A Choice of Priorities

We are approaching the end of July and I am still uninspired with my project for Beading for a Cure.  I made glass for it, worked the arrangement out, and started the beadwork while at Bead & Button in June.  Since I returned from Milwaukee, I have picked it out of its bag several times, looked at it, and put it back.  I have illustrations still to do for Darth, and I have weekly writing, beta work, and other projects in my mind.  I asked, several weeks ago, what we had managed to raise for dollars from the autions earlier this year, and still have not received an answer, and I fear that BFAC could go along treading water for a long time, but never really get very far in raising money for colorectal cancer research. 

I love BFAC.  As a charity, I have helped with it and supported it since the 2nd year of its inception.  I served on the Board of Directors for several years, handled the incorporation and the application for non-profit status with the IRS, and served as its Treasurer and its Secretary at various times.  I supplied beads for the challenges on alternate years for eight years.  But, when I look at my time and where I want to spend it over the next month, it isn't with this project.  I'll make a project with the glass that I made, but not for BFAC.  I'm officially pulling out of the Challenge and will no longer participate.  It's time to move on.  If I decide that there are finished projects that I would like to bid on, I can support the charity through my bids, but I will no longer make beading projects for BFAC. 

Cutting Glass and Editing

It's my Studio Day today, and I'm so pleased.  I brought home my larger jewelers saw frame last night, the one that I keep at my home bench is too narrow for the glass that I want to cut.  I'll cut and shape the glass that I fused last week today, and then I can begin putting all of this together.  I am still working out the center element in my head, but I can at least get going on Step 2 of my BFAC 2012 project today, and I'll get to play with my glass grinder - fun, fun, fun. 

This isn't even close to what I'm working on in glass

right now...but isn't it just gorgeous? 

I also have a story by my German friend to edit, three stories of my own to work on, and I want to play with digital painting and I really need to get some house cleaning done, and the usual laundry, and the NookColor has a program update that will make it more of a tablet computer that I want to get loaded, and...and...  Well, it's a certainty that the grass, such as there is, won't be growing underneath my non-moving feet today because my list of things to do is a mile long, but my actual roadway is closer to 500 feet in length.  In other words, I have too much to do for the time I have available to do it in.  Happy Wednesday! 

Friday - Mixed Up Schedule

My schedule is a bit mixed up for the next two days. I have to work both days, of course. But my friend Michelle is getting married on Saturday (tomorrow) and I will leave to attend her reception as soon as I can after work that day. Therefore, I think I'll pick up my normal Saturday pasta for dinner tonight instead. That will mess my DH up - he is a stickler for schedule and hates change of any kind. That's been getting worse as he ages - he used to be more adventurous. I'm not sure he'll want to change nights, if not I'll just get pasta for myself.

I bought a wonderful copper piece for Michelle's wedding gift, found the perfect blank card at Barnes & Noble on Wednesday, and composed/printed out the interior sentiment for it last night. The first thing I did this morning was cut it out and glue it into the card. I'll wrap her gift at the shop this morning and then I'll be ready to go ... OH ... I have to remember to get some gas into my car, I won't have enough to get to Hastings and back if I don't.

And I've been working on the transcription of text that will be etched into copper for my BFAC 2011 project (and don't forget to view and bid on our current items up for auction). I see the end result so clearly in my mind, I only hope that my skills are up to the image of the end product that I envision. My major projects are always like that - I see the finished project before I've picked up a needle or brush. I've been told that it is unusual to envision projects like that. I've discussed creativity, etc with many people, and I haven't met many people who see their projects in this fashion. But I have always had this happen and I think it is harder, in some respects, because the internal vision is perfect and the reality always changes in some ways from that ideal. So...how do YOU create?

Progressing and Designing

I am trying to get my scheduling nailed for the year. I know that I will complete an item for Beading For A Cure, the charity against colon cancer that I have been involved with for many years. And if my friend Shruit gets our application in and accepted, I will be participating with her in a second competition piece. But I think those are the only two beading competitions that I will produce beadwork for this year.

In metal clay, I will be making charms for the charm swap at the PMC Conference in July, and I will be making some Art Clay Copper pieces to enamel and test out because it's a new product that I actually have owned for a while now and just haven't had the time to play with yet. I may or may not do more with metal clay this year - it's still very much in the air. I love the product, but I also need to work on my fabrication skills which have fallen by the wayside.
For fabrication, I will be setting enamel pieces. I need to finish my cloak pins. Then I would still like to do the center heron for my heron and chrysanthamums piece that I started more than a year ago. And I want to make more enamel. Lots more. I really love playing with enamel.

And I'll be drawing. Because my fingers are itching to pick up a piece of graphite and a sketchpad and draw. And many of those drawings may make their way into color and finally into glass because the projects that I have in the works are into sketch mode now.

And finally I'll be sewing - I'll be hand embroidering the borders of cloaks and machine sewing the cloaks themselves. I still want to do a new corset for Renaissance Faire, and I want a new skirt also. I have had the fabric for that for a couple of years, I just need to actually make the items.

Well - it looks like I'll have a busy year. Guess I'd better get going on my art front!

Balance

One of the things intrinsic to being female (at least I've been told so throughout my life) is our ability/right to change our minds. Looking at the wireworked portion of my BFAC project for the past two days, I decided that I didn't like it and changed my mind. I cut it apart, grabbed different wire, (a different color in a different gague), and revised the focal drop. I am MUCH happier with it now. It is the right color and it doesn't dominate the item but balances it out instead. I may be adding a little bit more to it, but pretty minor. I could ship it off today and be happy with it. It is a lesson to pay attention to the inner voice that says things must be changed. Sometimes you must listen to that voice to make a much better creative product.

I am deeply into the beta of Iris's latest story. I ran out of energy last night - I guess the pain in my arm finally started getting to me. Of course, the wirework I was doing was certainly not helping my arm - I am ambidextrous for many things, but not for wirework. I overworked my right arm at the shop and then again last night. But the spiral that I added to the piece really works, so I'm much happier.

I read that Hillary Clinton just did exactly the same thing to her right arm earlier this week. She fell and broke her elbow in an impact fracture. She must have fallen harder (or I'm just more stubborn) because she has to get surgery on her elbow. Researching my injury, it appears that 2/3 of the people with this type of fracture need to have corrective surgery. I'm hoping that I won't have to have anything of the sort - the whole idea of elbow surgery frightens me badly. And usually I'm all in favor of surgery and legal drugs - LOL. But not this time. So, best wishes to Hillary as she recovers.

Movies and Completion

To start with - completion. My BFAC project is finally finished. Even though I'm not crazy about the wirework that I did for the focal piece, I'm unwilling to put any additional time into it. The necklace itself is good. I'll try and get photos on Sunday and I'll post one then so that you can see what I ended up with.

Movies...well, I went to see "UP" with friends last night. It's the newest Disney/Pixar production and is done in digital 3-D. Everyone was given specific 3-D glasses when they purchased their tickets. Many of the previews were also in digital 3-D, so we wore the glasses over our corrective lenses for most of two hours. The glasses, instead of being red/blue as previous 3-D glasses have been, are extremely small bi-color bits in each lens that make for a much finer focus. It's really nicely done and the movie is a most definite "Thumbs Up" from all of us. It's always fun to have a kid's movie that adults can enjoy equally. At least 90% of the people in the audience last night were adults and we all seemed to love it. I cried, I laughed, it was all good! (I only cried because I am a sentimental fool, but I also cry at sad stories and lots of movies, so it wasn't unusual, just unexpected.) If you get a chance to see this movie - take it! Go and see "Up". ...Now to figure out how to get those balloons and bright colors onto my enamel work........

Scrolls and Praise

I have determined that I do not draw scrolls well. Why, you might ask, do I care about drawing scrolls? Well, the embroidery on my cloak should have overlapping scrolls in the bottom corners and the collar tips, and climbing scrolls up the center front. I brought my french curves to Milwaukee with me and did a rather uninspired scroll on my test fabric to practice my ribbon roses. The roses turned out really well, even though I was in serious pain that day. But the scroll was boring. So I've pulled out design books to help me with this. It's rather amazing how much research I'm having to do to get this part accomplished (in between working out the charm design for Metal Clay World and doing the final wirework for my BFAC piece). All of these items have a July 15 deadline. Deadlines usually help me focus, I'm going to hope that I find a solution to my scroll problem soon because the clock is a'tickin'.

It's nice to get the occasional positive stroke. It's something that I don't get in my home life very frequently. I rely on friends and E-friends to give me the positive feedback that keeps me creating. I received a wonderful compliment from a dear friend in an Email this morning. It brought me close to tears - that anyone could think so kindly of my personal creativity to tell me directly. Thank you. You truly have no idea how much your short Email meant to me today. The wind is back in my sails for a few days.

Running in Place

Ever get the feeling that you are a hamster, running in a wheel but getting nowhere? In a way, I feel rather like that today. I need a jump start to my creativity, but am bogged down in minutae like laundry, housecleaning, deadlines, and of course a grumpy partner . I know I'll work myself out of this, but it is rather sticky quicksand and it is not an easy escape. Part of my problem is simple pain. I injured myself rather seriously over the weekend and, although I am getting better every day, I hurt. My range of motion has been seriously impacted, and every move I make hurts. I had a chance to go to a small Renaissance Fest over the weekend, and I turned it down because I just don't feel up to it. It's unusual for me to turn down an event like this, so that lets me know that I'm not doing very well. I'll just hope that I continue to get better.

But today when I get to the shop I'll get back to work on the final element of my Beading For A Cure piece. It won't take very long to finalize this and I'll be very happy to have one less thing on my plate. I also need to work on scrollwork for my embroidery. If I'm not too busy at the shop today, maybe I'll start working on some ideas. So, creativity isn't dead, it's just getting buried in a sea of pain. But the rescuers are on the way and the liferaft seems to be holding up.

Past, Present and Future

Let's start with Present. On today's crazy schedule is a Chiropractor appt at 6:40am, a dental checkup appt at 7:30am, mailing four mail orders and some paid bills at 8:30am, and then a trip to Minneapolis to my goldsmith for a ring repair at 9:00am. Geez....I'm tired already :-) Oh...and today is trash and recycling day, so I have to make sure those items are on the curb before I leave the house at 6:00am.

(The location for the 2009 Metal Clay World conference - beautiful, isn't it?)

Future - today is a studio day. That means that I will work on, and hopefully finish, my Beading For A Cure project for the 2010 auctions. I also did have an opportunity to practice my ribbon embroidery while I was in Milwaukee. It's really going to make the cloak pop, so I hope that I can start work on the actual curves that I want, and maybe settle (in my own head) whether or not I want to try and work out a convertible neckline, or just make life easier and sew the hood into the cloak for a permanent join. Convertible would be very cool, but it may be more trouble than it is worth and may be better off coming for the next cloak instead. Then I can mark the hem, get it hemmed up and start the embroidery. I truly love the fabric - it'll be a magnificant cloak when it is finished. I also need to start work on my charms for the Metal Clay World conference that I will be attending in July. Ideally I want them to be cold-joined and multi-metal, so I'm working on two possible designs. I will finish BFAC today so that I can devote next week and the following two to this project. I haven't decided if I will enamel them yet, but they will be textured.

And past...well, that's my friend Seth. Seth and I were once very close - if things had fallen into place differently, we'd be spending our lives together instead of with other partners. He was always someone I could talk to and that hasn't changed. Although our schedules are both nuts, and he lives many states away from me, we actually merged schedules for one night of dinner and drinks and catching up on the past 30 years of our lives. He is still beautiful. There is a light in his soul that still speaks to me, even after all of these years. I have rarely had such an enjoyable night just sitting and talking, and I send thanks to whatever Powers managed to arrange for this meeting. I hope there will be more opportunities to get together in our futures.

Yes, We Did It!!

So, we have a new President-Elect - Barak Obama. I'm very pleased, my DH is a little hesitant. But I guess we'll find out what the future holds. We needed a serious change of policy and direction and I have been an admirer of Obama for many years. I am delighted.

The state amendment - the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Act passed. I worked to get this one passed because it will increase, by up to 1/3, the amount of dollars available for the arts in Minnesota. I think that the arts is important to everyone - art can be a channel for expressing feelings and emotions that can push anger into beauty. Art is always a positive and it can be as simple as selected art for a cityscape, or as complex as a staged exhibit in a gallery. I'm very happy with this election result.

Our Senate battle is still too close to call, as of 4:45 am. I voted for Coleman (photo on the left). My friend "The Chickie" voted for Franken (photo on the right). I've watched the voting record of all of my Representatives and Congresspeople very carefully over the past few years, and Coleman has become a very middle-of-the-road voter - voting much more for the people than for the platform. He earned my vote. But it's pretty evident that it's too close to call with 99% of the votes in and counted. Chickie and I have had some interesting political discussions lately :-)))

Total Reporting:99%

NameVotesPct.
Norm Coleman (R) 1,209,391 42%
Al Franken (DFL) 1,207,086 42%
Dean Barkley (IP) 436,491 15%
Charles Aldrich (L) 13,879 0%
James Niemackl (C) 8,876 0%
LAST UPDATE: Nov-05-2008, 05:10 AM Central Standard Time

Today is a studio day, although I have to do some work for Beading For A Cure also. I am no longer in the position of Treasurer, and need to send the documentation, old paperwork, etc to to new Treasurer. I only have a limited amount of time to get boxes packed and things sent out, so I need to get going on that. One good thing - it will clear up some needed space in my computer room. Then I need to get going on ordering the beads for the coming 2009 BFAC kit. Those will be put on sale for previous participants in early February, and for new participants in mid-February. If you are interested in receiving a kit (and there will only be 80 kits available), write to the Secretary and ask to be notified when they are put on sale to new participants. If you participated in the 2008 fund raising effort and sent in a completed project, you will be notified when the kits are available for you. The colors for 2009 will be "nummy" and I think it may be one of my most popular colorways ever :-))