By Artists. For Artists. For You.
I’ve tried to write this post a dozen times. But, damn. My head is spinning. I had so hoped that the freshness of the new year would at least wrap us in some small cocoon of hope for a short time.
But it didn’t even last a week.
[Read more…] about Looking Out, Looking InI love the start of a new year. The crisp, white pages of a new planner, like a fresh snowfall not yet marred by footprints. Soon enough the ducks will patter their way across the yard, and soon enough the pages will be filled with chicken scratch. Ideas and thoughts; dreams and visions will all eventually grace its pristine pages.
[Read more…] about The Planner And The PileWell folks, as the holidays are upon us and the new year is barreling in, it seems that 2020 has a few last tricks up its sleeve. We’re in the middle of a snowstorm that upended the handful of brief distanced visits we’d scrounged together. The cards and gifts we mailed are caught in postal purgatory, and there’s nothing left to do but wait.
2020 was the year of the Trickster. Of challenge and misfortune. Of feeling like a pawn in a giant chess match, made to move or stay put at someone else’s whim.
But in folklore, the Trickster is also the Teacher, the Spirit of Knowledge, the teller of stories. And oh, what stories we’ll tell. A few back in my day‘s, a reminiscent remember when, and we’ll all nod knowingly together.
It’s all we’re ever left with, once time has passed and life moves on.
2020 may be heading toward its last curve, and good riddance I say. We’ll turn a new leaf with a flip of the page, or even throw the whole calendar away and start anew. A new month, a new year, a new number. All for a random day in winter that we’ve decided marks the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next.
I hope your holidays are wonderful. And if they aren’t, I hope you wipe the slate clean with a cathartic flourish. It’s time to begin again.
I read an article recently about routines and habits. It was a brain science-y look at why we’re wired to have default settings – things we expect, and things we do out of habit. And most importantly, why the pandemic is stressing us all out.
[Read more…] about The Power of PredictabilityLike many of you, I have long sought work/ life balance. It’s a mythical creature, much like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. Real only in the imaginations of those who fervently believe.
In reality, it’s exactly what it sounds like – a balance so delicate that one false move will shatter everything.
[Read more…] about The Myth of Work/Life BalanceToday’s story is near and dear to me. I wrote it a number of years ago when I first started writing seriously, or perhaps it was the first story I seriously wrote. It was originally a Copper Leaf Studios newsletter, which is where I talk about my artwork and share new commissions and the like. It was the first time I felt the sensation of words pouring out of me onto the digital page. But it was a mismatch – it had literally nothing to do with my work.
It felt so foreign to simply write words for the sake of writing that I designed the artwork below as a companion. More importantly, I gave myself a permission slip that day – any words I wanted to write, I had permission to write them, whether they had a “purpose” or not.
[Read more…] about Snow Geese
