At The End of the Day

I can't believe it's finished!  The studio is complete.  I want to stand in the middle of Time's Square, jump up and down and yell out, "It's done!  It's finished!  It's beautiful!  I did it!!".  In lieu of that, I'll just share with you.

It took me a couple of weeks but I seem to be able to find everything again, which, when you move your home, office, studio, is always a challenge.  Motor memory has you reach for something where it used to be then there is that moment where you know it's somewhere else but where?  Oh yeah.  You remember.  It just takes time - and a good label maker.

Let's start with the Mother Ship.   For those of you that don't know, I began my then mosaic hobby shortly after my son stopped wearing diapers.  I took his Ikea changing table down to the basement and it was just the right size for my small projects and storing my materials.  Now I use it as a desk to sit and sketch, plan my pieces, research and work out grout formulas.  I store my lazy susans in the place where I used to keep the diapers.  All my different mixes and colors of grouts are in the cabinet below.  The shelves to the right are a cart that I found at the Container Store.  It was on sale for a few bucks because it is missing its wheels.  Perfect for my measuring tools, miscellaneous tools and my all important band aids.  Believe me, I use them daily!

 What a thrill to have all my paints in the same place, neat and organized so there is not all that wasted time searching for that can of Ralph Lauren paint I used last year on that chair that I made for what's-her-name.  In the renovation, I tossed out all the questionable paint - craft, acrylic, latex, spray and kept what I can use from the container without working some voodoo with water and sometimes toxic fluids.  When doing such a thing, make sure you contact the waste management in your area to find out where to dispose of toxic materials.

The painting of the blonde up there was done by me when I was 4 or 5 years old.  I had found my grandpa's old oil painting kit.  I loved that he was an artist and I wanted to try my hand.  It is another touchstone for me.

The clay bas relief of the two dancers (I was a dancer in my first life so everything I did centered around dancing and dancers) was done in the most amazing art room that a public high school has ever seen.  Bellevue High School in Washington state (home now to Microsoft) had a nearly professional art studio with totally cool and hep cats teaching there.  It was the best place to go when skipping geometry.

It takes new choreography to move about and get used to working in my new studio.  In it's own way, it's like a new neighborhood.  I still have to find the best way to get there, the shortcuts and sweet spots.  While writing this series I have revisited pictures of the dark, dank, grey hole it used to be complete with the creepy insulation falling on my head.  Each time, the memory of working in that environment gets further away and less familiar to me.  Hasn't it always been this way?

We often make excuses about why we should keep things the way they are.  It's too hard.  It's not worth it.  It costs too much.  I can't do it alone.  Really, we just don't want to change.  Honestly though, nothing is more refreshing, more invigorating, more stimulating than change.  It's not necessarily a fear-free endeavor but the heart pounding shot of adrenaline that propels us forward wears off into a sense of well being because we have accomplished something and did something we weren't sure we could achieve.

At the end of the day, the only thing that is constant in the universe is change.

The Big Renovation - Let there be light

What an amazing feeling is was to enter my shiny, new, clean studio with no insulation hanging down and walls and floor that would no longer produce equivalent amounts of dust as my work.  The next task at hand was the lighting.  Lighting is a real issue for me no matter what the purpose of the space.  Partly, it is my need to see shapes and colors clearly and as vividly as possible.  The other is that I have severe migraine syndrome and my eyes are more sensitive than most to light temperature, hue and most importantly, strobing.

 



With these considerations, I had made up my mind that track lighting with incandescent light fixtures was the way for me to go.  Ikea (my beloved Ikea) makes a track that can use any one of their fixtures from large work dishes to pinpoint spot lights.  My intention was to install track along the length of the room with two rows running parallel to each other.  I made my pilgrimage to the Paramus Ikea only to find that they were renovating the Marketplace and the only lighting products available were light bulbs.  Damn you Ikea!  The no-brainer was to stop at Home Depot on the way home and see what they had to offer.  There were kits with 4 standard, old fashioned looking fixtures and a 4 foot track or I could buy it all a la carte with variable lengths of track ranging from 4' to 12' and then buying any amount of fixtures I felt I needed.  This was within my budget (under $200) so I began to collect what I needed only to find that there were 4 of this item but not the 10 that I needed.  There was one 8' length of track in white but 10' only came in black.  The frustrating reality was that I could not assemble, in one cart, all the parts I needed, in white.  The question was, did I want to drive from Home Depot to Home Depot hoping that after covering a 50 mile radius I would accumulate what I needed?  No way.

Back at home I began shopping online for track lighting and discovered that most track lighting has converted to halogen and in some cases LED.  Halogen is very hot and does not give a good wash of light.  Most importantly, anything that was recommended for illuminating galleries, the closest use to studio light that was referenced in specs, was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of my price range.  I have a philosophy that if something doesn't come together after pushing the rock halfway up the hill, it's best to step aside and see what happens.  I was beginning to feel that whether or not I knew it, this track lighting thing was not really what I was looking for.

Now a week had gone by, the space was ready to use but there was no light except for the two exposed bulbs in the ceiling.  I was getting anxious  (I am always on some self-imposed schedule that no one is sticking to but me.  I guess that's how I get things done).  Let me interject another one of my structural limitations - because the room is a raw basement there are no electricity sources except the bare light bulb fixtures.  I had screwed an adapter into the ceiling socket wherein you could screw in the light bulb and have two additional outlets. That's where I plugged in my clip lights.  I was determined not to call in an electrician to do any hardwiring so I Goggled on.

And it's a good thing because I got a swell little education on lighting that has enriched my life (no sarcasm here - I'm serious).  I Googled "art studio lighting" and most of the information was about how to light a photographer's studio.  On about page 2 or 3 I found a blog from a painter who struggled with how to light a painter's studio and had shared his exhaustive research in the post.  I tip my hat to him and want him to know he saved me endless research and helped me to achieve my lighting goals.  Here is the link to that blog if you want the overview that I used as my jumping off point.   http://www.westerberg-fineart.com/2011/05/studio-lighting/. 

Westerberg's blog provided a link to a more scientific explanition about light, explaining the whys and hows certain kinds of bulbs put out the light that they do.  This is that link:  http://stereopsis.com/fullspectrum/.  The article from Stereopsis explains the concepts of Color Rendering Index (CRI), color temperature and Kelvin.  It's not necessary to totally understand all this science but the explanation of  what elements produce the light we use gives you a relative grasp of what you need to know to allow you to understand the numbering and labeling of light bulbs.  (As we all switch over to CFLs this info is useful to everyone.)  I arrived at the conclusion that the best way to reproduce natural daylight and artist friendly light is by using fluorescent tube lighting.  (Did you hear the cartoon brakes screeching to a halt there?)

When I collected myself and read further I learned that there are newer, thinner fluorescent tubes that don't hum, flicker and turn on immediately without the expected warm up period.  Better still, these thinner tubes can be used in inexpensive fixtures available at Home Depot and the like, for very little money.  Even better, though they can be adapted to be hardwired, fluorescent light fixtures come with a cord and a plug.  All I needed to do was hang them up from the beams and plug 'em in.  Woohoo!  I chose a different style fixture thanWesterberg.  I selected an industrial, shiny fixture both because I liked how they looked and I felt that the shiny surface would give me just a little more light splash.  The were about $35 a piece.

 

My fixture uses T8 tubes (explanation @ Stereopsis) and the particular bulb recommended for full spectrum light is not available at Home Depot or Lowes.  They can be purchased on Amazon but I found a store in Manhattan called Just Bulbs (http://www.justbulbsnyc.com/Home.html) and I'm pretty sure they have any light bulb ever made.  They also have curbside pick up service (wow! in NYC) and take orders over the phone or by email. I ordered my 8- Phillips TL950's over the phone and they were delivered to my home in 2 days.  Let me add another note here.  When I bought the light fixtures I bought a couple of bulbs that were T8 tubes with a Kelvin similar to the more expensive Phillips bulbs to see if they were the same or at least similar enough.  They absolutely were not.  The difference, using a white sheet of paper was significant.  Though the Phillips bulbs were nearly $10 apiece, they were worth it and I won't be replacing them for several years.  The cords from the fluorescent fixtures plug into the into the light bulb outlets and I am more than pleased with the results.  I love that each fixture has it's own pull chain and I choose to turn them all off independently and use the wall switch to turn on and off the incandescent bulbs.  My husband keeps trying to get me to shorten the pull chains on the lights so they don't dangle down at face level but I refuse. I don't know.  There is something about having those ball chains hanging down around the room that charms me.  Maybe they look like room jewelry to me.  I don't mind walking into them and love how it feels when I pull the chains down to turn them off. 

Finally, there were the bare bulbs and what to do with them both functionally and more importantly, cosmetically.  I found these down shades for more money than I wanted to spend but for the affect and the time I saved by not searching for the perfect thing, I really like them.  Yes, there are black cords running along my imperfect fabric ceiling but I don't care.  Know why?  'Cause I can see!  I also don't seem to have any adverse reaction to the fluorescent tubes.

Light is both functional and an concept in human life.  We need light to see what we are doing - our work, reading, watching and performing the most mundane tasks.  Illumination is critical now that we don't live with the rhythms of the sun.  We also speak of light as it pertains to what lives withing all of us.  We put things "in the light" both physically and metaphysically.  We bring it into the light to see what "it" is or to resolve a long lingering problem.   We shine our light on what is in the dark and what is dark within us.  Though lighting has been important to me as someone from the theatre and now an artist, I have never taken the initiative to try to understand how many different kinds of light there are and what their differences are.  Knowing more about light than I did before gives me more spectrums through which to see things in my life.  I encourage you to know your light better.

Before there was light





After light

 

 

Next week:  The End...or Just the Beginning

 

The Big Renovation - It Continues

With the floor and walls all painted and fresh it was time to attack the dreaded ceiling - a short review.  One of the things that pushed me over the edge and helped me make the leap into this renovation was that the insulation in between the beams above me was falling in creepy, spidery- feeling clumps onto my head and it just looked like something out of an episode of Hoarders. I could stand it no more!

A couple of years ago, my friend Connie and I visited the home and studio of Russell Wright in Garrison,NY (If you locals have not taken this pilgrimage, I say it is a must see).  Wright has been a design hero of mine since childhood.  In fact, one of the great traumas of my childhood is when we moved from New Jersey to Colorado and my father couldn't get one more thing into the truck.  A few boxes were left behind in the garage of the old house as trash.  The contents?  My mother's entire set of Russell Wright dishes.  A few large serving pieces were saved but sometimes I think what it would be like to have all those glorious dishes.

When we walked into Mr. Wright's studio it was a very clean, spare, mid-century modern space.  Pretty much what you would expect from a designer of his time.  The ceiling caught my eye though.  There was burlap stretched taught from one end of the room to the other and stapled along the beams.  It was so simple and tidy.  I made a mental note - in red Sharpie.

Unlike Russell Wright who worked above ground in a very squared off studio, I work underground where all of the water, sewer and electrics of the house converge and huddle in mounds of nasty pee colored insulation.  Nevertheless, I knew that this burlap thing was a much better and more cost affective way to cover the entire mess

I decided I wanted to do alternating stripes of white and natural colored fabric and I bought two bolts (40 yards) of each color.  I think we figured we needed 77 yards and believe me, in the end, it was not a waste.  My husband  and I measured and measured again before cutting our first piece.

I don't know how many of you have tried to hoist a 15 foot long, 45 inch wide piece of fabric over your head while standing on a step stool and trying to staple it over your head but it is not friggin' easy.  Getting it started was the most stressful part of the operation and I would love to tell you what my "technique" was but I couldn't tell you because it was just one foul language fest after another.  The other aggravating thing we dealt with was that the staple gun kept breaking.  I have never had any love lost over a staple gun anyway.  I think they suck, but I found one at Home Depot that had a softer squeeze than your standard chrome bastard and was easier on my smallish hands.  I didn't have to throw every bit of strength I had into each staple.  It was also kind of cute with red plastic handles.  We made it through about one piece before the gun broke and I also noticed that there was a little smudge of red on the burlap.  I immediately assumed I had cut myself.  Nope.  The dye from the red handles was rubbing off on my skin then onto my cloth ceiling.  Back to Home Depot.  We made 3 trips to the store and went through 4 staple guns.  Don't ask me why because I can't tell you.

We had decided that we would work from the center out and the first piece we put up was so off  center.  We had plenty of excess on one side and the other side did not reach the wall.  Every time we finished one piece and cut another we were sure we had learned the ins and outs and finally had a system.  Alas, every single piece was a reinvention of the wheel.

Though it is a little lumpy in spots and there is only one end of the room with dry wall to attach to, when we were done I was so happy not to see the ratty you-know-what.  And in the end, it was really the right solution to a rather complicated problem.  Access to the house systems is a simple yank of the staples.  We left the water main lever exposed at the opening of the crawl space and the sewer and water pipes over my slop sink remain uncovered.



Next episode I will tell you about my journey into the science and shopping for just the right lighting.  Bill Nye I am not, but I will try to explain it as best I can.

I'll be on vacation in Maine, recovering from all of this and be back online August 28th.  Enjoy the rest of your  summer!  Here's the link to Manitoba, Russell Wright's beautiful property.  http://www.russelwrightcenter.org/redesign/home.html  P.S.  It's a great place to hike.





The Big Renovation - Part Deux

DAY 2

Tired and sore, my hubby and I slowly made our way downstairs to the basement that we had deconstructed into one big, intimidating mess.  The mission on day two was to seal and paint the three concrete walls and add a coat of the same high gloss white to the one and only wall of drywall in the studio.  (When we moved into the house we had only half of the basement finished so the party wall between the two spaces gives me the only drywall and by the way, the only electricity in the whole studio. ) Also on the mission plan - to seal and paint the concrete floor.

The room in total measures about 10'x26' and in an effort to minimize the distance we had to move everything we calculated that if we unloaded one side of the room into the already finished area or the basement, painted and sealed the walls and floor on the empty side, then we could leave that to dry overnight and come back and do the ceiling the next day.  Then we could move everything on the other side of the center beam to the finished side and repeat the process before rearranging the furniture and loading all the supplies back in.  So we were going to work in 10'x13' sections. 

Before starting, we had gone to Home Depot and purchased a standard, water-based concrete sealant and a bright white latex paint made for concrete surfaces.  The foundation of the house is 12 years old so we were certain it had completed it's curing process and was not going to sweat, causing it to take forever to dry.  That also meant that it would take only one coat of each to get the results we were looking for.

Initially we thought we were going to knock this right out with rollers but we discovered that the uneven texture of the walls required us to apply it with a brush.  We used 4" brushes with course bristles because the application required a lot of dappling.  I take that back - we pounded that sealant into those friggin' walls.

Fortunately by the time we had made our way around the room the sealant was dry enough to apply the paint so it was a pretty round robin work process.  Once the bright white paint was applied to the dry wall and the concrete I was suddenly less tired than I was at the beginning of the day.  The first glimpse of the vision was taking shape and I could see where we were going.

Beautiful SHINY  walls!

Now the process had to be repeated with the floor.  We did not use the same products on the floor as we did the walls.  Once again, Home Depot had a generic brand of sealant specific to floors that came in basic primer colors.  Since I had chosen a light silver grey for the floor we got a grey sealant/primer.  Both products were water based allowing for clean up that required nothing but water.  I don't know how much experience any of you have with unsealed concrete floors but let me explain that you can broom sweep a floor like this, fill a dustpan and go back right away and do it again and get the same full dustpan as before.  It is a never, never ending source of grey dust and added to that, the accumulated particles from the dust generating work I do  and we had to force ourselves to accept that the primer was not going to be applied to a pristine floor.  This time we used rollers on a pole, which gave us the leverage we needed to  force the stuff into the texture of the floor.  However, the products for the floor were thicker and  packed with adhesives causing the drying process to take twice as long.  Our schedule was now thrown off and being the control freak that I am, I found myself in deep despair.  My husband and chief slave worker was only off from work for a week.  I panicked that we would fall behind and not finish the project before the hub had to return to the job.  It's not easy being neurotic.

A note on the floor.  I wanted to put down one of those sparkly floors with the metallic speckles so it would be a little fancier.  Those floors are epoxy.  The helpful guy at Home Depot (can you believe we found someone there that was not only helpful but knew what the hell he was talking about!) explained that a) we would die from the fumes given we were in a badly ventilated basement and b) it was over 100 degrees outside with 1000 percent humidity and c) it would cost us about 3 times as much money.  Those techniques, he explain, are designed for garages and smaller, ventilated spaces.  I didn't need sparkly glitter bits that badly.  Imagine what that would have done to my schedule neurosis, never mind my wallet.

                                 Floor with primer...                               Finished off with the silver grey paint

At last!  One half of the studio was completely painted - both walls and floor.  With another day's work accomplished I left the job that day feeling very differently than I had the day before.  I could see a vision materializing.  I had imagined for years what I would do if I could renovate this space.  I dreamed of something clean and bright.  A place I wanted to be, not just because it was where my beloved work was but because the room made me feel poised, together, comfortable - like someone who could take it to the next level.

Next week:  the despised and dreaded ceiling.

The Big Renovation - In The Beginning

The commitment to go through every single piece and thing in my wet studio (as opposed to where I make jewelry and anything else that does not require water which I call the dry studio) was a major one and something I was not going to do unless I was comfortable with the idea of growing with my business.  Dark, sometimes dank and completely unattractive the space I had cobbled together was one that I could work in that got the job done.  Ugly as it was, once I settled in and got lost in the work, I didn't really notice that it was a dusty as the lonely trail down there and a little like sitting in the rooms that hide under the double doors in the sidewalks of NYC.

A little history...  This work space started as a little area for me to pursue a hobby that I had taken up when my son started school, to occupy a little free time with something artistic and creative.  Having come from a life in the performing arts, shutting off that part of myself all at once when my son was born was a shock to the system.  I needed to get some of myself back.  Ironically, my first workbench was the Ikea changing table we had purchased on Long Island for our Queens apartment where we lived when Dakota was born.  When we moved on from Brooklyn to Rockland County, I tossed all the baby furniture - except that changing table.  It looked to me like it could be re-purposed in a creative way.  I am a prophet.

At the onset of this project, we were cursed by an oppressive heat wave with days in the high 90s and up to 100 degrees on one of our work days.  The very first thing we did before beginning any work was run to Home Depot for a small window air conditioner that we installed in a small window in the dry studio.  May I say it was the best $129.00 we spent on the whole renovation?

I began the photo record of this process after I had started the clean up and move out process so understand that though it was nasty down there, it was neat (anyone who knows me knows that anywhere I am could be filthy but I am neat as a pin).  I wanted to show you the rawness of the space I was working in and how rustic my environment was while trying to create something beautiful.

Here you can see the raw concrete walls and the catch-as-catch-can clutter of supplies.  The grey cement sucked up all the light and was dreary as a hole in the ground - which actually it is as it is the foundation of my house!

The rack to the right in the photo holds all the boxes and trays of my shards, glass, tiles and the small objects  that I use in my piquet assiette work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piquet_assiette).  Many of those boxes held materials from some of the first work that I did years ago and hadn't been even considered for use in about 10 years.

To the right of the plastic cabinet in the background is my sink and to the right of that, the culmination of all my waste water pipes and sewage drain.  The large garbage can on the left is my slop bucket where I dump waste water from my tools and bowls when I clean the concrete and grout from them.  If you allow all that to go down the sink, after a while you will cement your pipes closed.  The table is my main and favorite work table which was a roadside pickup.  I love that it is round.

The table that the boom box is on is the mother of my work, the changing table. On top of the bookcase is a jumble of broken chairs, future armatures and other assorted, collected detritus. The clip lights have been a part of another cobbled together system that has been my lighting grid for several years now

My dear, supportive husband took a week off from work to help me with the major construction parts of the renovation and this is him, up on the ladder, stuffing some of the insulation that was falling down on my head back into place.  There are those beeeuuutiful concrete walls again.

The unloading process was arduous and a lot more stuff was put in the trash because when you have to pick it up and move it, you really begin to question its value.  On my first pass, I think I tossed about 8 or 9 full contractor bags of stuff.  In the moving process I may have doubled that.

My husband in the emptied out room preparing the walls and floor for sealing.  The big hole you see is a crawl space we use for storage but frankly, at night there are any number of vampire/zombie type creatures that could emerge from that darkness.  Please notice the insulation once again and the piece of tape dangling there, the remains of an effort to keep it up where it belongs.

After a long 10 hour day one last look back at the mess that will be there for us tomorrow to deal with.  Covered in dust and sweaty from hard work in one of the multiple, oppressive heat waves that  have set upon us this summer we went upstairs for a shower and a glass of Big Ass Cab.

The Big New Vision

I've spent a lot of time and energy researching how to take NellsBelles from Etsy and a few local specialty shops to the higher end, custom market that I have longed to work in.  Craft work has made me reduce my work to small, accessible objects - frames, vases, trays and small memory jars.  I have enjoyed this work and take pleasure in the  happiness these items have imparted to their buyers.  Yet when I began this work I was doing on site installations, and larger pieces like coffee tables, lamps, stairways.  My work lives best large.  It is easier to tell my stories and the boldness of the individual objects speak more as a chorus and less like a solo.

Working Small in the Craft Market



In my never ending cyber education, I have explored the universe of e-commerce and the world of digital integration.  Using social media and more importantly, doing the things that one needs to do in order to work one's way to the top of Google searches.  This includes using "keywords" in product descriptions, social media posts, blogs, twitter, et al.  I have isolated a few artists that seem to be very adept at the art of e-business and I have studied their practices.  Along with this, and after what seems to be exhaustive research, I have narrowed my search for a company to build a custom website and organize my promotion, press - digital integration, to a couple of organization.  I am favoring a company called Clickzy, located in Alexandria, Virginia (a turf I am well acquainted with BTW).  My goal is to establish a business, locally (New York City is a big "locally") whereby I can have a moderate but loyal clientele who will turn to me for custom artistic mosaic home items and envision my Vintage Assemblage jewelry for that perfect dress for that special occasion.  Custom, custom, custom. 

This vision is evolving everyday.  I'm excited, invigorated and very tired.  In the mean time, it has occurred to me that in order to follow this new dream, new and improved work spaces are necessary.  Next up:  The Big Renovation. 

Working Big

What's Goin' On?

It's been a while. 

NellsBelles continues to shape shift all the time as I work and grow as a craft artist.  It seems like it's a constant push/pull between the glorious work of making my products and the mind numbing labor of growing a business.  I don't mean it that way.  Growing a business is a wonderful experience but there are some mind numbing tasks involved in the process and the gear-shifting that has to take place is often difficult for me and not always a smooth process.  Creativity for me comes in waves and it seems I am either lost in my studio working, neglecting the computer, correspondence, my Etsy team, whatever is not "the work" or I am fretting about being "dry" and only minding the store.

In the mean time I want to let you know about some upcoming shows that I am doing.  On November 12th I will be at the Suffern Farmers Market with some of my Etsy team mates doing a Hudson Valley Handmade event for holiday shopping.

On December 2nd I will be at Bard College for a Holiday Craft Fair which is about 3.5 miles north of Rhienbeck, NY on the eastern side of the Hudson river.  I'm really looking forward to this one.  Hoping to make some inroads with a younger market with items like "Eyes On The Top of Her Head"!

   





 

Eyes On the Top of Her Head Headband



On November 19th I'll be in Chappaqua, NY and I'll have more details on that soon!
 



Trip and Learn

Life piles up.  We get it straightened out, organized, manageable and we feel powerful.  In control.  We just know it's all going to work.  Work just the way we want it to.  To the T.  We can do anything we put our minds to.  Goal post here I come.  I can hear the crowd cheering already.  Yeah.  Alright.  Just a little push, a rally here at the end and I'm over the finish...

I trip on the finish line.  Well actually just before the end zone on that divot on the field, and down I go.  What the fuck?  Life, as they say, happens and I am ass over tea cup, dazed, confused and really pissed off.

Life has genuine passages.  Infancy, toddler hood, preschool, preteen, adolescence...middle age.  Every phase has it's requisite challenges and sometimes they all converge at the same time and no matter how prepared you are, no matter how  certain you are that you are going to whoop the odds, they nevertheless crash into your groomed and manicured life and knock you sideways like a stunt right out of a Jackass movie (one of my more embarrassing little life pleasures).  You can lay there and cry and cuss or you can laugh out loud and get up and limp back to life.  Sometimes a little of both is realistic.

So here's my situation.  NellsBelles is my passion, my baby, it's what I want to be doing.  I want to grow this business into a serious entity.  A money maker.  A creative endeavor that has it's own place in the world that carries my signature.  I want you to be able to recognize it as a Neely McCormick piece.  I want NellsBelles on the map on some level that is satisfying to me.

I have a life though.  And in my life is a husband who has been promoted in his job (good thing) and will be basically be in NYC for 4-6 weeks and a week in LA.  Repeat (maybe a good thing).  Then there is the chronically ill teen aged son who is recovering from major shoulder surgery and is trying to decide between three colleges before May 1st and so we are spending the month of April traveling to the three, each for one last look.  In the mean time, Dakota is trying to make up all the work he has missed while recovering and traveling and my husband and I are in financial limbo between a state school offering  enough scholarship money that our piece of it can be out of pocket to having to borrow $250,000 - and points in between.  Those decisions will determine whether we put our house on the market immediately or know that we have breathing room to do that when we feel more settled and prepared.  Oh, and did I mention that my husband has just lost one of his brothers after a struggle with cancer and I struggle on a daily basis with chronic neurological issues that cause me to be in pain every single day.

I tell you this, not for pity or excuse.  Good god, I don't have the life of a Haitian family living in a tent or a Japanese mother trying to figure out what to do with no husband, 2 kids and a radioactive house.  I have perspective to be sure.  No, I tell you this because I have a serious scheduling problem.  After I schedule the appointments with all the doctors and physical therapists.  After I adjust our activities because my husband will be out of town.  After I meet with the attorney and the accountant and the real estate agent and book hotel rooms and print out Mapquest directions to Acceptanced Students days and RSVP to Scholar Breakfasts.  After I  drag my tired teenager around campuses and try to get him to show a little enthusiasm for something about one of the institutions where he will be spending the next four years of his life and pop him another hydrocodone to push him on because he is in pain.  After I try to get 4 or 5 hours of sleep and get to the grocery store, try to make the house look clean when it's really not, do laundry and did I mention I have 2 dogs and an iguana that need to be feed, bathed and otherwise entertained - well then I get to put all my extra time into my beloved business.

There are 24 hours in a day and 7 days a week and we all know they are just not enough.  I remember when we all became time conscience and got our Day Runners and Filofaxes, we started telling ourselves in that EST-ian way that time is made, not found.  An effective person, someone who is destined for success makes time for all that matters.  That way tasks get accomplished and goals are met.  Yet, if memory serves me, I had no kids - not even a husband and a mortgage and the only thing that determined my comings and goings was me, myself and I.

I have noticed that smart phones do not have an app to create more time to get shit done.  Nothing about the computer saves me any significant time except when it comes to exchanging information with people and the lack of phone calling does streamline the communication process.  But even with all my new found technology, I have no new found extra time.  There's more traffic than there used to be and waiting for a light can be an agonizing existential moment of what I could be doing if I didn't have to wait for other people to get to where they are going, just as frantic and frazzled as I am.  And when was the last time I walked from one place to the other instead of dashing and running and poking elevator buttons angrily as if it had any affect on time at all.

My New Year's resolution was to grow NellsBelles.  To take it beyond (but not away) from Etsy and into some new venues.  Promote myself.  Get my name out there.  Get some press.  Make some connections.  I've been able to get to a few trade shows and met a few people that are nice but not the people I am looking for to work with.  I'm still creating work (tho that has slowed significantly) but I feel like I am struggling not to fizzle out and wake up one day and think, "Remember when you had that little web site and you were selling the things you make?  Whatever happened to that?"  I don't want to be a...a...a.  Okay, I don't want to be a looser.  I want to scale this mountain of taken time and still be able to make this work.

One of the greatest books I ever read, back in the hippie days, was called The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment.  It was written by a guy in Berkley who was tripping on acid most of the time but the message of the book was plain, simple and the wisest advice I've ever gotten.  In times of challenge I repeat the mantra to get through - NO RESISTANCE.  Take that in for a moment.  When life is pushing so hard that you just know it's going to win, stop fighting back and go with the flow.  You don't walk toward a tsunami.  Allow there to be no time.  Accept that you are sick and tired of everything.  Acknowledge that what is going on right now is not about what you want but what you must do.  Admit that you are not super woman and believe that the status quo is not an immediate indicator of failure. 

My time will return.  In spades.  Before I know it I will be sitting in this chair with no one in the house but me and the animals.  The boy will be away at college and hubby will be in California.  I will have nothing but my own time.  Time will be all mine to use.  NellsBelles will be my baby, my life's work.  It will be what gets me up in the morning.

My life is calling for change.  If I don't do this how can I get that?  Not resisting means understanding that the things that frustrate us the most are often our greatest educators.  Somewhere in this cluster fuck of troublesome activity is knowledge and wisdom that will be handy in the months and years to come and if I pay attention now, I'll have it handy in my back pocket.  I'm in the process of finishing something I started 18 years ago.  Yes, I will always be his mommy but for both of us, on a deeply emotional level, he is leaving home.  He will always be my sun and moon and will be the reason I press on when I'd really rather not.  But he is leaving and NellsBelles is still a pregnancycy.  She will get my undivided attention very soon.  In the mean time, I have to attend to one of the most important things I will ever do.  Make sure he settles into a place where he will be comfortable and grow and then say goodbye.

Sharpening the Saw

Sharpening the saw.  Remember that?  You know, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  All the rage in the 90's.  Give me a show of hands.  Who read it?  No?  Yes?  Anyway...

If you think about the phrase it is pretty self-explanatory.  You have to stay sharp in order to achieve and you have to do things to keep sharpening that edge.  Reading, learning, expanding your horizons and keeping what you have in shape. 

Picking up the thread of my last posting we are back in my serenity room in the upstairs of my house.  The window looks out onto a splendid patch of woods with a small river running through it and a feeder stream connecting a Y of water that is winding its way through the snow, all sparkling in the sunlight of this crisp, clear  winter's day.  A foot or so of snow remains on the ground with only a few critter prints marking the clean white sheet.   The stark simplicity of it all makes my chest fill up with joy.

I am about to turn on the music to move my body around and I am just not in the fucking mood.  Really.  I would rather be downstairs doing the laundry!  That is how much I do not want to bend my knees and lift my arms up over my head but there is a voice in my head that won't let me out of this room.  It's the voice of my 17 year old son.  He and I have joined forces and hands to tackle the hindrances of our respective bodies.  He, a young budding rock star who, after loosing the 50 pounds he gained while doing an extended stint in a wheelchair, is determined to get rid of the last 10 pounds that has dogged him for a couple of years now. I, as I have told you, am out to reclaim, not the body of my youth but the body that represents the youthful spirit I still experience, even in my middle ageness.  Part of this joint venture is that we have hung a huge erase board calendar in the kitchen and we have to write down all the pertinent information regarding what we do each day in pursuit of our goals. 

As I kicked off the year, I was gangbusters, like we all are with first of the new year resolutions.  The second week, I hung in there like the champ that I am and pushed through the sloth that begged me to do something other that work out.  The third week - well, let's see.  There was the 2 day migraine (ok, a pass for that) and then there was the doctor's appointment in the city that took all day.  Oh, and I had that long day of errands - Fairway, the post office, bank, cleaners, TJ Maxx, Starbucks...okay the last 2 were me stalling so that I could be assured that there would be no time left in the day for me to get my way-too-wide behind into gear. 

"Dude.  What's up with the workouts?"  (Yep, my son calls me "dude".)  Well...blah, blah, blah and then blah, blah, blah - "Mom!  WTF!"  (Yep, he said the whole phrase.)  "Excuses!"  What's up with that?"  I had no answer but just what it was.  Excuses.  Nothing real (except the headache) nothing acceptable, just a whole lot of blah, blah, blah.  "I don't know.  I just bagged out on it, I guess."  "On yourself, Ma.  You bagged out on yourself".  I have found that nothing makes me feel more naked and exposed than to be lectured by my teen aged son, and he nails me dead to the truth.  Damned you!  "I'll tell you why you're slacking off, dude.  You don't believe in yourself."

Uncomfortable pause.  "What did you say?"  "You don't believe in yourself.  That's why you didn't work out.  If you believed in yourself you'd keep it up."  "You're absolutely right, Monk."  (Yes, I call him Monk and not for no good reason.)

I walked away to think about this simple of statement.  Of course.  If I truly believed in myself, I wouldn't let myself down by not keeping my word to myself.   Hard and simple of questions were at hand.  Do I truly believe that I can shed this tonnage and be light on my feet again?  Do I really believe that I can bridge that gap between my kneecap and my chest?  Will I really ever trot down the long driveway to the mailbox or try to outrun the dogs around the yard?  Will I ever regain some of those dancing chops so that I can bust a move for my son that will make him proud and amazed?  I have the vision but do I really believe my own eyes?

I've been feeling a little lost in my NellsBelles business as well, since the holidays.  After taking time off, resting and doing all the things that are expected of me at Christmas, I felt at a crossroads with my work.  I've been at this long enough now, a little more than a year, and I have certainly come a long way in that time.  I am proud of what I have accomplished.  But the accomplishment of launching my Etsy store, building up enough stock to be in business and doing a few craft shows is a finite endeavor.  Selling, building a brand, gaining a consumer following- that is the business.  It requires an additional skill set and a renewed determination to step into the unknown of art in commerce.  Now I have to promote myself.  Now I have to present my work with pride and confidence and believe that others in the position to raise my profile will agree with me.  Now is the winter of my self promotion.  Do I believe my own eyes?

I'm attending the winter New York Gift Show next week and plan to attend a series of seminars presented by CRAFT (Craft Retailers and Artists For Tomorrow).  The topics include Moving to Inbound Marketing, Media Marketing and Using Facebook to Build Your Business.  I'm hoping that what I learn from these few days will give me some know-how and inspiration to move in the direction that I think suits where I believe I belong in the marketplace.  I am hoping to be inspired by other artists that are living their vision.  Mostly, I am hoping to be inspired to believe in what I do.  I want to live my vision.

So here we are, back in the serenity room.  Facing the window and its photo worthy view, Adam Lambert is playing on my boom box (don't judge me - we all have quirks) and I hear my son's voice.  Dude, you have to believe in yourself.  I inhale deeply, raising my arms over my head.  My palms come together and as I exhale they come to prayer position at my heart chakra.  (Okay, I spent a lot of time in the 80's at Crystal Magic and the Flotation Room.  We all have a past.)  In the moment before I inhale again, I feel it come over me.  Not the warmth of the sun but a wave of sureness and calm.  I believe.  I know I believe because I am here, breathing and moving and planning and being.  I can move forward because I simply choose to believe in myself.

To sharpen the saw can be like walking the razor's edge.

The Long and Winding Road

Happy New Year!  I sort of dropped off the blogosphere for a while.  I've been getting comfortable and confident in my techno endeavors and looking forward to what comes next in the business of NellsBelles.

The other day, my BFF elbowed me into violating one of my social principals.  Years ago, I swore off anything that even vaguely looks and feels like a "chain letter".  I caught on quickly to the gifts and games on FB and told all my friends I wouldn't be playing or exchanging gifts with them - ever.  When political statements come along with the proviso to "copy and post to your page", no matter if I'm with you or not, I will not follow.  So when the BFF sent me a FB note to declare my New Year's resolutions and forward to 10 friends, I winced and acted against my better judgement.  Now, this is the place where I let you know that most everyone I know has also taken a stand on the ole' pass it on and you'll get rich, happy, peaceful - whatever, thing so my well intentioned pals wished me luck, some told me I was brave to pull my panties down in public, and no one declared their ten things even for just me to read in reciprocity!  My face, she is red.

Okay.  The damage is done and I have now publicly exposed my goals for 2011.  I always do it anyway.  Every New Year's Eve, I look back on the previous year's New Year's journal entry, review my successes and failures, how things shifted and (hopefully) grew and set out an action plan for the year to come.  However, no one ever looks at my journal but me so guess how many people know what I'm up to.

I have been at war with my body for my entire life.  (This really does pertain to my business.  Bear with me.)  Therefore it follows that every New Year's Eve I make some commitment to myself to take action to change myself physically.  Some context:  in my first life, I was a dancer.   In my teen aged years, I was considered a chubby dancer at a size 7 junior.  As an adult I was always chasing 5 more LBs even as I dipped below 100 pounds.  I was put on my first diet in the third grade and I have fasted as long as two weeks.  (That was so I could bear to climb into a shiny white unitard and be seen in public performing.)  You get the picture and don't 'cha know, number one on my list this year was to stop being fat (pregnancy - 18 years ago).

Step number one for me is always to get moving.  Now I do do exercise.  After all, it was my religion as well as my profession for many years.  It's just that I don't push myself too hard and skipping a day or a week or a month just doesn't get under my skin as much as it used to.  But I have declared, in public, (damn you Kate!) that I am going to stop being fat.

I play no sports.  I used to take 1o:00 class every morning, for decades, on top of whatever other classes I took that day, classes I taught or whatever I might be rehearsing.  Not doing this was not an option.  Not taking morning class was like deciding not to show up at your job at the bank until after lunch - just because.  With this in mind please know I have a little chip on my shoulder and I get bored easily.  I hate being bored.  I have a lot of tricks I play on myself to get into motion from drawing random cards from yoga decks to switching off between 10 Minutes a Day to 8 Minutes In the Morning.  Clearly my heart isn't in it and my commitment to it all is drudgingly difficult to maintain.  But without motion and movement there is no hope for me to alter my appearance and shop for a different sized clothing.

I shall suck it up.

So.  Here's the business part.  This morning I drew some cards from the yoga deck.  One of the poses was a bendy-stretchy kind of thing on my back and when I went to reach for my leg, I couldn't get ahold of it!  I used to be a veritable circus act of limberness.  I could drop down into a full split in the blink of an eye and sit down on the floor with my legs out to the side, put my chest on the floor in front of me and take a nap.  Not being able to reach my own leg to perform a little stretching exercise did not make me happy.  Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe through your limitations and accept where you are now.

Whoa.  There I lay, with my yoga strap around my leg so I could hoist it toward my chest trying to accept my limitations.  But wait.  What if, I said to myself.  What if the distance between my knee cap and my breast is potential and not a limit?  What if I see that space as useful and productive?  What if that distance is the opportunity to travel?  Breathe and be happy you have somewhere to go! 

My husband took some left over vacation days during the holidays and I decided that we were both going to rest, sleep, nap, watch movies and probably not vacuum up all the dog hair for a week.  During this time, I decided that the next step I need to take in moving NellsBells forward is to promote myself.  Put myself out there.  Make a splash.  Be the gal whose work shows up in Lucky magazine as the next great find.  I decided to go back to all my books and reference materials and begin the process of having something like a press package, put out regular submissions to blogs and magazines and perhaps do a little advertising here and there.  Last year's goal was to get the business up and running.  This year I want to put it on the map.

I got a great new year gift yesterday.  Someone sent me an email asking if I was interested in purchasing some of her jewelry scraps.  She had seen a picture of one of my necklaces in New Jersey Monthly magazine in an article about the Craft Lounge (a shop that sells some of my work).  What?  Me in a magazine?  I ran to Borders and bought a copy and stood in the middle of the store, giggling to myself.  I couldn't stop staring at the picture of my necklace, professionally photographed and printed on the glossy page of a magazine.  Ask and ye shall receive.

So as I was trying to pull my knee to my chest and not being very happy with the results, I really, really got that we have to begin and once we begin we have someplace to go.

Here Kitty, Kitty

http://www.etsy.com/listing/63227281/kitty-and-flowers-necklace-of-vintage

Cyber Monday!

I'll be posting new items all day.  Start your day with this one. http://www.etsy.com/listing/63218591/art-deco-necklace-of-recycled-vintage

Happy Hands

I can't believe that it has been 2 months since I posted my last blog!  I won't wonder where the time has gone because I know and I'd like to tell you about it.

It's been about a year and a half since I began the endeavor called NellsBelles.  Last summer I spent an entire season trying to figure out how to operate the laptop, take pictures, create my Etsy site and all that is entailed in that process.  I joined the Hudson Valley Etsy team which revolutionized my experience of Etsy and accelerated the progress of my business.  A big shout out to my girls at HVET and my appreciation for how they have inspired me and energized me to push myself further and faster than I had planned.

So, shows.  Ah, the arts and crafts shows and street fairs.  What a mixed bag and what a mixed blessing.  My first couple were ego boosters, confidence makers and excellent meet and greets.  I made a few sales and connected with retailers, promoters and many advice givers.  There was the invaluable opportunity to interact with potential customers and actually observe how people reacted to my work.  What attracted people and what didn't.  One of the most surprising things that I discovered was that people loved, I mean loved the Victorian Memory Jars which are my favorite thing to do and what I thought people would be the least attracted to.  That was a thrilling discovery and has really allowed me to focus my mosaic work more.  The "Eyes on the Top of Her Head" headbands seem to be popular and there are about a dozen of them for sale at The Craft Lounge in Leonia, New Jersey.  I met the women who own The Craft Lounge at the Ridgewood fair.  They are fantastic and I am enjoying working with them. 

Mostly what I learned about the outdoor shows is that there is a HUGE difference between a genuine art and craft show and all the rest of the events, regardless of how they are billed.  For the most part, street fairs are like carnivals.  It is an opportunity for large groups of people to walk in a crowd, eat crappy food they would probably not eat normally and drop a few dollars on some novelty item they will grow tired of in a few weeks and wonder what ever got into them in the first place.  Then there are true art and craft shows when true talent is on display and discerning people pay good money to own these works of art.  I am aware of some of these genuine articles and I never in a million years thought that they were where my work belonged.  I have always thought of myself as more crafty and less artist.  I have always aspired, hoped to feel I was worthy of "craft artist" or "artisan" but it was not until I left my studio and put myself in public arenas that I was able to clarify my perspective of myself.

For years, I put myself on the line and I mean literally my self on the line as a dancer and an actress.  It was I that was on display.  It was the talent that was expressed in my body, my voice, my appearance that was open to the judgements of whoever was sitting on the other side of the table in the audition room.  I had to look these people, the almighty job holders, in the eyes and present my self for approval and hopefully get the job.  It was a gruelling life.  A life that can rock the confidence and self image of the most confident and egocentric performers.  I had more downs than ups and in the end, I realize I took a brutal beating during that time of my life.

What I do now, I do in private.  I work alone.  No one watches me like they did in acting class or dance class.  I make my mistakes in private.  If it doesn't work out, I throw it away and no one ever knows what a mess I made.  I can work on something until I am happy with it.  I can choose who I show it to for feedback and I can expose the work to the public when I feel confident in what I have created.  And somehow, when someone looks at one of my lamps or a necklace or a memory jar and they are not interested in any way it isn't a problem for me.  It's not me.  It is a product of me but it is not me.  I am enjoying that distance.  I am happy for that freedom.  I am loving what I am doing with myself.

What I learned this summer, during this show season, is that I can be as good as I want.  I can have a vision, I can follow that vision and really can make it happen.  Simple, isn't it.  We have heard it all of our lives.  We tell our kids they can do anything they want.  Yet for me there was always a major detail left out of the message.  We can't do anything we want.  The accent is really on want and I always thought the focus was the anything.  That anything we tried hard at could produce magnificent results.  Not true Grasshopper, not true.  What we really mean is that we can do anything with what we want.  And we have to want it in a passionate way.  The want has to emanate from the pit of our stomachs, from the bottom of our hearts, from that place that tells us what would really make us happy.  That, as so many of us know is the tricky part.  Sorting out what would really make us happy and to have the sense of self to identify it and stick to our guns.

I always knew I wanted to be an artist.  It was all in the busy hands.  It was in sitting next to Grandma, it was in the sketchbooks I lugged around it was in the pull I felt when I looked at a painting in a museum and felt the urge to walk into the picture and become a part of it.  Other people didn't see it.  They saw me being good at other things like being on stage and I followed their opinions into the working world.  I always knew but I couldn't find the strength to say so.  I never thought I was good enough.  I knew I had the desire but I didn't believe there was talent.  I looked to make anything happen with something that just didn't fit like a glove.

Having a kid changed all that.  It was my son that taught me the real relationship between wanting and doing.  He would make proclamations about something he was going to do and I would, in my mind, scream out,"No!  You can't do that!  You're not good enough, the right type, fast enough...".  Yet, I would always go along with what he wanted.  I wanted him to have the chance to try.  And time after time, it was the things that he was passionate about that he worked and worked at and eventually became good at and in some instances acquired  of mastery in.  His passion always gave him the right to do the things he wanted.  Because of his determination and his commitment to who he is my kid has always seemed to have the ability to make anything he really wants, happen.

I've been schooled.  Yes, indeed I have.  Now I go to my studio and I believe.  I believe because I want to.  I believe because I have to.  My passion is in my studio and it comes out of my busy hands.  Happy hands, happy woman.  I feel at home at last.

Kaleidoscope Eyes

I have to say, the glow from that first outing has kept its charge for some time now.  I find myself drawing on the experience of being out in public with my work and can feel myself changing.  Its a shape shift into something that has always been there.  Maybe it's a melting.  The melting of a persona that was fabricated over years of my life, applied as a mask to survive, please others, do what I was told, be what I thought I should be.  I have several talents and I have pursued most of them.  Success has rewarded some more than others but when I look back to my childhood my earliest impulses were to make things with my hands. 

I never drew very well.  My eyes didn't translate depth to the flat surface and though my hands were quite capable under well guided circumstances I just didn't draw well.  I longed to be able to sit under a tree with a sketch pad and good lead pencil and just sketch for hours.  I dreamed of what it would be like (still do) to see something in my minds eye and be able to translate that onto a sheet of paper.  But in reality, me, not so much.  And because of that I got it into my head that I wasn't and could never be an artist.  No drawing, no art school.  Never mind that I would spend hours in the art room of my hippie high school in Seattle working with clay, throwing pots on the manual kick wheel with its huge concrete wheel that looked like something out of a grist mill.  Just because I loved helping Don, the art teacher, set the hay on fire to do some Raiku clay firings didn't mean that I could make making things a way of life for myself.  My sense of color was just an additional asset when it came time to decorate my house when I grew up or helped me be a "good dresser".  No, it didn't matter that I loved having dirty hands and swooned over the smell of wet clay or loved the transformation of wax into metal or that even if I couldn't produce a realistic drawing, the sight of a blank sheet of paper gave me butterflies.  Blank, white paper.  Total possibility.  No holds barred.  Freedom.

Instead, I graduated from high school and took off for New York to dance.  I was better than most but I certainly had my limitations.  I lived in that skin for many, many years.  Eked out a living and always felt like a bit of an impostor.  I lived the life in full passion but at the end of the day I never felt like I was in my own club.

Through the years I have always had these spells (as my grandma Matie used to describe them) where I was overcome with the primal need to make something.  I would see a piece of embroidery and would have to run right out and buy a hoop, needles, thread and cloth to make something.  It never really mattered if "it" became something.  It was the doing.  I had to do something with my hands.  Sometimes it was as simple as painting something.  My BFF can tell you that when we shared an apartment in NYC all she had to do was mention changing a paint color and I was out the door to buy paint.  Christmas would come and I would get the urge to crochet and scarves and afghans and hats would abound.  I remember one year, in my deeply New Age period,  my BFF had started knitting and she had some beautiful yarn scraps.  I made little drawstring pouches from the yarn and put bits of sage, crystals, totems and a little scroll describing what each item meant and why I chose those particular things for each loved one.  I crocheted and beaded elaborate bags for tarot cards and rune stones but at some point the limitation of my skills and materials would burn out and my hands would once again be left idol and bored.

By the time my son was born I had reached the end of the line with my limited skills and all I ever got from my little forays into stitchery and house and furniture painting was a feeling of letdown.  It just didn't scratch my itch.  My hands were busy for a while but my heart was left empty.  I wasn't getting anything out of it anymore.  It all looked crappy and crafty and I wanted my hands to have something to take real pride in.

This is where the broken pieces mosaics come in.  I needed a new skill and this one seemed to be one I could teach myself.  It was also a technique that required multiple skills and materials and gave me a sense of multitasking.  I felt like I was doing alot.  The many steps gave me a deep feeling of accomplishment and the extended period of time it took to finish a project satisfied my need to work for something.  And there was room to grow.  Little things like knowing that earthenware tends to crumble a bit when you nip it but china cuts crisply.  Vintage Fire King splinters like the tempered glass that it is and those splinters usually end up in your fingertips (note to self to avoid).  Dishes that have started to discolor and turn brown and crackle are going to break with a dull snap unlike new plates from the damaged shelf at TJMaxx which snap with a bit of a ring.  I have grown to love the experience of being able to look at something, tap it, run my finger on it and know exactly how it is going to behave in my hands.  I recognize the clays and glazes and though I can't tell you the elemental composition of any of it, I know its ways. 

Glues and adhesives are the soap and water of my work.  At any given time I have anywhere from 5 to 10 different compounds to stick one thing to another in my studio.  Silicone, construction adhesive, tile mastic, craft glue, goop, E-3000, epoxy -  all do something different from the other.  I read about glues.  I have charts about what makes one thing stick to another.  Glass to clay.  China to wood.  Leather to metal.  Fabric to  fabric.  China to china.  These things are ridiculously important to me.  Grout!  OMG!  A science and an art.  Sanded or not sanded?  I almost never use unsanded anymore because it has less integrity but sometimes the sanded can scratch delicate china so every once in while I have to go no sand.  But that presents additional challenges because if I don't get the right water to concrete ratio, it tends to crack as it dries and it requires constant tending through the drying process.  Often I have to make a slip (runny grout) to fill the cracks and insure the piece is sound.

Color.  Choosing the grout color is, for me, the most challenging part of mosaics.  What will make the work pop.  Do I want it to pop or do I just want the empty spaces to show?  And there's many ways to color grout.  You can buy it premade and I have this nifty sample case with wands of color that I can hold up to a piece, like a color chip and choose a prefab color.  Sometimes those colors aren't quite right so I have to go the custom route.  I can buy concrete tints which are usually  powders and sometimes liquids but they tend to be earthy tones that you would use on a patio or floor.  I use acrylic craft paint sometimes and I can use that two ways - mix the paint into the grout or grout in white and then apply the paint to the whole piece and wipe it clean.  The grout drinks up the paint and wipes off the ceramic.  It creates two completely different looking finishes.

Okay, I'm boring you now.  I'll stop.  Here's my point.  Opening the door to a new skill changed my life.  Taking the leap to learn  how to do something new is a door opener of unforeseen proportions.  That new skill may seem basic and simple at first but it leads  you into a world of seeing things used differently.  Looking beyond the obvious and teaching your eyes, your mind to see and understand in a new context.  It's like looking through a kaleidoscope.  Initially the image is one thing but as you learn to turn the lens you can see the same elements in a million different ways.   You have new eyes and therefore new things to do.  You can change.  You can change what you see, what you do, how you do it, why you do it and how you feel when you are doing it.  You can remind yourself that everything holds new possibilities.  Nothing is static.  Not the things  you use everyday, not the vehicle you take to work everyday, not your home, not your body, not your kids or your friends or you pets, not your Self.   Everything is in constant motion and to live with the illusion that things stay the same, to assume oneself into "this is how I do things" is life numbing.

Learning something new is the most restorative tonic I know.