok so this is a call to all artists out there that are still putting it off.
your art
your work
your dream

be it drawing, patinging, photography, colage, music, writing, Its all art.
as long as its your passion and for some reason (excuse) your not doing it
then this is for you.

I’ve decided that its
Art or bust!!
09 has to be the year of art or Im literally throwing all the old art and supplies in the garbage.
I know there are more artists in the same boat that have been putting off their art for various reasons.
no time
no money
no inspiration
bla
bla
bla.

I’ve made all the same excuses for years and years and will continue to make them unless I do something about it.
So in 09 I wanted to form a group of artist that meet once a month to show art that you’ve made. I know at least for me
having a deadline or assignment helped me in school to create art so why not now. We also would have a flickr page to show our art,
a blog to share ideas, questions, etc. And keep eachother motivated!!

Because I don’t know about you but I don’t want to think back and wish I had taken my art more seriously and actualy given it a shot.
But If I give it a shot and it doesn’t work, then I can live with that. But who knows…it may just go somewhere and become all that I have dreamed.

Email me back with your email and I’ll set things up and update you for a first meetup in Jan 09!

So what do you say?
Are you in?

Reality check

Ok its really bad when people you don’t know (web designer I’m hiring) tell you…Are you making any progress? lol.

And then when a friend at work (who I took a camera class with) tells me..”you need to stop researching cameras and start taking photos”

What is it with this putting off of actually doing the art.
I have all these logical reasons in my head, and these reasons that make so much sense to me but in reality are they?

Or are they all bullshit.
I’m tending to think the latter.

But I don’t want to get too down on myself either.
My goal was to get my studio done by Jan 1. The problem is I am leaving for the holidays in one week.

Now I’ve made a ton of progress on it. But will it be done in one week..I doubt it. But Im still holding strong and trying to bust into it every night. I’ll update on the weekend on where I’m at as I’ve done most of the other necessary things that needed to happen before the trip every day after work.

I’m tempted to just stay up super late every night for a week. I mean I have tons of time to sleep later.

I just don’t want this studio hanging over my head in the new year. And if you knew me at all you would understand.

But at least its baby steps. and I am hiring a web designer so maybe oneredsockdesigns.com will actually become a reality in 09!

Gocco Supplies

So a while back I orderd a Gocco PG-11. And no I haven’t used it yet. Not due to not wanting to but I’ve been working on making the studio usable. Today I ordered a bunch of ink, cardholders, and screens for it. Unfortunately there were no bulbs to order so hopefully they come back in stock. There is always a buzz online about them not making supplies anymore and I don’t know weather to take it seriously or not. Supposedly its as popular in Japan as a toaster is in the US. One out of three households have one. So even if it they cut off supplies to US companies im sure there will be sellers from Japan. But just in case I ordered a bunch. My friend Jordan over at Fattycakes had is one of the members of the Atlanta Craft Mafia and she offered for me to sell some cards in their Xmas market. How wonderful if I can just make some lol.

I know there will never be a slow time but Sept is one of the busy months for my company. Luckily there is more then one designer or I’d be gone for almost 3 weeks! And things worked out that I got to go to Rio instead of Panama so Im pretty excited. Going to try….no no more try….going to draw and get inspiration while Im there. =) I’ll keep you posted.

But anyways I’m excited to come back to my shipment of inks!!!

Outline of goals

project-jessicas-art1

I found this program a while back that visually outlines your ideas. Since I tend to think this way it helps tremendously. So far this is what I put down to paper. I’m going to work on this this week to come up with a final version that I can print out on a huge sheet of paper and keep track of things. At least this puts it all in front of me.

not ok

I haven’t the faintest on what this all will turn out to be.

Right now I feel caught in between my life and the life Id like to have with chains holding me back.

Some of those chains are my own doing, (probably most of them) and some are not. But for the life of me Im not doing such a good job on breaking them down and moving past.

Id love to have this happy little blog of all my successes and show the world how easy it is for me but that is not reality. I remember a line from a movie (not sure which movie) that said something to the effect that we take photos of our happy little lives. Smiling, playing, birthdays, events etc. And if someone we didn’t know looked at those photos they would think, wow what a happy little life. But rarely do any of us live like that. We have ups and downs, good times and bad. We just don’t take photos of those other times. For why would we want anyone to know that things aren’t ok.

Well ive never been able to be fake like that and I proudly admit that thing’s arent ok. And those things are weighing me down and making it very hard to procede.

I’ve thought about starting a personal blog journal so that all of those moments or non art related moments could go in there. I wish at times I could be less sensitive and felt less. But that is who I am and it makes me, me. I think a lot of other people feel the same way but are afraid to admit it. Afraid to let people see their inperfect lives.

I say, stop putting on a show. The things that seem to effect us most are those things that are real.

Toss and Paint

I’ve started wondering why mostly every room in the house is painted except my studio. I thrive off of color and so far its just this off white mess. So I’ve decided to paint it. I think it will give the room just the livelyness that I need. Now to pick colors! Although I have a hallway that is chalkboars I was thinking it could be nice to have two walls chalkboard and two walls a color. Not sure yet. The carpet in this room is horrible but that is going to be a bit too much money to fix right now. Maybe later as I think we would have to get rid of it to sell the house anyway.

I made tiny progress on the room in the last few days. Went through another bin of art supplies. (down to my last one!!) And trying to sort and contain them. I’ve started moving a lot more of the tools into the garage. I guess I always had them in my studio but now that I have a house they can go to the garage. (thats a whole other project to tackle)

Im off to Panama next week so not much time for things and this weekend is packed with obligations (fun ones though) so I don’t expect to make too much progress. But if I can get through that one bin of supplies by week end I’ll be happy.

Word of advice: Never just dum tons of stuff into a bin to clean up a mess, as cleaning out that bin later takes forever!!!

Getting the motivation

Well I’ve had 3 days to make progress on this art room or any art related things and I’ll let you take a guess on how much happened..

did you guess 0…ding ding ding. You win!!!

I’ve been thinking alot about why. Why I don’t have the motivation and why I can’t seem to move forward on it. My mom even asked me if maybe this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I thought about that for a moment but then concluded that that wasnt it.

I though about fear. But I don’t think that is it either. Im not worried about making work that I don’t like. It happens all the time. I’m not worried about what other people think. They can think what they like. I’m not worried that I won’t succeed. Because in the end this is not about making money or becomming a famous artist, or getting into galleries. (though all of that would be nice)

So why isn’t it happening..? I still don’t know.

Maybe part of itit is the inspiration. Down here in GA I just dont feel it. When I lived in NY i was surrounded by inspiration. I walked everywhere, I took the subway and sketched people on the train while they weren’t looking and then hand them the drawing as they left the train. The looks on their faces were precious memories. I went to museums on my lunch break. I walked through the endlss public art, and sat on statues. I wasn’t the only moleskin toting person looking for a subject to draw.

Not to say that I am not doing things because I am alone, because I rather like that state of being. But I guess in NY I could re-energize my inspirational batteries when needed. And right now I feel like my batteries are not just empty but are more like what’s left after a battery has been inside a device (aka georgia) for too long. Its just rotted with leekey battery acid oozing out.

I’m not afraid creating perfection as I know the steps you take along the way get you where you need to be. The crapy pieces of art lead up to the good one that you never knew you could create.

Every weekend I make myself a plan and come monday morning I don’t carry it through. Then I get down on myself for not doing it. I feel lazy and feel like Im getting old. (old being defined by just being a grumpy lady with no feeling of inspiration and youth, not age related)

But at least I can say I’m not giving up even though nothing is working lol.

Here’s to yet another try.

Storage space needed!

Just putting this out there in the world. 

Please let me find some way to get all this stuff in order. 

Oh dear craigslist send some awesome cheap vintage metal cabinet my way to put all the supplies into.

I can’t even see the floor now!

I’m halfway between chaos and beauty with the studio but at a complete standstill.

Oh to the people who throw out stuff on the side of the road, please leave me some goodies for your trash is my treasure!