My New Red Door

Back in June, I posted about my front door getting vandalized, and how it led me to the decision to finally get the red door I always wanted. Well, here's the red door!

I finally just gave up on trying to sand it myself, and hired my friend Michael to come over and do it for me before the weather got really nasty. I love the way it turned out . . . the color is called "Red Pepper." Of course, then I decided to paint the bricks!


You see, once I really saw the color of the door, I realized that the bricks were just too dull - look at how faded they are on the right "before" section of the wall. And those white bricks always did look funny. So, I did some dry brush highlighting on the bricks with the Red Pepper paint. Then I painted the back door and the door to the shed. Now, I think it may be time to paint the garage door . . . and anything else that holds still.

The Unexpected, and Where it Leads You

When I got back from Philadelphia two weeks ago, two unexpected things happened.

The first is that an enterprising local poet/graffiti artist had carved the mysterious phrase "8XThief" into the beautiful natural wood of my front door. The second is that, as I was finishing up rescheduling all of the appointments I had missed because my return flight was delayed, I got the news that the Small Business Development Center where I work was asking me to delay those appointments by another five weeks. I, and all of the other business advisors, were being asked to take an unexpected vacation from June 15th through July 20th because the Center's funding had been cut and they simply didn't have the money to pay us.

In both cases, after a moment's exasperation, I went into glass half-full problem-solving mode.

For the door, I tried sanding the phrase out, with the idea that I could simply re-stain the wood. But the gouges proved too deep, so I tried to fill them in with wood putty. Unfortunately, this has only had the effect of making the phrase stand out in stark relief, an effect that will only be exaggerated if I re-stain the door. Ugh. I'm going to have to paint it, and cover up the wood.

Then, I start laughing. When I first bought the house, I wanted a red door. But it seemed sad to cover the pretty natural wood of the door. Now, I could paint the door red! I'll have to sand and tape and prime and paint - it'll be a heck of a lot of work, but I'll get my red door.

Now, for that other surprise. I re-scheduled my appointments and made sure that the clients who would need help while I was out were taken care of. I only work part time at the Small Business Development Center, advising other creative entrepreneurs, so it wasn't a huge financial blow. But I do spend a lot of time at it, answering e-mails, scheduling, researching for clients, meeting with clients, and doing data entry. It takes a lot of time and energy, and frankly, my own business has been suffering. I had mixed feelings - happy because I'd get to work on my own business and sad because, well, sad because the external motivation is gone. No clients clamoring for my help or thanking me.

But the last week and a half, I've had lots of time in the studio. I've gotten back in the rhythm of artmaking almost every day, back into working on my book . . . heck, I'm even working on some new tutorials for the blog. And I'm loving it.

And I almost have to laugh out loud. I'm getting to paint, to make art all day, to think about what it means to be creative, to come up with new class ideas. I'm getting to do what I've always wanted to do - I'm getting to be a full time artist. It's a lot of work, it's a huge risk, and it's totally terrifying. When the chance for the job came along, I took it because it looked interesting, challenging, a good learning experience, and yes, it was a safety net of sorts.

Just like the front door.

And now I'm wondering if I want to go back.

Extreme Craft: Knitted Dissections, Paintball, and Monsters, Oh My!

Extreme, adj. 1. Outermost; farthest; edge or border. 2. Going to great lengths; utmost in degree; of the best or worst that can exist in reality or in imagination; excessive; immoderate. 3. Last; beyond which there is none. 4. Radical; advanced. 5. Drastic; very severe.
-adapted from the Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged


Whether you define your object-making and meaning-making in the world as art or craft or some delightful hybrid of the two (as I do), occasionally going to extremes is a great way to stretch your creative muscles. Part of the creative journey is taking risks - sometimes, those risks push the edge. And sometimes, they push you to places better - or worse - than you could have imagined.

That's part of why I love the blog Extreme Craft. Who could resist a hand-knit frog open on a dissection board from CraftyHedgehog?



I was also inspired by the blog author's recent effort to try something "extreme" with his own ceramic art. The result? Using a paintball gun to fire capsules of china paint at blank plates!


And then there's my friend Sven over at Scarlet Star Studios, who illustrated a monster a day on the Monster Month Blog in October, and just published them in the Monster Month Book (with text by famed world-traveling cryptozoologist Professor Ichbonnsen and design assistance from Gretchin). Below is an illustration by Sven of the Trick Squilligoss, one of my favorites (after the Zompire Bat). The images are luscious, and Sven's experience creating three-dimensional puppets for stop-mo animation shows through in the construction of these creatures. Sven did the illustrations based on elaborate descriptions provided to him by the globe-trotting Ichbonnsen. Note the "faintly bioluminescent eyes" on the Trick Squilligoss.


I was fortunate enough to be invited to the book release party last week - and while the Professor was unable to attend, I did get Sven to sign my copy of the book.

And thanks to Linda for the picture of me and Sven - Linda's just taken the biggest risk of all.

Quitting her day job to work full-time as an artist.

Now that's what I call extreme craft.

Wonderful Wheat-Free Weekend: A Creative Life Primer

On a wing of inspiration from CraftyPod, I just signed up for Creative Every Day 2008. Not that I necessarily needed another commitment (save perhaps of the psychiatric type) for the coming year - particularly after my Blogolutions. But something about Creative Every Day's philosophy resonated with me - and seemed so in alignment with my own ideas about creativity, my desire to live a creative life, and my mission to support the creative spark in others, that well, I couldn't resist being a joiner and signing up.

Besides, I clearly don't have enough blogs that I'm reading on a semi-daily basis.

Yup, the ennui is gone, the fog has lifted, the gloom has run its course. I'm back to my usual over-stimulated self, delighted and inspired by everything from a mote of dust to these mind-blowing birds by Ann Wood. Or this daft and dear bird with a thread nest over at WhileSheNaps. Or Tamara Mogendorff's nifty little birds with houses. Or food.

I just finished reading Gluten-Free Girl by Shauna James Ahern. Her foodie blog, a delight no matter what you eat, is here. And guess what? I found the book totally inspiring!

Like the vast majority of women born in the latter 20th century, I have a love/hate relationship with my body and its essential building blocks, FOOD and EXERCISE. I was a bookwormish kid in a family that leaned towards the large and struggled with weight. My early childhood is filled with memories of my mother's homemade chocolate meringue pie and grilled cheese sandwiches; my middle years dominated by microwave pastries eaten during Dukes of Hazard and chewy European breads; my later teen years a blur of Italian food and family conversations about restaurants, food, and diets.

In addition to a medley of body-image madness, I started getting chronic headaches as a teenager. Over the next 10-15 years, I tried everything to get rid of them: wearing glasses (even though I have 20/20 vision), regular massage, vitamins, hot/cold compress, steam, chiropractic, doing yoga, drinking more water. Finally, after years of snorting behind my hand at people who claimed to have "food sensitivities," I got tested. And then I stopped eating wheat. And then my headaches decreased. DRAMATICALLY.

On the one hand, it was a relief. Finally! I knew, at least in part, what was causing the headaches! I could stop most of them! On the other hand, it was one more way to make food the enemy. Food - which I loved, with whom I was having an illicit tastebud affair - could not only make me fat, it could make me sick. Now, I was "depriving" myself not only of "fattening food" because I had an unrealistic idea of what my body should look like and a fear of obesity, I was "depriving" myself of some of my favorite foods: pastas, quick breads, cookies, pastries. Foods I had only recently learned to cook.

A few of you may have followed along this little rant only to wonder, "Ok, but isn't this a blog about creativity? Hello?"

And that's exactly my point! Stay with me a few moments longer, oh gentle reader . . .

My attitude toward food at that point in my life - and frankly, for most of my life - has been antithetical to a creative life. Creativity is about making connections across boundaries, seeing possibilities within constraints. It requires not only cognitive skills - like having and evaluating ideas - it requires affective skills. Emotional skills like being open to novelty, curious, playful, or tolerant of ambiguity*. You know, all those things that allow us to be excited by and engaged in life rather than totally terrified by it all day long?

And Shauna, when she got her diagnoses - not just as "wheat sensitive" but "gluten intolerant" meaning that grains like wheat, barley, spelt, rye and their derivatives were off her list because her body produced gut-destroying antibodies in their presence - what did she do? She got totally excited about all the foods she could eat!

With curiosity and open-minded abandon, she ran headlong into the possibilities. She experimented. She tried new foods. She created, within the constraints her body required for health and pushing the edges, just as a painter creates within the constraints of the canvas and the pigments, always pushing them to do more.

I sometimes feel that if I could consistently cultivate this attitude towards food, I could unlock the whole secret of a creative life.

Baby steps. So, today, I made biscuits. Without wheat.


*for those of you who are curious about the cognitive/thinking skills theory of creativity (and the complementary affective/feeling skills theory), Creative Leadership: Skills That Drive Change by Dr.'s Puccio, Murdock, and Mance is a great primer (though spendy, as it's a textbook)