Do You Have a Website?

So, back to the question, "Is it good enough?" "Is is good enough?" is the circular, repeating tape that loops through my brain day in and day out, hour after hour.  Finish a piece for NellsBelles - is it good enough?   Cook a meal - is it good enough?  Give my son advice - is it good enough?  Give a gift - is it good enough?  It is a seemingly never ending cycle, of the questioning of self, that sometimes is enough to drive me to the couch to pull  my little church-lady quilt, up over my head in retreat.   Just what the hell is good enough?

When I began making things, I wondered if they were good enough to display in my own home.  Okay, that delimma didn't last long.  Of course they were good enough for my home - it's my home.  So several of these early creations were brought into the light of day,  carefully edited and not austentatiously placed.  After some positive reactions and a few raves, I started giving things as gifts to people who expressed an admiration for what I was doing.  They were happy and when I would see that other people were displaying my work in their homes it began to strengthen my courage.  I like what I do, but now it seemed, so did other people.  Hummmmmmm.  I continued to develop my craft, trying to make improvements everytime I started something new.  I read books, took classes and put my best foot forward in an effort to really become good at what I was doing. 

What followed was a wave of "you should be selling this stuff".  "No, really.  You should try to get your stuff in some stores".  I heard that alot.  So much so that I began to listen and soon it made sense to try it, if for no other reason but to support my habit.  By selling a few things here and there, I could at least defray the costs of my art supplies.  I started  looking at what I was making and analyzing its commercial value.  I tried to develop an eye for what was hot in the home decor market and translated that into my version of whatever it was.  At the time, Shabby Chic was coming into its all the rageness and busted up china with little flowers and lots of roses on white backgrounds was red hot in the marketplace.

I hooked up with a maven of Shabby Chic in an upscale, new, young money area of New Jersey who had a gigantic operation hawking copious amounts of junk that she had artfully rehabbed (mostly herself) and attractively arranged into very appealing little vingettes.  It was all accessorized with elements of collossal cuteness that she had found at the New York Gift Show and the store was a breathtaking monument to all things Rachael Ashwell and London Flea Market.  She was very taken with what I was doing and I had a very clear vision of my work in her store.  She took a few of my pieces, on consignment while picking through her storage room of auction treasures and stuffing them into my truck.  "Here, take this lamp and this table would look good with rosebud clusters and oh, this tray would look fabulous as a mosaic piece...".  I loaded it up, went home with my potential work and thought, I may be on to something here.  I may actually be good at this and I may actually be able to make some money here.

She began calling me with commissions.  "I'm doing a dining room and I need a centerpiece.  What can you come up with?  Come over and see the boards so you can see the color pallette".  Now, I was not only a craft artist, I was toeing the exhaulted circle of interior design.  I was feeling pretteeee good about myself right about then.  The apex of this experience was when I got a call that a customer had seen one of my pieces in the store and she wanted a coffee table custom made.  The table was a French Provencial piece that was about five feet by three feet and needed structural rehabilitation as well.  My fast talking, make-it-quick-I'm -busy boss needed to know, on the spot, if I was up to the job.  Feeling good about myself and being a never- say- no type of gal anyway, I told her - absolutely!  I hauled the table home in my pickup and set to work on, what would be a personal masterwork.

I did a beautiful job.  It took a shit load of plates to do it but I did it well and have yet to make as much on one item as I did that table.  I felt stoked to take it to the next level and, even though I had no idea what the next level was, I was going there. 

The business at the store was waning.  Small signs at first, but I began to see the operation slowing down and it was becoming apparent that Shabby Chic was less chic than it once was.  Rachael Ashwell had signed a deal with Target and though, good for her, it was not good for the upscale copycat market where I was making my bones.  As there was less and less demand for what I was doing in the hearts and flowers motif I began to look for a different direction and a different venue.

As my patron wound down and eventually went out of business, a friend announced she was opening a home decor store in the hipper part of our county and anything I made would have a welcome retail spot in her store.  I was thrilled to have a place to take my work in a different direction and I was very excited for my friend, who I thought was ballsy to take on such en endeavor (me, maybe, someday??) . I switched gears and transitioned into a French Country sensibility and now I was in constant search for ceramics with sunflowers and chickens on them  to break.  My quest for pink and white turned to yellow and red.  I enjoyed the change.

I did well enough though after a gallant try, my friend didn't do so well.  She closed.  What now?  Should I open my own store?  We had just been slammed by the financial/real estate crisis and were hanging on my our proverbial fingernails.  More financial entanglements, I could not bear.  I probably could not have gotten anyone to give me a lease or a loan. I was at an impass.

I got clients here and there for custom work.  I did okay and enjoyed it well enough.  But everytime I pitched a job or gave someone my card they all asked the same question.  "Do you have a website?"  No, not yet, I would answer, knowing full well that the very thought of it made me want to faint in panic.  I barely checked my email on a regular basis.  I rarely answered my cell phone, for god's sake!  I was as hands-on, low tech as you could be and still get through a day in the 21st century.  I figured I could use the ATM, check out at the grocery store with my debit card, send and receive an email so what else did I need?  Anyway, I knew very little about the computer and hadn't used one  much since I had tried to learn Movie Master to put some of my old screenplays on a floppy disc.  The learning curve was too daunting and I had no funds to pay someone to do it for me. 

So there I was, a fork in the road and a total lack of wherewithall to follow either path.  I had the skills to open a store but was devoid of finanacial resources.  I could start a web business for very little money but I was at an even greater deficit in skills.  I had come to a moment where I needed to change my paradigm and find a new way to be in business.  Whatever that ended up being it was going to take a radical shift in skill sets and even lifestyle.  I would sit down to think about it and get so overwhelmed I would cry.  Oh, hell!  I don't even know if the stuff I make is even worth it!  Why put myself through all this if I don't even know the answer to the cursed question.  Yes, you know.  Is it good enough?

Get a Life

It's one thing to sit in your basement fiddling around with pretty beads or gluing pottery shards to the outside of old terra cotta pots and setting them out in your own home.  Everyone is entitled to a certain "grandma" quotient in their own house.  If you have kids, you can even fib and blame the zanny flower pot on them.  It's a whole other lump of clay to bring whatever you've made, up from the basement and into the light of other people's worlds. 

I spent many years making mosaics and giving them away.  I told myself they were, at the very least, unusual and thoughtful gifts.  No one else had one just like it.  Even if it wasn't their favorite thing in the world, it could be placed in an out of the way area of the garden until nature pummeled it out of existance or put in a cabinet to serve some function.  No one could fault me for not giving them my time and effort.

Shortly after my son was born, my dear friend Alison returned from a trip and gave me a clay cookie mold she had found while wondering shops.  It was an impression of a lacy heart, about 4 inches in diameter.  It came with a booklet with recipes and ideas for other things you could use the mold for, like paper mache impressions or salt dough ornaments.  You could even mold chocolate in it and make a fabulous Valentine.  One day, in a particularly deep state of boredom (the romance of staying home to raise my son was wearing off and the reality of resigning from my life to do so was setting in) I got that cookie mold out and decided to give it a whirl.  "Lightly oil the mold, wipe the mold to remove the oil, then dust lightly with flour".   Done.  I made the dough from their special recipe, chilled it, took it out of the fridge and began to press the dough into the prepared mold.  "Tap the mold lightly on the edge until the dough begins to pull away from the mold."  Tap, tap, tap.  Tap, tap, rap.  Tap, rap, bang.  Bang, bang, bang.  Bang, Bang, Bang!  What the ...  This was not working out.  Back to the directions.  Back to the mold.  "Oil lightly then wipe clean".  Ok, I did that.  I floured it too - looked just like a cake pan does.  Bang, Bang, Bang.  The dough would not come out! 

That evening I offered my family a plate of very dense disks of pleasantly tasting baked dough.

It was so cute though, that mold.  I tried again, realizing this wasn't  your ordinary cookie baking session.  This was going to require developing some skill and some patience -  something I was short on in my post partum stupor.  I took my time.  I worked slowly.  I read directions like I had just learned to read, enunciating each word carefully, one-at-a-time.  I tell you, it was one of the most thrilling days of my life, when I had prepped that mold just right and went tap, tap, tap, and that little sucker started to pull away from the clay and with the help of gravity I suddenly had this cookie, the likes of which I had never seen before.  I was sooooooo impressed with myself!  Better still, I felt like I had accomplished something real and I had hopped a learning curve into a better me. 

I started collecting those cookie molds.  Everywhere I went, I looked for those molds.  I amassed quite a grouping of them and had several themes and occaisions I could address with cookies.  When my son entered school, I got this nutty idea to make holiday themed, molded cookies for his class.  I wanted them to be more special though (type A personalities never rest) so I proceeded to teach myself, from the booklet, how to paint "watercolor" cookies.   This required food colorings I had never heard of before.  Not your mama's food coloring that you used for those anemic Easter eggs.  These were hard core, concentrated colorings in a little pot and if you got them on something you didn't mean to get them on, it was tough luck, sister. 

The Kindergarden year was cute but terribly imperfect.  The ill-tempered colors didn't dry very well and the kids went home with rainbow tongues.  I didn't give up.  By the 4th grade, I had pretty well mastered these little jewels and made 28 Victorian Santas, hand painted each and every one, put them in cellophane bags and closed them with a red, french ribbon bow.  I was so proud of them that I placed them in a willow basket and took off like Red Riding Hood to deliver them to the class.  Ok, I'll admit, I was just a little bit pleased with myself.  I felt what I had taught myself and mastered here, was not insignifigant. These, my friends, weren't your ordinary frozen dough sugar cookies with sprinkles!  Oh no!  These were molded, hand-painted little culinary masterpieces!

I was coming out of the school office and heading to the kids' classroom to distribute my little treasures when I ran into a teacher I was fond of.  We greated each other,  kiss, kiss and she looked down at the basket I was carrying over my arm.  What are those, she inquired.  I reigned myself in and as modestly as I could, expained to her about my glorious cookies.  There was a pause as she stared incredulously at my precious goods and then she looked up at me and said, "You need to get a life".

Yes.  I swear to god, that is what she said to me.  Not, "how nice", not "cute".  Nope.  "You need to get a life".

This was not my finest moment.  I didn't know whether to cry or to kick her in the shins.  Really, really hard.  But no.  I did my usual people pleaser shuffle and made a bee line to the classroom as soon as I graciously could.  Now, I am not exaggerating when I tell you this woman didn't just ruin my day.  Oh no!  She ruined my Christmas!  Here I had conquered all these obstacles, taught myself all these skills and produced a French bakery quality cookie and right out of the shute, someone tells me I need to get a life.  This was my bloody life!

After a while I got myself squared away over how Miss Dawn had shattered my world.  Yet what I was left with was the question of why I was so devastated by some snarky comment from a prissy 4th grade teacher.  They were just cookies.  But they weren't.  Not to me.  To me they were a work of art.  They were an accomplishment.  Those cookies represented how I was taking my life as a stay at home mom and allowing her to live side by side with the artist in me that had been cryogenicaly put down until my son left home.  I had gone from Rent to Parenthood, in an instant in my life, and somehow those cookies were the beginning of reconcilliation.  Through the making of that basket of cookies I was beginning to see a new way for me to live.  Somehow, those elementary school baked goods were a sign.  Through those cookies, I recognized that a new way of expressing myself was emerging. 

After a lifetime of dancing and acting and writing it was all coming full circle, back to my childhood, back to my hands.  I didn't need a stage to be who I am.  I was learning to talk to myself with my hands and the conversation was becoming clearer and clearer as I learned more and more skills.

"I could be on to something..."

Inside Out

I used to shop.  Alot.  Too much.  I told myself it was okay because I was such a thrifty shopper.  Sale read free to me.  If it was on sale, I needed it.  Particulary if it was a good sale.  Why then there was no question that I needed it.  Shopping made me feel...successful.  Yes, I had conquered the art of fine living through good sales.

We had a bit of a financial disaster not too long ago.  It was bad.  Really, really bad.  Life changingly bad.  Shopping came to a screaching halt.  Credit cards were gone, money was scarce and I was permantly grounded from all stores except the grocery store and the pet store for dog food.  Suddenly, I was stuck with the feelings that drove me to the stores with no way to make them go away.  I had to ask myself why I shopped in the first place.

I don't need to reiterate everything we have learned from Oprah about the drug affect of shopping.  We all know how compulsive activities are a sign that something isn't right.  We eat, we shop, we drink, we exercise excessively, we do lots of things that help us to drive away discomfort.  Take that vice away and we are stuck with lots of 'splainin' to do.

The trend of America over the last 25 years or so (dare I say since the Reagan days?)  has been to live from the outside in.  To grab stuff, people, toys, kids, cars, you name it and try to gather it all up in our greedy little arms pull it close and hope we feel fulfilled.  "Whoever has the most toys wins!" is what the t-shirt read, I believe.  Acquisition = Happiness.  How's that workin' for ya'?

So there I was -  broke and broken looking my discontent with my life square in the bloodshot eyes and asking myself some very confrontational questions.  What's up with the shopping?  What are you looking for?  Soul searching has become a cliche for figuring out yet another way to game the system and yet when you really sit down, take some deep breaths and ask yourself, "What the hell am I looking for?" it is surprising sometimes what you hear as answers.

So for me, the equation was if there is nothing on the outside to quell my emptiness what is on the inside to pick up the slack?  Now, understand, this was not the first time I had done some soul searching.  Oh, no!  I was a card carrying member of the New Age/Self help movement for twenty-some-odd years.  I had been to the mountain top with Werner Erhardt and I had floated in a tank of lukewarm saltwater clutching crystals to my chest.  I had read the Course In Miricles and dutifully shown up to sit at Maryanne Williamson's feet everytime she spoke at Town Hall.  I covered more ground in navel gazing than most people could believe possible.  (I mean no disrespect.  I have taken valuable nuggets from every experience I had during that time and have cobbled together a very comprehensive totem for myself that I believe serves me in very good stead.)  And yet, there was a real disconnect between what I knew was good for me and what I was doing that was good.  With no money in hand and a whithering spirit, there was nothing on the outside to bring me comfort and yet a return to my New Age practices left me cold at the thought of it.  And then, I got it:  even these soulful practices could not help me because they were just another version of the shopping.  Either way it was looking on the outside to pull something in.

The best thing I could find in myself was the urge to create.  It was a complete about face in approach because I was going within to pull something out.  Not the other way around.  When I looked into myself for treasures, out came my artwork.  When I asked myself for comfort out came toys and jewelry and house numbers and backsplashes and bags and scarves.  It turned out, I was my very own TJ Maxx.  I didn't need to go shopping to have.  I needed to go crafting to have something to do. 

For me, the best part of the story was that with no money, substituting long afternoons cruising the aisles at Michael's was not an option either.  I ended up picking up junk from the side of the road, ripping up old clothes, breaking no longer cherished ceramics and tearing apart old jewlery to arrive at an expression of myself that was unmatched in my life for self satisfaction.  I had flipped the paradigm from outside in to inside out.  I was pulling ideas from inside myself and crafting things of meaning and beauty and living out loud in a way that was envigorating and exciting and really, downright satisfying.  I had something to do that filled up the bottomless pit that was stuffed full of stuff from the mall.

When it occurred to me to begin to sell my wares and make a go of a business I was clobbered with my next existential crisis:  Is it good enough?  Will other people like it?

...to be continued.

Wandering Wonders

 I've wanted to do this for a long time.  Blog, that is.  I've always written - I've even been paid to write for periods of time.  I have an on again, off again relationship with wordsmithing as, up until the last ten years of consistant work, I have had with what I call, my art.

I was a kid with very busy hands.  I was always looking for something to make.  I started cooking when I was seven.  My dad built me a stool so I could safely reach the stove and access the countertops in order to reach the cabinets.  I cooked from scratch.  I cooked from scratch because it took longer and kept my hands busy longer.  It also tasted better.  Even then I was a foodie.  But cooking could only happen at certain times in my mother's house.  What to do with my agile little hands when the kitchen was closed?

Mom bought me books full of craft projects.  Lots of popcicle stick projects which were not as easy to pull off back in the days of no Michaels.  I managed though and sooner than my mother would have liked, I needed another book because I had completed all the crafts in the book I had.  She found this annoying,  I found it frustrating.

Grandma saved the day.  She began to teach me the real deal.  It began with crochet.  She thought beginning with one needle was best for little hands.  I would sit on her left,  real close, and would follow her patient demonstrations.  She was a good teacher and I was a better student.  I was given  a crochet hook, sized appropriately to my hand and a limited amount of yarn.  I would practice my stitches until the  yarn ran out then pull it apart, roll the yarn and begin again.  Over and over.  On the front porch swing, on the stoop in the backyard, on the davenport (grandma's term) in front of the TV, in bed I would chain, loop, pull through and be happy.  Once I  proved myself worthy, I was handed knitting needles and there we were, back again, side by side on the davenport, her opera singer's voice repeating the moves over and over to me.  I'm not sure what I loved more - learning the crafts that made my hands happy or sitting so close to Grandma.

Grandma was the last of the pioneer women.  Literally.  Her father was a master carpenter on the railroad, the major employer in the day out in the western states.  Great grandpa Reinking also enjoyed homesteading and helped to forge new communities in Montana and Washington.  Grandma had mysterious stories of riding the railroad to Montana from Iowa, cooking on the train and being excited about the unsettled wilderness they were about to occupy.  She told stories of walking to the schoolhouse and being aware of being watched by the Blackfoot Indians who lived nearby.  She was a foriegner in their country.

Through the many years I was able to enjoy with my Grandma Matie, she taught me to sew on her trestle operated Singer,  how to embellish a pillowcase with freehand embroidery, how to mend a sock on a lightbulb, the proper way to sew a button on a coat,  and allowed me to follow her through her many adventures in stichery, many that I still have.

Canning was another "domestic science" (Matie's newlywed cookbook was called Twenty Lessons in Domestic Science) she shared with me.  Grandma had an outdoor canning shed which meant a wood stove in a barnwood shanty in the throes of  a sticky summer in Arkansas.  She'd take me out to the canning shed with a couple of bushels of something - peaches, apples, carrots, corn, whatever - and we would prepare the food,  boil the jars and lids and give the jars their final bath all on a wood stove and cast iron pots.  The results were a winter's worth of harvest delicacies.  The work was gruling and sweaty and taught me that hard, unglamous work could produce some of life's greatest rewards.  When I can now, over my fancy stove and in my air conditioned home,  I alway have a moment remembering the heat and the sweat and the intensity of the smells with the flies around our faces and aprons that dabbed and wiped everything from runny noses to perspiration to molten sugar.  Aprons or course, my grandma had made on her pedal operated sewing machine.  I was primed to face  a future of my own handmade life.