Showing posts with label art practice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art practice. Show all posts
Friday, February 22, 2019
Ten Pieces of Creative Advice
Hey all!
Just finished a list of what I think are Ten essentials for creative growth and for working towards making your living in a creative way! I though I would share them all here with you first. :)
I've been around a lot of younger people lately who are hungry for learning creative skills and finding their own mode of self-expression and more than a few adults who are thinking of turning some craft or creative idea into a product for on line sales. The world is becoming more open to anyone being able to make a creative living but often I find the hardest thing to teach is not the techniques but the mindset that enables one to follow through with their plan over time.
This is my default list, as of now, of the thingsI would like to impart to every young creator or one who is new to creating at any age.
Hoping you are all well!
XO
nicolas
1. Create EVERY Day.
I am likely, for the rest of my days, to begin any advice list with this one! I think it's the best advice. The best plan of action. AND I think most people could do it. The usual argument against is that the person has a job/homework/a family/hobbies/a life, and it’s hard to find time for creativity in the middle of all that.
Well, maybe I'm the oddball, but it’s mind-boggling how many “busy” people I know these days- including people with full-time jobs, families or studies- who still manage to find time to go out, play computer games, go on road trips, play sports and watch hours and hours of movies and tv shows.
We find time in their days for all of these things. If we dream of creating, shouldn’t we be able to find time for it as well?
2. Don't Put Too Much Into the Idea of Inspiration.
The old idea that there must be an air of “inspiration” or a visit by the "muse"to make anything worthwhile is just silly. Some ethereal or, more to the heart of procrastination, elusive entity that everyone is waiting to come along and drop the great idea into their heads.
t's not true.
People can be “uninspired” and still create and make beautiful work when they're doing it for an art class or for a deadline like a birthday or a wedding gift. And in the case of that art class, no art instructor would ever accept “But I didn’t feel inspired!” as an excuse for a late project.
So create with or without the visits from the muse or the guiding hand of inspiration. If you really want to create on a given day and you know you’ll only have an hour to do so because of other commitments, then get ready to make something in that one hour.
3. Realize it takes time to build skills or flesh out an idea.
I’ve known a whole mess of people who sculpted, painted, wrote, cooked, drew, danced or took up an instrument for a few weeks or months and then gave up. They wanted to be good right away.
I don’t know why so many people resent the notion of needing to invest “time” to become good with creative endeavors. They look at the artists they admire the most and then imagine they will be right up there in skill and ability in a fraction of the time those folks put in.
Time invested most certainly = ability.
I like to think I’m a good maker-of-things and that some of the skills that go into my work I have been doing them since childhood. But if we look at sculpting, well, I took that up with the medium of polymer clay just ten years ago in my thirties. In between then and now it's been a lot of time and hard work.
It applies to every medium of creativity and then to the art of making a living from your art as well. Time has to be invested and not rushed into showing results.
4. Collect and Jot Down Ideas.
I have forgotten more ideas than I will ever see through to completion and, though I may not remember all of them, I have no doubt I forgot many of my best ones by not taking a moment and recording them somewhere.
I get ideas from the art of others, songs, dreams, random things heard on the street, books, nature or just something I am imagining in a daydream. This is a kind of free play for the mind, but it’s where most of my creative ideas spring from for me. And by all means, THINK about that when you go out into the world! Don’t be a passive vessel. Actively go in search of them and when the come WRITE THEM DOWN!
5. Realize You Will NOT Like Everything That You Create
There are many things I made, even sold, but was not happy with the results when they were done. I am, of course, seeing every little flaw, every aspect of the piece that I did not pull off quite the way I wanted to.
That doesn’t mean that when I make something like it again (and I will) that I should shelve them or toss them out. Often these are the ideas that I build on and work towards making better the next time around, which builds my skills. I often hear that people who hire illustrators or comic artists look at the hands (or lack of them) in the drawings immediately because they are often the hardest thing to get right and, therefor, someone who does them well has obviously put the time in to do so.
Learn to love the imperfections now but strive to overcome them tomorrow. Taking either the view that everything you create has to be perfect and you should destroy everything that’s not, or that you can’t possibly create something if you’re not passionately interested in every aspect of it, is self-destructive and not worth your time.
6. Realize That a Good Portion of Creativity is Purely Mechanical.
Even if you are someone who manages to drill into an endless well of “inspiration,” there’s going to come a point in the path to seeing it to completion, where that dries up a bit, and you’re left with what may seem like a mess. Yes, that happens. I don't know a single artist who didn't struggle with that "dry spell" at some point along the way.
Don't give up and don't stop working through it. Remember advice #1? Keep at it! Just the act and the exercise of working on your craft is as important as those days of fevered inspiration.
7. Learn to Only Be Concerned With What YOU Can Accomplish
Yeah, simple, but when you know someone who can turn out painting a day or a drawing in an hour, and it takes you on average ten times as long, don't let that bring you down. You are only accountable to you. How someone else goes about their creativity is not your concern.
I sculpt across the work table from someone who can complete one of their sculpted pieces in an hour or two. I'll take that long to make the assorted pieces of a fairy landscape or to sculpt a statue and then have to put them all together, paint them, add all the tiny details etc etc etc and I cannot charge as much for them as she can for her work because of the niches our work falls into. (that's a story for another rant!) That is FINE. It's not a competition and if I held myself to someone else's standards in that way I would have given up long ago and most certainly have failed at trying to make my living from my work!
8. Be Honest About What Distracts You.
Do you really have to go clean up the mess you’ve left sitting in the kitchen after throwing together dinner so you could keep working? Do you really only have an hour left before you have to leave for your walk or to meet a friend? Inventing excuses to keep from creating, waiting for that perfect time, is perfectly normal, but unless you learn to recognize that these are distractions and excuses and put creating above things you value that are mostly distractions from it, then your creative skills and your goals will most likely not grow as fast as they might otherwise when you make them a priority.
9. Develop Goals.
I have an old-school work ethic that pushes me to create for a certain number of hours each day. It gets upset with me if I don’t do as much work as I can and the one thing that gets in the way of me doing just that is not having goals set each day. Yes, sometimes that's not very much fun, going down the list and getting the things done, photo taking, making listings, shipping etc. These are the things that I know should be done before I get into my remaining time where I can make whatever my heart desires. But there’s no one standing over me with a whip and telling me to create, which means I have to internalize the whip. I never, or at least very rarely, match what that work ethic expects me to achieve, but I do far more than I would if I only dreamed about goals and didn’t set them in writing.
And finally…
10. Love Creating For Itself.
Another obvious one, but one that many people don’t seem to get.
They dream about the day they will be making a living creatively, or at least selling their work as a side hustle or for extra income. Perhaps they dream about being featured in a magazine or on a web site they love, or about how much people will love a certain painting, Zine, handmade jacket, bracelet or ceramic sculpture.
But they don’t love the actual work of it.
That strikes me as the absolute most pitiful lack that someone who wants to be a creator can have. Yes, a lot of it is mechanics and skill development and discipline, but that doesn’t mean that something doesn’t surprise you in the middle of the sculpture or the illustration and make you laugh out loud or even start crying when you finally get it right!
And all of those dreams, as lovely as they are, are nothing to that moment you see the physical item you have been working on or developing finally emerge from YOUR fingers.
Friday, January 25, 2019
The Most Basic of Human Needs
Hey all!
Just a peak at the direction I want to take with my new Tumblr page when it's up.
I'm working on so much right now so my appearances here will remain spotty until the spring. The novel's first draft progresses as does the increase in business over last year which is very nice as well.
This post was inspired by a statement which I heard made on a podcast the other day by the author Matt Gemmell.
Hoping you find that creative spark in everything that you see!
nicolas
"It's almost a sad thing that a big chunk of society doesn't understand the sheer critical necessity for fantasy; one, for escapism in its own right, but also as a way of reframing what we're seeing in our own lives. I think it's fundamentally critical and a mental health requirement to have fantasy and fiction and stories and escapism. I think it's one of the most basic of human needs." - Matt Gemmell
There may not be any one thought about creativity that I agree with more than that.
It's been the constant in my world. From the earliest of days.
My escape.
My true north.
My polestar.
When I was working the minimum wage jobs, bussing tables, pumping gas, prep cook etc it was those creative outlets I returned to at the end of each work day that filled me with belief and made everything around me seem right.
When I was bullied in school, or more likely, ignored, it was the fantasy worlds and the activities dreamed up in my imagination and that I kept in sight that got me through each day.
When, as can happen, my whole world felt as if it were falling apart as an adult, it was the words, the images, the music I made in the space I created to pour my heart into that allowed me the solitude to heal and grow.
The only times in my life I've been mired in darkness were the times, few though they were, that I turned my back on creativity and began to focus on some other ideal, some other dream of a life that belonged to someone else and certainly not me.
If I were to put all of the requirements of a happy life on the table and try to whittle them down to only the most necessary, creativity would be there after most others were removed. It might very well be the sole survivor.
It's that vital.
I don't regret a single thing I've done with my life. I dreamed big every step of the way, fell short, picked myself up and started again. I've tried more paths than most, failed more than most too, but kept going until I found the one that suited me best.
When you chose a path of creativity, people will question every decision you make. They'll sum up your dream through the lens of their own experiences and life. That's ok, they wrote that script themselves and cannot imagine the experiences of others being more true than their own. The person who gains most from a story is always the person who wrote it. Just allow them that and hope, for their sake, they've gotten as much out of that sporty they tell.
So you? You write you.
In the end, as I think back to all of those well-meaning folks who wondered how long I could go on making my way stumbling through the dark in the creative world, dreaming of something other than a normal job or existence, I am reminded that I've come to know hundreds of people, working in dozens of other professions, who all wished they could be making a living doing something creative but I've never known a single painter, sculptor, illustrator, actor, artist, mime, poet, storyteller, dancer or writer, at any level or stage of their own story, who wished, even for one day, to be anything else.
XO
nicolas
Just a peak at the direction I want to take with my new Tumblr page when it's up.
I'm working on so much right now so my appearances here will remain spotty until the spring. The novel's first draft progresses as does the increase in business over last year which is very nice as well.
This post was inspired by a statement which I heard made on a podcast the other day by the author Matt Gemmell.
Hoping you find that creative spark in everything that you see!
nicolas
"It's almost a sad thing that a big chunk of society doesn't understand the sheer critical necessity for fantasy; one, for escapism in its own right, but also as a way of reframing what we're seeing in our own lives. I think it's fundamentally critical and a mental health requirement to have fantasy and fiction and stories and escapism. I think it's one of the most basic of human needs." - Matt Gemmell
It's been the constant in my world. From the earliest of days.
My escape.
My true north.
My polestar.
When I was working the minimum wage jobs, bussing tables, pumping gas, prep cook etc it was those creative outlets I returned to at the end of each work day that filled me with belief and made everything around me seem right.
When I was bullied in school, or more likely, ignored, it was the fantasy worlds and the activities dreamed up in my imagination and that I kept in sight that got me through each day.
When, as can happen, my whole world felt as if it were falling apart as an adult, it was the words, the images, the music I made in the space I created to pour my heart into that allowed me the solitude to heal and grow.
The only times in my life I've been mired in darkness were the times, few though they were, that I turned my back on creativity and began to focus on some other ideal, some other dream of a life that belonged to someone else and certainly not me.
If I were to put all of the requirements of a happy life on the table and try to whittle them down to only the most necessary, creativity would be there after most others were removed. It might very well be the sole survivor.
It's that vital.
I don't regret a single thing I've done with my life. I dreamed big every step of the way, fell short, picked myself up and started again. I've tried more paths than most, failed more than most too, but kept going until I found the one that suited me best.
When you chose a path of creativity, people will question every decision you make. They'll sum up your dream through the lens of their own experiences and life. That's ok, they wrote that script themselves and cannot imagine the experiences of others being more true than their own. The person who gains most from a story is always the person who wrote it. Just allow them that and hope, for their sake, they've gotten as much out of that sporty they tell.
So you? You write you.
In the end, as I think back to all of those well-meaning folks who wondered how long I could go on making my way stumbling through the dark in the creative world, dreaming of something other than a normal job or existence, I am reminded that I've come to know hundreds of people, working in dozens of other professions, who all wished they could be making a living doing something creative but I've never known a single painter, sculptor, illustrator, actor, artist, mime, poet, storyteller, dancer or writer, at any level or stage of their own story, who wished, even for one day, to be anything else.
XO
nicolas
Friday, January 5, 2018
Five Words for 2018 - First Friday Post - January 5th
Happy New Year to you all! I hope the first days of the year have been bright and inspired in each of your worlds. :)
Over the years I've had quite a few people ask about the words I choose each New Year as my focus words for the coming 365 days. Thinking of it again of late, I have been more focused on exactly how that process works and the answers were a bit surprising to me, so I thought I would share them here with you as well as the words that I've chosen for 2018.
I tend to not spend too much time choosing the words each year. At least, not right at the end. I start thinking of them early in December and by the last days of the Year, I pretty much have the new words settled on.
What I discovered this last week or so as I thought about 2017's words was that the words really reveal themselves to me and I learn the most about them in relation to myself at the END of the year!
All year I DO see them above my calendar or on my desktop and I take time with them all at some point, maybe picking one for a day to really focus on or apply. But it is at the end of the year, when I am looking back, that I seem to find how those words worked for me or what I learned over that year as it pertains to them.
Last year, one of the words I chose was "Vagary". Strange word, right? It is. . . and I chose it for it's more archaic definition which I only discovered as it was Merriam Webster's word of the day sometime before and it just sort of stuck with me in the back of my mind.
"In the 16th century, if you "made a vagary" you took a wandering journey, or you figuratively wandered from a correct path by committing some minor offense. If you spoke or wrote vagaries, you wandered from a main subject. These senses hadn't strayed far from their origin, as vagary is probably based on Latin vagari, meaning "to wander." Indeed, in the 16th and 17th centuries there was even an English verb vagary that meant "to wander." Nowadays, the noun vagary is mostly used in its plural form, and vagaries have more to do with unpredictability than with wandering."
I chose the word hoping that it's own wandering in the sense of it's definition over the years might help remind me to wander in my creative journey. To stray from the well worn path. To pay attention to, or think back on, my own wandering journeys in life. Maybe even to be a little more unpredictable creatively. So how it affected me on any given day I cannot recall BUT I know that as I spent time over this last week of the year looking back, I DID practice and invoke vagary and I can see how the wandering I did in my creative work paid off.
My life, I came to see, has been one great adventure in vagary. Changing careers four times, each by choice even when things were just fine in the previous ones. Striking out on the cusp of 40 years old to begin an art practice/Etsy shop by taking up a new medium of polymer clay. Moving across the country on a gut feeling just before I turned 24. Living in a big city til then, then a small town, then onto another big city and now a small town again.
Yes, I've wandered. Strayed from the path. Practiced vagary before I even knew the word had that older meaning.
So in realizing that these words seem to etch themselves deepest at the end of the year, I decided to choose five words for 2018 and went with simpler, less archaic choices. lol
Because these are words I might easily overlook in that search for a little pizazz. (Ooooooh wait. . . pizazz. . . hello word for 2019!)
For 2018, I chose these five words:
Challenge - challenge myself to try new creative ideas, follow inspirations, push forward on my bigger long term goals, stretch my comfort zone into the difficult and uncertain creatively and challenge myself to venture into realms not yet explored in myth, fantasy and sci-fi reading.
Value - Value my work and my time. I have often undercharged for just about everything I've done in life at some point or another. I forget, when say we are speaking of custom orders, to factor in the time spent communicating, planning, looking for materials I need and trying and retrying techniques etc. Maybe it's meant to show me how to value my time by accepting fewer commissions so I can do even more of the work my heart wants to do. I've also recently begun donating to funding art projects on kickstarter. I'm learning to discern value of what I give to there as well since I cannot donate to everyone I would like to.
Whimsy - Sofie laughed at this one because, really, do I need a reminder of this? lol But yes, I do, and in this case I am thinking most of my writing. Finding the balance between a good, emotive and large scale story and the magic of a fantasy world. A small example: It's all well and good that I've included the plausible use of messenger birds for long a distance/expedient message delivery system but where's the whimsy? Ahhhh, so then I decide that these are "honey guides", birds who find their way home or to another location based on a particular scent/strain of honey that they are conditioned to seek out and identify. And they have small quivers on their backs to carry the messages. There are real "honey guide" birds in our world though they are not messengers. . . all I did was stretch the truth a bit there to make them more homing pigeon-like if one could train them to discern the various scents of the honey over distances. :) So yes, finding whimsy around every corner in the year to come.
Organization - OK, yes. . . Boring! But boy could I use a bit more of this. Work space, packing room, notes and ideas, recipes, you name it. I tend to let things get a bit too in disarray before I tackle them and that's never fun.
Routine - As in a more monastic sense of the word. Monasteries have always fascinated me no matter the type or the belief. I've spent time in a Zen monastery here in the NW though I am also drawn to the Benedictine rule and Franciscan sects and the schedules they keep. Now if the pslams and vespers were say, writing and creating time instead, I'd be in a robe faster than you could blink an eye!! The simplicity of the life and the repetition of it is what draws me. I need it to be my most productive. Work periods, meal periods, end of day etc. Not so regimented that there is no room for spontaneity but certainly most days, most weeks, and most hours are best filled with that scheduled intent for me.
So what will those all bring? Well I hope to share anything along the way if it pops up but it will likely be the end of 2018 before I can look back and assess all the little things that came to pass under each heading. Once, in the Zen monastery, I was sent out into the world after a weekend retreat with a task. To pick a location and watch the entry door of said place for a few hours. Just to observe how people reacted and related to that door. It seemed pretty Zen and I expected to not "get it" because, you know. . . Zen.
None of the openings of the door were memorable in and of their own BUT, at the end of the day, the cumulative effect was very striking. I saw such a variety of ways people approached the door, how close they got before grabbing the door knob, if they were regulars I could tell because the door had a "hitch" to it, the doorknob was rickety and lower down on the frame than normal. Also, the door opened in and not out as most non-regulars seemed to expect it to. I saw how some people held the door for others while some were so in their own heads they didn't notice the person right behind them. I noticed people approach confidently or with a strong step and others cautiously and tentative as if the door might bite. . . And on and on. All of that from observing a door over a period of time.
So that's how I find the words work best. Over the long haul. I don't expect an enlightening occurrence any one time I choose to focus on a word. But 12 months from now? We'll see. ;)
Next month I will be back to my usual First Friday post showing new work.
Thank you for coming by, as always,
nicolas
Over the years I've had quite a few people ask about the words I choose each New Year as my focus words for the coming 365 days. Thinking of it again of late, I have been more focused on exactly how that process works and the answers were a bit surprising to me, so I thought I would share them here with you as well as the words that I've chosen for 2018.
I tend to not spend too much time choosing the words each year. At least, not right at the end. I start thinking of them early in December and by the last days of the Year, I pretty much have the new words settled on.
What I discovered this last week or so as I thought about 2017's words was that the words really reveal themselves to me and I learn the most about them in relation to myself at the END of the year!
All year I DO see them above my calendar or on my desktop and I take time with them all at some point, maybe picking one for a day to really focus on or apply. But it is at the end of the year, when I am looking back, that I seem to find how those words worked for me or what I learned over that year as it pertains to them.
Last year, one of the words I chose was "Vagary". Strange word, right? It is. . . and I chose it for it's more archaic definition which I only discovered as it was Merriam Webster's word of the day sometime before and it just sort of stuck with me in the back of my mind.
"In the 16th century, if you "made a vagary" you took a wandering journey, or you figuratively wandered from a correct path by committing some minor offense. If you spoke or wrote vagaries, you wandered from a main subject. These senses hadn't strayed far from their origin, as vagary is probably based on Latin vagari, meaning "to wander." Indeed, in the 16th and 17th centuries there was even an English verb vagary that meant "to wander." Nowadays, the noun vagary is mostly used in its plural form, and vagaries have more to do with unpredictability than with wandering."
I chose the word hoping that it's own wandering in the sense of it's definition over the years might help remind me to wander in my creative journey. To stray from the well worn path. To pay attention to, or think back on, my own wandering journeys in life. Maybe even to be a little more unpredictable creatively. So how it affected me on any given day I cannot recall BUT I know that as I spent time over this last week of the year looking back, I DID practice and invoke vagary and I can see how the wandering I did in my creative work paid off.
My life, I came to see, has been one great adventure in vagary. Changing careers four times, each by choice even when things were just fine in the previous ones. Striking out on the cusp of 40 years old to begin an art practice/Etsy shop by taking up a new medium of polymer clay. Moving across the country on a gut feeling just before I turned 24. Living in a big city til then, then a small town, then onto another big city and now a small town again.
Yes, I've wandered. Strayed from the path. Practiced vagary before I even knew the word had that older meaning.
So in realizing that these words seem to etch themselves deepest at the end of the year, I decided to choose five words for 2018 and went with simpler, less archaic choices. lol
Because these are words I might easily overlook in that search for a little pizazz. (Ooooooh wait. . . pizazz. . . hello word for 2019!)
For 2018, I chose these five words:
Challenge - challenge myself to try new creative ideas, follow inspirations, push forward on my bigger long term goals, stretch my comfort zone into the difficult and uncertain creatively and challenge myself to venture into realms not yet explored in myth, fantasy and sci-fi reading.
Value - Value my work and my time. I have often undercharged for just about everything I've done in life at some point or another. I forget, when say we are speaking of custom orders, to factor in the time spent communicating, planning, looking for materials I need and trying and retrying techniques etc. Maybe it's meant to show me how to value my time by accepting fewer commissions so I can do even more of the work my heart wants to do. I've also recently begun donating to funding art projects on kickstarter. I'm learning to discern value of what I give to there as well since I cannot donate to everyone I would like to.
Whimsy - Sofie laughed at this one because, really, do I need a reminder of this? lol But yes, I do, and in this case I am thinking most of my writing. Finding the balance between a good, emotive and large scale story and the magic of a fantasy world. A small example: It's all well and good that I've included the plausible use of messenger birds for long a distance/expedient message delivery system but where's the whimsy? Ahhhh, so then I decide that these are "honey guides", birds who find their way home or to another location based on a particular scent/strain of honey that they are conditioned to seek out and identify. And they have small quivers on their backs to carry the messages. There are real "honey guide" birds in our world though they are not messengers. . . all I did was stretch the truth a bit there to make them more homing pigeon-like if one could train them to discern the various scents of the honey over distances. :) So yes, finding whimsy around every corner in the year to come.
Organization - OK, yes. . . Boring! But boy could I use a bit more of this. Work space, packing room, notes and ideas, recipes, you name it. I tend to let things get a bit too in disarray before I tackle them and that's never fun.
Routine - As in a more monastic sense of the word. Monasteries have always fascinated me no matter the type or the belief. I've spent time in a Zen monastery here in the NW though I am also drawn to the Benedictine rule and Franciscan sects and the schedules they keep. Now if the pslams and vespers were say, writing and creating time instead, I'd be in a robe faster than you could blink an eye!! The simplicity of the life and the repetition of it is what draws me. I need it to be my most productive. Work periods, meal periods, end of day etc. Not so regimented that there is no room for spontaneity but certainly most days, most weeks, and most hours are best filled with that scheduled intent for me.
So what will those all bring? Well I hope to share anything along the way if it pops up but it will likely be the end of 2018 before I can look back and assess all the little things that came to pass under each heading. Once, in the Zen monastery, I was sent out into the world after a weekend retreat with a task. To pick a location and watch the entry door of said place for a few hours. Just to observe how people reacted and related to that door. It seemed pretty Zen and I expected to not "get it" because, you know. . . Zen.
None of the openings of the door were memorable in and of their own BUT, at the end of the day, the cumulative effect was very striking. I saw such a variety of ways people approached the door, how close they got before grabbing the door knob, if they were regulars I could tell because the door had a "hitch" to it, the doorknob was rickety and lower down on the frame than normal. Also, the door opened in and not out as most non-regulars seemed to expect it to. I saw how some people held the door for others while some were so in their own heads they didn't notice the person right behind them. I noticed people approach confidently or with a strong step and others cautiously and tentative as if the door might bite. . . And on and on. All of that from observing a door over a period of time.
So that's how I find the words work best. Over the long haul. I don't expect an enlightening occurrence any one time I choose to focus on a word. But 12 months from now? We'll see. ;)
Next month I will be back to my usual First Friday post showing new work.
Thank you for coming by, as always,
nicolas
Friday, December 15, 2017
Making of a Maker - Please Give It Time - Third Friday Post - December 15th
Ok so. . . most things I've done in my life, creatively, felt like they came naturally to me.
Sculpting however, was NOT one of those things. Not with sculpting clay, not with polymer clay and not with ceramic or porcelain.
I just was not very good at all when I began.
Given the multitude of other things I could have turned to, things I already had a fair capacity to do creatively, it might seem surprising that I stuck with sculpting at all.
I am so glad I did.
When I am asked advice about being a maker-of-things for a living, the first piece of advice I offer is to stick with it. "Please give it time" I'll say. I know the frustration of the inner critic who's always sitting on your shoulder and telling you you can't do it, you won't ever be good enough. But you CAN. And you WILL.
In time.
I think many people give up way to easily on their creative desires, wishes and dreams. If you're doing something you love, something you've always wanted to do or just something you saw and were inspired to try for yourself, then just keep at it because you'll get better each time you do it, I promise!
You won't even realize it because it's a lot of little steps of progression that get us to the place we want to be. Only looking back in time can I see the growth by comparison. Even now, 7 years later, I still learn something new with each piece I create! A new technique, a new way to get a hippo's ear or a fairy house's rooftop to look just right. I expect that I will continue to learn and develop my skills for as long as I keep working at it and coming up with new ideas to try.
And when I say just keep at it, keep making, I mean make A LOT! Repetition, honing skills and evolving your ideas, it's all going to pay off in the end. Though it might not be in the way you hoped or, as I did, you may end up going down roads you never dreamed of only to discover that those roads take you to a place where you are happier than you've ever been.
Then, one day, you get to look back at the first things you made/ sold and something recently that you sold and compare them. If you're like me, you'll shake your head and laugh because we all started somewhere. . .
Here, for you to see, was my sculpture starting point. A Bast statue made 7 1/2 long years ago. My first. . . and that Bast did sell, surprisingly enough.
I had not developed any of the skills, the patina processes, detailing, a way of working out the stylizations or the techniques that allowed me to create the blue patina Bast right below it. That's where seven years of making, working on it every single day, came in.
Next month I want to dive into talking about the one aspect of online selling that I always felt I had going for me. . . packaging.
Thank you, as always for dropping by!
Keep making!!
XO
nicolas
Sculpting however, was NOT one of those things. Not with sculpting clay, not with polymer clay and not with ceramic or porcelain.
I just was not very good at all when I began.
Given the multitude of other things I could have turned to, things I already had a fair capacity to do creatively, it might seem surprising that I stuck with sculpting at all.
I am so glad I did.
When I am asked advice about being a maker-of-things for a living, the first piece of advice I offer is to stick with it. "Please give it time" I'll say. I know the frustration of the inner critic who's always sitting on your shoulder and telling you you can't do it, you won't ever be good enough. But you CAN. And you WILL.
In time.
I think many people give up way to easily on their creative desires, wishes and dreams. If you're doing something you love, something you've always wanted to do or just something you saw and were inspired to try for yourself, then just keep at it because you'll get better each time you do it, I promise!
You won't even realize it because it's a lot of little steps of progression that get us to the place we want to be. Only looking back in time can I see the growth by comparison. Even now, 7 years later, I still learn something new with each piece I create! A new technique, a new way to get a hippo's ear or a fairy house's rooftop to look just right. I expect that I will continue to learn and develop my skills for as long as I keep working at it and coming up with new ideas to try.
And when I say just keep at it, keep making, I mean make A LOT! Repetition, honing skills and evolving your ideas, it's all going to pay off in the end. Though it might not be in the way you hoped or, as I did, you may end up going down roads you never dreamed of only to discover that those roads take you to a place where you are happier than you've ever been.
Then, one day, you get to look back at the first things you made/ sold and something recently that you sold and compare them. If you're like me, you'll shake your head and laugh because we all started somewhere. . .
Here, for you to see, was my sculpture starting point. A Bast statue made 7 1/2 long years ago. My first. . . and that Bast did sell, surprisingly enough.
I had not developed any of the skills, the patina processes, detailing, a way of working out the stylizations or the techniques that allowed me to create the blue patina Bast right below it. That's where seven years of making, working on it every single day, came in.
 |
| This is the first Bast statue I ever made and sold back in 2010. |
 |
| And this is the most recent one I've sold. Seven and a half long years later. |
Thank you, as always for dropping by!
Keep making!!
XO
nicolas
Friday, November 17, 2017
Making of a Maker - Daydreams - Third Friday, November 17th
Once again I sat down with a particular post in mind and something else comes calling for attention.
For this monthly "Making of a Maker" post I want to say a few things about one of the most important aspects of my own creative process and one that, when looking at anything I have ever done, from making plays when I was 12 to my music-making/recording years to digital art to miniature houses, has been a major contributor to the realization of each of those pursuits.
Daydreaming.
To me, this is something other than what most might call inspiration, which tends to be more momentary and immediate, just popping up wherever and whenever without notice. It's also different from intentional, constructive brainstorming with an idea or preconceived notion you want to realize. It's also not quite the same as actively doodling or experimenting.
This is also not to be confused with time that might be spent on pinterest or instagram though those are both excellent starting points for ideas and I have scores of images that have inspired my own creative world. . . but only in the same way that the words "Once upon a time" are a starting point for many great stories.
There are things that I believe we can only tap into when our hands are at rest and our minds are allowed to just vanish into the world of daydreams.
Daydreaming, for me, is about allowing yourself to sit in silence and just work your way deep into your own imagination. In my life, I've met many people who say they are not capable of imagining things as vividly or as realized as I do but, with those I have worked with, I find that it's almost always a case of the person not being able to quiet the world around them enough to allow their daydreaming self to find footing.
Sometimes it seems to be more about them turning away when the door to imagination opens and they are asked to step inside. Sort of like that odd little back alley curiosity shoppe in that "found" neighborhood where you stare in the window trying to find the courage to walk inside. . . but then the door opens and you hurriedly walk away instead of accepting the divine's invitation to enter. . .
I cannot imagine doing what I do without taking the time to daydream. . . often. In fact, when I am feeling burnt out it is almost always because I have not allowed myself to look ahead and to daydream about new avenues, new ideas and to not put any constraints on that process.
Writing, my latest pursuit, is no different. My storytelling runs in fits and starts and I am not nearly as productive when I try too hard to manufacture the story as I am when I first allow myself to "live " the story through a good bout of daydreaming. I will sometime give myself five to fifteen minutes before I get up at 5am to lay in the silence and the dark and think about what part of the story I want to work on that morning. I see the scene, the characters, the possible twists and turns and I allow it run it's course, maybe two or three times if I am unsure where to go with it.
It's like seeing a film playing in my head. The characters move about, interact, speak. . . and I just follow along with them. It doesn't have to be a long process. Just a few minutes can bring quite a welcome surprise.
I don't have a long list to share for the "how to's" of daydreaming. I think it helps to have silence or only natural sounds around you and low light if possible but definitely not light that is not glaring, buzzing or emanating from a device/digital.
From a kid who always had one foot on the ground but his head in the clouds (or in daydreams!) I hope this will work for, or inspire, you as well! I can't say it enough.
Daydreaming is huge part of my daily creative world.
Keep dreaming (day AND night)!
XO
Nicolas
PS - You know, I realized while writing this that I always stepped inside those strange/odd shops I used as a metaphor above.
One, in a back alley of a neighborhood in my hometown, was a new age store called "Sign of Aquarius". I will tell that tale in full in the future but the retired couple who ran it were a treasure to stumble upon that first time I stood staring in their shop's windows and the old creaky door opened to welcome me in. If I had run away, I shudder to think what my life might have been like. It was the first step into a world I never knew existed but was definitely in need of finding.
I'd like to think I may have found my way eventually but there is something about the depth of impression made at 13 that would never have been the same even just a few years later.
Never run from the unknown and strange! : )
<>oOo<> <>oOo<> <>oOo<>
Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:
For this monthly "Making of a Maker" post I want to say a few things about one of the most important aspects of my own creative process and one that, when looking at anything I have ever done, from making plays when I was 12 to my music-making/recording years to digital art to miniature houses, has been a major contributor to the realization of each of those pursuits.
Daydreaming.
To me, this is something other than what most might call inspiration, which tends to be more momentary and immediate, just popping up wherever and whenever without notice. It's also different from intentional, constructive brainstorming with an idea or preconceived notion you want to realize. It's also not quite the same as actively doodling or experimenting.
This is also not to be confused with time that might be spent on pinterest or instagram though those are both excellent starting points for ideas and I have scores of images that have inspired my own creative world. . . but only in the same way that the words "Once upon a time" are a starting point for many great stories.
There are things that I believe we can only tap into when our hands are at rest and our minds are allowed to just vanish into the world of daydreams.
Daydreaming, for me, is about allowing yourself to sit in silence and just work your way deep into your own imagination. In my life, I've met many people who say they are not capable of imagining things as vividly or as realized as I do but, with those I have worked with, I find that it's almost always a case of the person not being able to quiet the world around them enough to allow their daydreaming self to find footing.
Sometimes it seems to be more about them turning away when the door to imagination opens and they are asked to step inside. Sort of like that odd little back alley curiosity shoppe in that "found" neighborhood where you stare in the window trying to find the courage to walk inside. . . but then the door opens and you hurriedly walk away instead of accepting the divine's invitation to enter. . .
I cannot imagine doing what I do without taking the time to daydream. . . often. In fact, when I am feeling burnt out it is almost always because I have not allowed myself to look ahead and to daydream about new avenues, new ideas and to not put any constraints on that process.
 |
| This image, "The Bubble Factory" came to me almost just as you see it during a good round of Daydreaming. |
Writing, my latest pursuit, is no different. My storytelling runs in fits and starts and I am not nearly as productive when I try too hard to manufacture the story as I am when I first allow myself to "live " the story through a good bout of daydreaming. I will sometime give myself five to fifteen minutes before I get up at 5am to lay in the silence and the dark and think about what part of the story I want to work on that morning. I see the scene, the characters, the possible twists and turns and I allow it run it's course, maybe two or three times if I am unsure where to go with it.
It's like seeing a film playing in my head. The characters move about, interact, speak. . . and I just follow along with them. It doesn't have to be a long process. Just a few minutes can bring quite a welcome surprise.
I don't have a long list to share for the "how to's" of daydreaming. I think it helps to have silence or only natural sounds around you and low light if possible but definitely not light that is not glaring, buzzing or emanating from a device/digital.
From a kid who always had one foot on the ground but his head in the clouds (or in daydreams!) I hope this will work for, or inspire, you as well! I can't say it enough.
Daydreaming is huge part of my daily creative world.
Keep dreaming (day AND night)!
XO
Nicolas
 |
| This too was born from a daydream exploring fantasy landscapes. |
PS - You know, I realized while writing this that I always stepped inside those strange/odd shops I used as a metaphor above.
One, in a back alley of a neighborhood in my hometown, was a new age store called "Sign of Aquarius". I will tell that tale in full in the future but the retired couple who ran it were a treasure to stumble upon that first time I stood staring in their shop's windows and the old creaky door opened to welcome me in. If I had run away, I shudder to think what my life might have been like. It was the first step into a world I never knew existed but was definitely in need of finding.
I'd like to think I may have found my way eventually but there is something about the depth of impression made at 13 that would never have been the same even just a few years later.
Never run from the unknown and strange! : )
<>oOo<> <>oOo<> <>oOo<>
Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:
1st Friday of Each Month - New work ( New to the shops and a look at the making of one item each month)
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me)
3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where being a "maker-of-things" is my full time job.)
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me)
3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where being a "maker-of-things" is my full time job.)
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)
Friday, September 29, 2017
Turning a Page
Hello everyone!
So, I just wanted to give you all a quick update on something exciting as it pertains to my blog!
I have struggled for years to find a rhythm with keeping my blog active. I kept wanting to discover some magic structure that will allow me to be more regular and offer more of what is going on in the creative world around me.
With the wealth of new projects, ideas, undertakings etc, I have once again allowed my posting here to slip and I want to change that going forward.
So here is what is happening. . .
I am pledging to post each and every Friday of the month. To try and make this a reality, I am going to give each Friday of the month a "theme".
Starting with October, (my favorite time of the year), I will be offering posts on the following general topics based on the number of the Friday of the month.
1st Friday of Each Month - New work. This will not just be newly finished creations but I a peek into the actual making of one of those new items each month. From start to finish. Photos, materials, techniques etc.
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities - Links and topics that I've come across that inform my work, my writing and just my insatiable curiosity for the strange and wonderful in the world we live in, past or present, and beyond. Research is a big part of my creative world and I can think of no better way to stir that "making pot" than to share those things I've found.
3rd Fridays - The Maker-of-Things - a look into how I got "here", from an over-reaching teenage dreamer to being a full time creator. So, snippets of those early childhood memories, the long and winding road of experimentation and failure along the way and all of the other creative ventures I tried and moved on from. Plus some all-around advice for creating a life that supports living as a creative soul and working maker. This will be only my experience so it will not resonate for some, I know, but I think it worth expressing to hopefully help those who wish to follow in those creative footsteps.
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine! - Many of you know that I have been focused on writing a novel and short stories centered around the world I created, the Bewildering Pine. So these 4th Friday posts will offer small peeks into that world. Details about the folk, the place, the history etc. Where these things come from in me and where I'd like to see them go in the future. Eventually, maybe early next year, I'll even offer snippets from the book itself as it moves forward.
5th Fridays, on the rare occasion it happens, well, we shall see!
Hoping Autumn is shining in your worlds!
Thanks for coming along for the ride. . .
nicolas
So, I just wanted to give you all a quick update on something exciting as it pertains to my blog!
I have struggled for years to find a rhythm with keeping my blog active. I kept wanting to discover some magic structure that will allow me to be more regular and offer more of what is going on in the creative world around me.
With the wealth of new projects, ideas, undertakings etc, I have once again allowed my posting here to slip and I want to change that going forward.
So here is what is happening. . .
I am pledging to post each and every Friday of the month. To try and make this a reality, I am going to give each Friday of the month a "theme".
Starting with October, (my favorite time of the year), I will be offering posts on the following general topics based on the number of the Friday of the month.
1st Friday of Each Month - New work. This will not just be newly finished creations but I a peek into the actual making of one of those new items each month. From start to finish. Photos, materials, techniques etc.
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities - Links and topics that I've come across that inform my work, my writing and just my insatiable curiosity for the strange and wonderful in the world we live in, past or present, and beyond. Research is a big part of my creative world and I can think of no better way to stir that "making pot" than to share those things I've found.
3rd Fridays - The Maker-of-Things - a look into how I got "here", from an over-reaching teenage dreamer to being a full time creator. So, snippets of those early childhood memories, the long and winding road of experimentation and failure along the way and all of the other creative ventures I tried and moved on from. Plus some all-around advice for creating a life that supports living as a creative soul and working maker. This will be only my experience so it will not resonate for some, I know, but I think it worth expressing to hopefully help those who wish to follow in those creative footsteps.
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine! - Many of you know that I have been focused on writing a novel and short stories centered around the world I created, the Bewildering Pine. So these 4th Friday posts will offer small peeks into that world. Details about the folk, the place, the history etc. Where these things come from in me and where I'd like to see them go in the future. Eventually, maybe early next year, I'll even offer snippets from the book itself as it moves forward.
5th Fridays, on the rare occasion it happens, well, we shall see!
Hoping Autumn is shining in your worlds!
Thanks for coming along for the ride. . .
nicolas
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Inspiration - Stepping into Another World
Before I start rambling I want to say/share three things up front.
One, I am glad there are ALL kinds of people in this world. I would not want everyone to be, think or see things as I do. I recently heard of a young man who walks across the country. That's what he "does". Sometimes he works odd jobs for cash and sometimes he is graced with the kindness of strangers who help when he is in need, And you know what? I think he is as important to our world as the doctor or the sanitation worker or the teacher because, like all of us, his story can inspire. It can ignite an imagination. It can offer hope for those who feel like they themselves are an outsider or a little lost.
Two, I do NOT believe I have the answers for most young or aspiring artists. But I DO believe the way Sofie and I got "here" can be as inspiring and offer a glimpse into another way to live life. Choices that can be made today. Especially in a world that seems hell-bent on sinking everyone into debt, identity crisis and existential despair before they are 25. It's still about choice. And, since we are here to say "Look, we are doing it!", then I think it's worth hammering that point home sometimes.
Three - My Zen teacher used to say that our ambitions and pursuits in life are akin to cupping your hands together and then having someone pour cups of sand into them, each cup representing a different undertaking or passion. One cup at a time, for each new pursuit, passion or focus you take on. At some point, the only way to take on another half cup of sand, a new pursuit or passion, is to let go of some of the sand you already hold or the newly added sand will fall off the sides. Or you can fill your hands by only adding a part of, say, 6 or 7 different cups instead of at the whole of 2 or 3 of them. In addition, some of the sand in your hands also will likely leak out as you try to open your hands wider to hold/make room for the new sand. . . now you don't have a full grasp on any of those passions. . . that simple visual, and recognizing it was perfectly indicative of my own way of trying to do or take on too much, always made me smile.
Anyway, on with it. . .
One of the things I love about writing little stories, and now a novel about a fantasy world, is that it requires me to get out of my own world. Literally to step, thru the senses and experiences of the characters, into a place foreign and unknown.
But in many cases the inspiration for what I create DOES come from this world we live in, though it may be, as in my case, from another time.
This week I was writing a scene where my character needs to travel quite a distance in one chapter to make some deliveries. I was halfway thru when I realized that I had no idea exactly how far some of the places she needed to go were spaced from each other. They were there on the map, of course, but the terrain, the roads etc had only been lines on that map til then. She had a full basket to carry or barrow to push. Though the light is longest this time year in the story, it seemed a long way to travel . . . at least by our modern ideals.
So I turned, as I always do, to a very detailed book of life in and around early Victorian London. And what I find when I do this sort of research is exactly how far we have come, and how far we have fallen back, in terms of what we are capable of and/or willing to do in our own daily lives.
Reading about Victorian London market vendors who did not live in the city proper, but who came in from the surrounding countryside, and how they would rise in the middle of the night and start out for the city by 2 or 3AM. They would walk up to 6 or 7 miles (10 or 11KM) pushing a barrow or carrying their goods with them to reach the market. Then they would turn around and walk back home after the market was done or when they had sold out of their goods, often purchasing what they themselves required to haul back with them.
This was NORMAL for so many people.
For folk who needed to do this daily, the idea of leisure time was so rare an occurrence. Other than Sunday after church, they had perhaps no more than a half hour each day before falling into bed exhausted. Then waking four or five hours later to go and do it all over again.
To find that place to write from, when we live now in a world where some people I've known won't get up and DRIVE five minutes to the store at a still reasonable hour because it's "too far" or they're "too tired" is rather hard to comprehend. Have I ever walked/hiked that far when it was not just for sheer leisure or hiking for personal enjoyment? No, I do not think I have. Not once, let alone day after day, carrying a heavy bundle or pushing a barrow, just to survive.
And I do not want to compare myself to those hard working people of the Victorian era but when I read these things I realize that, even today, this is why I seclude myself in the world of my choosing. Blocking out much of the outside world.
We live in a world that embraces bigger cars and trucks, more conveniences, more ease and comfort at the expense of, literally, our own well-being, more all-in-one stores, faster and further reaching ability to travel and more choices and options on everything and anything you can think of.
Now I am not saying I wish to live in Victorian London. Well, maybe in the world of Larkrise to Candleford. . . the books I've read certainly cover, in all the repulsive detail, the smoky darkness, the noise, the dirt, the smells and the discomforts just as well. But I DO feel that the idea of walking a few miles, of rising before the sun to accomplish or pursue goals, should NOT be a shock or a tribulation given our modern convenience filled world! It's certainly not a true hardship. And it should not come with the cry of others saying "oh, how horrible". Those Victorian market sellers are people who did what they had to in order to survive. To build a life. To feed themselves and their families. It was routine. It was just life.
In building the life I have now, I had to do a similar sort of "research". With the exception of a few Zen monastics I knew there were really so few examples in the city of people who chose to live with less. It seemed so out of the box to set out finding a place to live that was inexpensive, yet felt safe. A small, functioning town where we could get by without a car at all. Without highways and off ramps. Choosing to go with no iPhones or telephone data charges, no cable tv or satellite/dish. No eating out, which meant cooking all our meals at home from scratch. Using coupons all the time at the stores. Stocking up when something was really cheap. Now, the "research" in this case was close at hand. . . these were all things my mother and grandparents imparted to me, by their own life examples, as I was growing up. They lived thru and were part of the Great Depression and war-era generations that got by and sacrificed to survive. My own mother, a single mother working a service industry job, doing whatever she had to so we could be comfortable and safe. These were the very best examples I could have had, that much I know.
We never had much. . . but I never once felt, or look back now and see, a lacking of anything important in that life we lived.
Somehow over the years those sacrifices and willing choices became the signs of an "impoverished life". Again, I say, really? I know people who literally cannot cook a meal at home. Who can't navigate a grocery store without calling home on the i-Phone to ask where things are located. . . let alone those who would not be alright for one day without their cell phone on them at all times.
On my last two trips on a city bus before we moved I had two very different experiences that highlight the extremes. In one, on a bus filled with middle school age kids heading home from school. In the two dozen or so of them who likely take this crowded ride home every day, most were just being kids, laughing, yelling, sharing things from their Facebook and twitter feeds on their phones. In the midst of it all sat one girl, headphones plugged into an iPod, sketch pad out drawing away, oblivious to the din around her and, I like to think, daydreaming in a world of her own making. She didn't interact with the other kids at all though she clearly knew some of them. At every stop, as one or more of them rose to leave, they had a dozen kids that they had to say goodbye to as they made their way thru the crowd. When this girl reached her stop, three others got off there too. Yet she kept her headphones on and, with just a wave to another girl sitting nearby, she walked alone towards her home. I got a little misty eyed recognizing something inside her that was also in me at that age and I thought, "there's a girl who is always going to be just fine."
In the second experience, two high schoolers, boy and girl, sat on a far less crowded bus and the girl was sharing with him some of the trouble she was having at school. The boy, his face buried in the screen of his phone, was distracted, obviously. At one point she said something to him about it and he apologized, saying he had to keep an eye on his phone so that he would know where his stop was. She seemed dumbfounded, and said, "But you take the bus home every day!" and he replied, "I know, but I need my phone to tell me which stop is mine." I looked out the windows at the passing street signs, landmarks, restaurants etc etc and wondered how has it come to that? At 12 or 13 I used to navigate the streets of a fairly large city, take streetcars, make transfers and figure out how to traverse the maze-like streets and alleys if I had to get somewhere walking. I worry for kids like that because that young man has created a world too. One that it seems may not work to his best interests going forward. One that, in many ways, may limit his choices and shrink his world in not-so-advantageous ways.
For Sofie (who also grew up in a frugal minded family) and I, the choice was simple. Still is. We would not have been able to get to this point, making a full time living as makers-of-things, working from our home studio every single day, without having made those sacrifices at the start and without having had the experiences of our own childhoods when we had to rely on ourselves far more than most kids today ever will. We could not have done it without the examples of self sufficiency in our own families that showed us the way.
That's just a fact.
So, was it/is it worth it? No question. Do we feel like we sacrificed anything vital? No, not at all.
Today we are more self-sufficient that ever, I believe. We have zero debt, we have IRA's and a good little savings nest egg. None of which was a reality when we started this quest together and most of it is possible because of how we chose to live our life and how hard we work to maintain it. Yet we actually make LESS than we ever did working "career jobs" in the city when we couldn't seem to stay ahead.
By the way, we DO have a car now too. One that a little old lady drove once a week or so to the grocery store. Literally! We named her, in honor of Barbara, the woman who owned it for it's first 24 years, hence the name "Babs". So when we got Babs, that 24 yr old car had all of 16.000 miles on it. The woman's son, who was a friend of mine, just wanted the blue book value. . . which was $300. Babs runs like a dream and we continue to treat it as the previous owner did, driving it mostly for necessity too. We have had to put gas in it just twice since February. :) Our mechanic tell us if we take care of it as we are, she'll outlast most cars a quarter her age.
What did we give up then? Well, it's a short list. Being close to family. City conveniences. Looking outside of ourselves for entertainment. But even giving up those few things brought more "perks. . . less obligation, less opportunity for frivolous spending, less anxiety and, as far as "entertainment" goes, I personally have read more books in the last five years than in the previous 20. As a child, reading and discovering new books and new worlds was my salvation. . . so that has been like finding an old friend again.
I've had people tell me outright, "Oh, I could never live like that." and "You sacrifice so much!"
So much? To enable me to do the thing I've wanted to do all of my life instead of wishing and just shrugging my shoulders at the seemingly impossible thought because I won't entertain the idea of "world-building" a life that this can support? Those are the folks that I want to remind of what daily life was like for most people just 150 years ago. Heck just 40 years ago. Remind them of the days when, say, TV was free and you had to get up off the couch to change the channel . . . and likely get up again in 5 minutes to mess with the rabbit ear antennae to get the station to come in halfway clear.
Seriously, it was not that long ago that even those simple, everyday things were very, very different.
In writing stories about a world like the Bewildering Pine, it feels like such a comfort to dive in, once again, to creating another way of life. To explore world-building thru these tales of many different elven folk and the secrets their little world hides. It's not a moralistic tale at all or, at least, not in it's planning. The whole of the original plan really was to take two or three dozen of "those would be great characters in a book" people I have known or met in my life and set them at odds as elven folk within a world that is not quite what it seems. Each with their own part to play be it part of the larger quest or just figuring out how to live their own small lives and be true.
The book is also a nod to my own family roots. To that ancestry and their new beginnings. To the changes that passing time brought in their world and even to the lost language and customs of the "old country" they left behind.
Mostly though, it's just another way of continuing what I have been doing my whole life. Creating a secluded, safe world where I can disappear and let my own imagination be the only guide thru.
On the written page or in real life (and real life is what I am talking about here!) it's all really just a matter of world-building and, in world-building, one thing remains the constant. . .
ANYTHING is possible. You just have to create it!!
And as for that Zen lesson I mentioned, it took me awhile to get it. . . in response I used to raise my hands up in front of my teacher and say. . ."Good thing I have large hands!" :)
xo
nicolas
One, I am glad there are ALL kinds of people in this world. I would not want everyone to be, think or see things as I do. I recently heard of a young man who walks across the country. That's what he "does". Sometimes he works odd jobs for cash and sometimes he is graced with the kindness of strangers who help when he is in need, And you know what? I think he is as important to our world as the doctor or the sanitation worker or the teacher because, like all of us, his story can inspire. It can ignite an imagination. It can offer hope for those who feel like they themselves are an outsider or a little lost.
Two, I do NOT believe I have the answers for most young or aspiring artists. But I DO believe the way Sofie and I got "here" can be as inspiring and offer a glimpse into another way to live life. Choices that can be made today. Especially in a world that seems hell-bent on sinking everyone into debt, identity crisis and existential despair before they are 25. It's still about choice. And, since we are here to say "Look, we are doing it!", then I think it's worth hammering that point home sometimes.
Three - My Zen teacher used to say that our ambitions and pursuits in life are akin to cupping your hands together and then having someone pour cups of sand into them, each cup representing a different undertaking or passion. One cup at a time, for each new pursuit, passion or focus you take on. At some point, the only way to take on another half cup of sand, a new pursuit or passion, is to let go of some of the sand you already hold or the newly added sand will fall off the sides. Or you can fill your hands by only adding a part of, say, 6 or 7 different cups instead of at the whole of 2 or 3 of them. In addition, some of the sand in your hands also will likely leak out as you try to open your hands wider to hold/make room for the new sand. . . now you don't have a full grasp on any of those passions. . . that simple visual, and recognizing it was perfectly indicative of my own way of trying to do or take on too much, always made me smile.
Anyway, on with it. . .
One of the things I love about writing little stories, and now a novel about a fantasy world, is that it requires me to get out of my own world. Literally to step, thru the senses and experiences of the characters, into a place foreign and unknown.
But in many cases the inspiration for what I create DOES come from this world we live in, though it may be, as in my case, from another time.
This week I was writing a scene where my character needs to travel quite a distance in one chapter to make some deliveries. I was halfway thru when I realized that I had no idea exactly how far some of the places she needed to go were spaced from each other. They were there on the map, of course, but the terrain, the roads etc had only been lines on that map til then. She had a full basket to carry or barrow to push. Though the light is longest this time year in the story, it seemed a long way to travel . . . at least by our modern ideals.
So I turned, as I always do, to a very detailed book of life in and around early Victorian London. And what I find when I do this sort of research is exactly how far we have come, and how far we have fallen back, in terms of what we are capable of and/or willing to do in our own daily lives.
Reading about Victorian London market vendors who did not live in the city proper, but who came in from the surrounding countryside, and how they would rise in the middle of the night and start out for the city by 2 or 3AM. They would walk up to 6 or 7 miles (10 or 11KM) pushing a barrow or carrying their goods with them to reach the market. Then they would turn around and walk back home after the market was done or when they had sold out of their goods, often purchasing what they themselves required to haul back with them.
This was NORMAL for so many people.
For folk who needed to do this daily, the idea of leisure time was so rare an occurrence. Other than Sunday after church, they had perhaps no more than a half hour each day before falling into bed exhausted. Then waking four or five hours later to go and do it all over again.
To find that place to write from, when we live now in a world where some people I've known won't get up and DRIVE five minutes to the store at a still reasonable hour because it's "too far" or they're "too tired" is rather hard to comprehend. Have I ever walked/hiked that far when it was not just for sheer leisure or hiking for personal enjoyment? No, I do not think I have. Not once, let alone day after day, carrying a heavy bundle or pushing a barrow, just to survive.
And I do not want to compare myself to those hard working people of the Victorian era but when I read these things I realize that, even today, this is why I seclude myself in the world of my choosing. Blocking out much of the outside world.
We live in a world that embraces bigger cars and trucks, more conveniences, more ease and comfort at the expense of, literally, our own well-being, more all-in-one stores, faster and further reaching ability to travel and more choices and options on everything and anything you can think of.
Now I am not saying I wish to live in Victorian London. Well, maybe in the world of Larkrise to Candleford. . . the books I've read certainly cover, in all the repulsive detail, the smoky darkness, the noise, the dirt, the smells and the discomforts just as well. But I DO feel that the idea of walking a few miles, of rising before the sun to accomplish or pursue goals, should NOT be a shock or a tribulation given our modern convenience filled world! It's certainly not a true hardship. And it should not come with the cry of others saying "oh, how horrible". Those Victorian market sellers are people who did what they had to in order to survive. To build a life. To feed themselves and their families. It was routine. It was just life.
In building the life I have now, I had to do a similar sort of "research". With the exception of a few Zen monastics I knew there were really so few examples in the city of people who chose to live with less. It seemed so out of the box to set out finding a place to live that was inexpensive, yet felt safe. A small, functioning town where we could get by without a car at all. Without highways and off ramps. Choosing to go with no iPhones or telephone data charges, no cable tv or satellite/dish. No eating out, which meant cooking all our meals at home from scratch. Using coupons all the time at the stores. Stocking up when something was really cheap. Now, the "research" in this case was close at hand. . . these were all things my mother and grandparents imparted to me, by their own life examples, as I was growing up. They lived thru and were part of the Great Depression and war-era generations that got by and sacrificed to survive. My own mother, a single mother working a service industry job, doing whatever she had to so we could be comfortable and safe. These were the very best examples I could have had, that much I know.
We never had much. . . but I never once felt, or look back now and see, a lacking of anything important in that life we lived.
Somehow over the years those sacrifices and willing choices became the signs of an "impoverished life". Again, I say, really? I know people who literally cannot cook a meal at home. Who can't navigate a grocery store without calling home on the i-Phone to ask where things are located. . . let alone those who would not be alright for one day without their cell phone on them at all times.
On my last two trips on a city bus before we moved I had two very different experiences that highlight the extremes. In one, on a bus filled with middle school age kids heading home from school. In the two dozen or so of them who likely take this crowded ride home every day, most were just being kids, laughing, yelling, sharing things from their Facebook and twitter feeds on their phones. In the midst of it all sat one girl, headphones plugged into an iPod, sketch pad out drawing away, oblivious to the din around her and, I like to think, daydreaming in a world of her own making. She didn't interact with the other kids at all though she clearly knew some of them. At every stop, as one or more of them rose to leave, they had a dozen kids that they had to say goodbye to as they made their way thru the crowd. When this girl reached her stop, three others got off there too. Yet she kept her headphones on and, with just a wave to another girl sitting nearby, she walked alone towards her home. I got a little misty eyed recognizing something inside her that was also in me at that age and I thought, "there's a girl who is always going to be just fine."
In the second experience, two high schoolers, boy and girl, sat on a far less crowded bus and the girl was sharing with him some of the trouble she was having at school. The boy, his face buried in the screen of his phone, was distracted, obviously. At one point she said something to him about it and he apologized, saying he had to keep an eye on his phone so that he would know where his stop was. She seemed dumbfounded, and said, "But you take the bus home every day!" and he replied, "I know, but I need my phone to tell me which stop is mine." I looked out the windows at the passing street signs, landmarks, restaurants etc etc and wondered how has it come to that? At 12 or 13 I used to navigate the streets of a fairly large city, take streetcars, make transfers and figure out how to traverse the maze-like streets and alleys if I had to get somewhere walking. I worry for kids like that because that young man has created a world too. One that it seems may not work to his best interests going forward. One that, in many ways, may limit his choices and shrink his world in not-so-advantageous ways.
For Sofie (who also grew up in a frugal minded family) and I, the choice was simple. Still is. We would not have been able to get to this point, making a full time living as makers-of-things, working from our home studio every single day, without having made those sacrifices at the start and without having had the experiences of our own childhoods when we had to rely on ourselves far more than most kids today ever will. We could not have done it without the examples of self sufficiency in our own families that showed us the way.
That's just a fact.
So, was it/is it worth it? No question. Do we feel like we sacrificed anything vital? No, not at all.
Today we are more self-sufficient that ever, I believe. We have zero debt, we have IRA's and a good little savings nest egg. None of which was a reality when we started this quest together and most of it is possible because of how we chose to live our life and how hard we work to maintain it. Yet we actually make LESS than we ever did working "career jobs" in the city when we couldn't seem to stay ahead.
By the way, we DO have a car now too. One that a little old lady drove once a week or so to the grocery store. Literally! We named her, in honor of Barbara, the woman who owned it for it's first 24 years, hence the name "Babs". So when we got Babs, that 24 yr old car had all of 16.000 miles on it. The woman's son, who was a friend of mine, just wanted the blue book value. . . which was $300. Babs runs like a dream and we continue to treat it as the previous owner did, driving it mostly for necessity too. We have had to put gas in it just twice since February. :) Our mechanic tell us if we take care of it as we are, she'll outlast most cars a quarter her age.
What did we give up then? Well, it's a short list. Being close to family. City conveniences. Looking outside of ourselves for entertainment. But even giving up those few things brought more "perks. . . less obligation, less opportunity for frivolous spending, less anxiety and, as far as "entertainment" goes, I personally have read more books in the last five years than in the previous 20. As a child, reading and discovering new books and new worlds was my salvation. . . so that has been like finding an old friend again.
I've had people tell me outright, "Oh, I could never live like that." and "You sacrifice so much!"
So much? To enable me to do the thing I've wanted to do all of my life instead of wishing and just shrugging my shoulders at the seemingly impossible thought because I won't entertain the idea of "world-building" a life that this can support? Those are the folks that I want to remind of what daily life was like for most people just 150 years ago. Heck just 40 years ago. Remind them of the days when, say, TV was free and you had to get up off the couch to change the channel . . . and likely get up again in 5 minutes to mess with the rabbit ear antennae to get the station to come in halfway clear.
Seriously, it was not that long ago that even those simple, everyday things were very, very different.
In writing stories about a world like the Bewildering Pine, it feels like such a comfort to dive in, once again, to creating another way of life. To explore world-building thru these tales of many different elven folk and the secrets their little world hides. It's not a moralistic tale at all or, at least, not in it's planning. The whole of the original plan really was to take two or three dozen of "those would be great characters in a book" people I have known or met in my life and set them at odds as elven folk within a world that is not quite what it seems. Each with their own part to play be it part of the larger quest or just figuring out how to live their own small lives and be true.
The book is also a nod to my own family roots. To that ancestry and their new beginnings. To the changes that passing time brought in their world and even to the lost language and customs of the "old country" they left behind.
Mostly though, it's just another way of continuing what I have been doing my whole life. Creating a secluded, safe world where I can disappear and let my own imagination be the only guide thru.
On the written page or in real life (and real life is what I am talking about here!) it's all really just a matter of world-building and, in world-building, one thing remains the constant. . .
ANYTHING is possible. You just have to create it!!
And as for that Zen lesson I mentioned, it took me awhile to get it. . . in response I used to raise my hands up in front of my teacher and say. . ."Good thing I have large hands!" :)
xo
nicolas
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Rue de La Minuscule
It's not like I don't already have enough on the creative fire to keep me busy. . . but, truth be told, the more "have to's" that are beckoning. . . custom orders, replacing favorites and requests. . .. the more I want to do something completely new or different and get lost in another direction!
The benefit of this is that it almost always leads me to new things that end up being staples in my shops. So, this past week, with all the "have to's" circling and bearing down, I went off on yet another creative tangent.
Tiny
When I began working with polymer clay 5 years ago I had in mind the notion that smaller would be easier. That if I made things tiny, they would be less likely to show the learning curve as I grew into working with the clay. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Larger was easier and, out of that, I grew into making houses, statues etc etc but every once in awhile, I come back to "tiny". . .
It's been awhile this time but I thought I would go ahead and try something in a very small scale again and see where it took me.
The results were very satisfying and I wanted to share them here before they make it to my shoppe.
I originally decided to try one little French/European style shop. But it turned out so well I kept going and, well, as you can see below, my tiny idea became so much more!
A trio of buildings and street, in N scale (1:148) that I am so happy with! I am going to create more and have little touches on the way, bicyclists, villagers etc etc to fill out the scenes. This took awhile, as one might imagine, and I do not expect they will move quickly but I LOVE creating on this scale!
So enjoy a little stroll down the Rue de La Minuscule
More like this are already in process. A Venetian set of Burano houses with gondola and canal and a few one offs of my favorite Medieval town settings. . . those little corner buildings with a winding cobblestone path that wrap around and frame the house in those interesting and odd triangular plot shapes! Who knows what else!
I expect to only complete a few of these a year but I have to say, working tiny is such a fun and satisfying thing to do!
Thanks for looking!
nicolas
The benefit of this is that it almost always leads me to new things that end up being staples in my shops. So, this past week, with all the "have to's" circling and bearing down, I went off on yet another creative tangent.
Tiny
When I began working with polymer clay 5 years ago I had in mind the notion that smaller would be easier. That if I made things tiny, they would be less likely to show the learning curve as I grew into working with the clay. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Larger was easier and, out of that, I grew into making houses, statues etc etc but every once in awhile, I come back to "tiny". . .
It's been awhile this time but I thought I would go ahead and try something in a very small scale again and see where it took me.
The results were very satisfying and I wanted to share them here before they make it to my shoppe.
I originally decided to try one little French/European style shop. But it turned out so well I kept going and, well, as you can see below, my tiny idea became so much more!
A trio of buildings and street, in N scale (1:148) that I am so happy with! I am going to create more and have little touches on the way, bicyclists, villagers etc etc to fill out the scenes. This took awhile, as one might imagine, and I do not expect they will move quickly but I LOVE creating on this scale!
So enjoy a little stroll down the Rue de La Minuscule
 |
| My ideal city apartment. . . .between a cheese shoppe and a wine seller! :) |
 |
| Note to self. . . fix crooked flower pot! |
 |
| Rue de la minuscule is just 4.5 inches long! |
 |
| Very picturesque street I'd say! |
More like this are already in process. A Venetian set of Burano houses with gondola and canal and a few one offs of my favorite Medieval town settings. . . those little corner buildings with a winding cobblestone path that wrap around and frame the house in those interesting and odd triangular plot shapes! Who knows what else!
I expect to only complete a few of these a year but I have to say, working tiny is such a fun and satisfying thing to do!
Thanks for looking!
nicolas
Thursday, November 20, 2014
A Dose of Fairy Magic
Beyond the crafting and selling of items there are many aspects to being a maker-of-things that I absolutely did not expect but so enjoy.
At the top of that list is the connection and interaction that develops with many of our customers. The exchanges that go on beyond the transaction are often born out of the desire to share stories or experiences or just random thoughts on the world of faeries and possibilities. And these can create longstanding bonds that may extend for months or years.
I have grown to love and cherish these interactions so much.
Once in awhile we also are given the chance to share thoughts and messages that seem "fairy-sent"
and such was the case today when one of our customers, who recently purchased a fairy house from us, was remarking that she did not feel fairy spirits were likely present in her own home due to something she does that she believed would be a detraction to fairy spirits.
Because this "something" falls into the category that I would consider to be purely modern "human ideals" and more specifically a cultural idealism of the last 20 years or so, I felt inspired to send the following along to her. . . by the way, her message ended with the question "Are you truly believers?"
The reply:
Oh we are true believers!
And let us say that we do not think fairies discriminate against certain "earthly",human ideals There is, in the heart, something greater than human idealism that fairies are drawn to and, we believe, that intangible energy and heartfelt awareness is what creates that fairy presence around us.
Openness and a compassionate, welcoming heart. The desire to revisit or resurrect that magic of childhood or of any period of one's life where possibility and imagination ruled or were in our awareness. Even just the desire or the need to know that we are not alone here. . . . all of these things are, in our experience, the true portals to visitations and fairy magic.
There is an old ctale, Gaelic or Celtic I believe, that speaks of the "little man". A sprite who tends to move objects and personal items to places the owner realizes are out of place and often just moments after they have been set down! Even this type of sprite, which is among the most common of the "visitations" humans receive is usually presented to someone for reasons we cannot always fathom. But "they" know we are in need of some magic in this world and so it may appear in many different ways. Gentle nudges to our consciousness. . .
In YOUR world and your home, just be open to whatever comes and presents itself as a sign. The simplest things really. . . occurrences that you may have not even given a thought to before can be recognized as these visitations and signs. . . just stay open to the possibility as all of them are the doorways to deeper wonder and possibility. All of them come with no strings attached. . no more of a "price" than our belief and the space made in an open heart.
Perhaps even a message like this, though flown through the cyber-spaces from our fingertips, may in fact originate somewhere else and is "given" to us to pass along? Who can say really. . .
We hope THAT magic and possibility is what you find in everything that you see. ;)
nicolas
Now, I LOVE writing such messages. I love pulling people back to this side of the landscape and horizon. Sometimes I think it really is about just giving people permission to open up and believe.
That's what it took to get me to a place, after so many years, of believing I deserved to do what I do and be a maker-of-things and that I could be a vessel for that magic to enter this world. Now it seems like I cannot imagine a time when I did not know this or believe it as such. . . but it took countless gentle and not so gentle budges and impressions. Moments of being "steered" one direction or another to keep me on the path.
I have known since I was a child that I was indeed "watched over".
Once or twice in enormously life altering ways and then again, in dozens of those slight, imperceptible changes of direction along the way too.
And the purpose is, in my way of seeing it, always small. I was, for years, too caught in the grandiose ideals of my own life and purpose and not ready to see that the simplest and most natural of our abilities are often the roots of the greatest purpose we may have.
Thank you faeries for all the love and guidance in all the forms presented thru these years.
I never forget. . .
nicolas
At the top of that list is the connection and interaction that develops with many of our customers. The exchanges that go on beyond the transaction are often born out of the desire to share stories or experiences or just random thoughts on the world of faeries and possibilities. And these can create longstanding bonds that may extend for months or years.
I have grown to love and cherish these interactions so much.
Once in awhile we also are given the chance to share thoughts and messages that seem "fairy-sent"
and such was the case today when one of our customers, who recently purchased a fairy house from us, was remarking that she did not feel fairy spirits were likely present in her own home due to something she does that she believed would be a detraction to fairy spirits.
Because this "something" falls into the category that I would consider to be purely modern "human ideals" and more specifically a cultural idealism of the last 20 years or so, I felt inspired to send the following along to her. . . by the way, her message ended with the question "Are you truly believers?"
The reply:
Oh we are true believers!
And let us say that we do not think fairies discriminate against certain "earthly",human ideals There is, in the heart, something greater than human idealism that fairies are drawn to and, we believe, that intangible energy and heartfelt awareness is what creates that fairy presence around us.
Openness and a compassionate, welcoming heart. The desire to revisit or resurrect that magic of childhood or of any period of one's life where possibility and imagination ruled or were in our awareness. Even just the desire or the need to know that we are not alone here. . . . all of these things are, in our experience, the true portals to visitations and fairy magic.
There is an old ctale, Gaelic or Celtic I believe, that speaks of the "little man". A sprite who tends to move objects and personal items to places the owner realizes are out of place and often just moments after they have been set down! Even this type of sprite, which is among the most common of the "visitations" humans receive is usually presented to someone for reasons we cannot always fathom. But "they" know we are in need of some magic in this world and so it may appear in many different ways. Gentle nudges to our consciousness. . .
In YOUR world and your home, just be open to whatever comes and presents itself as a sign. The simplest things really. . . occurrences that you may have not even given a thought to before can be recognized as these visitations and signs. . . just stay open to the possibility as all of them are the doorways to deeper wonder and possibility. All of them come with no strings attached. . no more of a "price" than our belief and the space made in an open heart.
Perhaps even a message like this, though flown through the cyber-spaces from our fingertips, may in fact originate somewhere else and is "given" to us to pass along? Who can say really. . .
We hope THAT magic and possibility is what you find in everything that you see. ;)
nicolas
Now, I LOVE writing such messages. I love pulling people back to this side of the landscape and horizon. Sometimes I think it really is about just giving people permission to open up and believe.
That's what it took to get me to a place, after so many years, of believing I deserved to do what I do and be a maker-of-things and that I could be a vessel for that magic to enter this world. Now it seems like I cannot imagine a time when I did not know this or believe it as such. . . but it took countless gentle and not so gentle budges and impressions. Moments of being "steered" one direction or another to keep me on the path.
I have known since I was a child that I was indeed "watched over".
Once or twice in enormously life altering ways and then again, in dozens of those slight, imperceptible changes of direction along the way too.
And the purpose is, in my way of seeing it, always small. I was, for years, too caught in the grandiose ideals of my own life and purpose and not ready to see that the simplest and most natural of our abilities are often the roots of the greatest purpose we may have.
Thank you faeries for all the love and guidance in all the forms presented thru these years.
I never forget. . .
nicolas
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
A Short Epiphany About Inspiration
Last week I received a message from a customer asking what inspires me. . .
I must have answered this question a couple of hundred times over the last 20 or so years throughout all of my creative endeavors.
But this time as I went to respond, I had a little epiphany. There used to be some "things" and things here meaning external input, that inspired me. While this certainly remains true, I had to really think before answering because, after all these years, the external is now internal and the inspiration is now a part of everything in my world.
This was, I should say, a very conscious decision.
These days and, shall I say, for the last five years or so, I have been weeding out anything from my life that is simply not inspiring. I do not read books or watch anything visually that does not fit into the world of imagination and what I create.
People too. . . be they Etsy folks I follow or friends in the flesh. . . I've always had very strong boundaries about what got into my inner world and while people are the hardest to master in that regard, I have had that down for awhile now too. Not a minute is spent with anyone who does not understand, appreciate or add to my creative world. Of course, there are the unavoidable times when the car needs fixed, the groceries need bought or the door needs answered for deliveries. . .but other than those sort of encounters, it is a very small circle of people who get in.
The point of this all is really just to say that I have made my entire world a source of vibrant inspiration. I have left no time, no room and no reason for anything else. The results, I must say, are that I am as happy a creative soul as I have ever been. Life gets better each day and all I could ask for is more of the same each day going forward.
So now the answer to what inspires me is simpler than ever.
Everything around me.
And if I could give one gift to anyone else it would be to say you have the universe's permission to do this too!!
nicolas
And maybe that happiness is why this fellow, another commission I finished yesterday, though He is the God of Chaos, has a rather satisfied and almost "cute" look on his face. . .
I must have answered this question a couple of hundred times over the last 20 or so years throughout all of my creative endeavors.
But this time as I went to respond, I had a little epiphany. There used to be some "things" and things here meaning external input, that inspired me. While this certainly remains true, I had to really think before answering because, after all these years, the external is now internal and the inspiration is now a part of everything in my world.
This was, I should say, a very conscious decision.
These days and, shall I say, for the last five years or so, I have been weeding out anything from my life that is simply not inspiring. I do not read books or watch anything visually that does not fit into the world of imagination and what I create.
People too. . . be they Etsy folks I follow or friends in the flesh. . . I've always had very strong boundaries about what got into my inner world and while people are the hardest to master in that regard, I have had that down for awhile now too. Not a minute is spent with anyone who does not understand, appreciate or add to my creative world. Of course, there are the unavoidable times when the car needs fixed, the groceries need bought or the door needs answered for deliveries. . .but other than those sort of encounters, it is a very small circle of people who get in.
The point of this all is really just to say that I have made my entire world a source of vibrant inspiration. I have left no time, no room and no reason for anything else. The results, I must say, are that I am as happy a creative soul as I have ever been. Life gets better each day and all I could ask for is more of the same each day going forward.
So now the answer to what inspires me is simpler than ever.
Everything around me.
And if I could give one gift to anyone else it would be to say you have the universe's permission to do this too!!
nicolas
And maybe that happiness is why this fellow, another commission I finished yesterday, though He is the God of Chaos, has a rather satisfied and almost "cute" look on his face. . .
 |
| Set / Seth / Sutekh |
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
The Bubble Factory
These days I spend zero time working on new visual art. But the two or three times a moth I sell a print from my first Etsy shop, I am often reminded of the passion I once felt for creating it. I have written about it before. . . the visual art was my last great attempt to create "adult art" with adult meaning and life perspectives but, while it provided a wonderful creative outlet for my energy, and I am proud of everything I ever did that is listed, I look at it all now like diary entries really.
This morning I awoke to the sale of a print of this piece below called "The Bubble Factory"
I am instantly reminded of a few things.
Created in 2011, this was one of the last original pieces I made while living in the city of Portland. That industrial building was right outside our apartment's art studio room.
Over the two years living there my feelings about that building and view went from grateful as, at first, there was the beauty of the total lack of people. . . only birds came to visit that roof and our windows. . . eventually to feeling the ugliness of the utter lack of closeness to untouched nature. While it was better than staring at traffic or the masses, it still lacked soul. It was during that mood/time I created this image hoping to put a little magic back into the view and in city life.
And it was during that time I felt the entire shift inside to wanting magic all around me. . . all the time. . . whichever way I looked. And that feeling led us to live here
Ok, we do NOT live with this view out our window, our place in down there in the midst of that tiny town just across from the bay and marina. But the magic of this place. . . and seeing sights like these that follow, every day, were exactly what my soul needed. :)
nicolas
magic. . . indeed.
This morning I awoke to the sale of a print of this piece below called "The Bubble Factory"
Created in 2011, this was one of the last original pieces I made while living in the city of Portland. That industrial building was right outside our apartment's art studio room.
Over the two years living there my feelings about that building and view went from grateful as, at first, there was the beauty of the total lack of people. . . only birds came to visit that roof and our windows. . . eventually to feeling the ugliness of the utter lack of closeness to untouched nature. While it was better than staring at traffic or the masses, it still lacked soul. It was during that mood/time I created this image hoping to put a little magic back into the view and in city life.
And it was during that time I felt the entire shift inside to wanting magic all around me. . . all the time. . . whichever way I looked. And that feeling led us to live here
nicolas
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Realization
I've lost count of the number of times I have heard someone express frustration that they can't seem to get of the ground with their creative work. In the last five years, as our business has thrived and grown with each passing year, I have been keeping notes and trying to find a short summary of what I think are the most important things that are conducive to creating this success.I have always wanted to share it openly if I thought it could help others.
These have ranged from the grand: "Tailor your entire life to fit your art. . . not the other way around!" to the ethereal: "Find the threads that have run throughout your whole life. . . from your earliest imaginings, and follow them." and to the obvious: " Only do what you LOVE!"
But there is little practical "how to" knowledge in those and, even if we explained them from our perspective, they must be adapted to each individual and their situaton. .
But today I think I can put it in one word. The one that absolutely WILL make a difference and help generate success.
Realization
As in, the evolving realization of the potential of your creative abilities and every idea you'll ever have.
And that realization comes with these simple things. . . practice, repetition, dedication and time.
There is no quick fix. No Instant success. Four years later I am still creating some of the same things I did at the very beginning, like these fairy mushroom houses upon a star:
But four years later everything about them is more realized. The mushroom shapes, the grass blend, the flowers, the trees, the tiny mushrooms under the trees, the windows. Each part has improved. . even the spots!
And four years from now they will be better still. . .
That is the essence of realization. Nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. . . but that also means loving what "is" at the time too. And it goes for the skills of your craft as much as any one product. As they improve, so will you!
And this is hard for people to take in because ultimately so many want the success and the payoff NOW. But like any great thing in life. . . and creating one's art from the soul is certainly among the greatest. . . it takes a lifetime. Not one day less.
nicolas
These have ranged from the grand: "Tailor your entire life to fit your art. . . not the other way around!" to the ethereal: "Find the threads that have run throughout your whole life. . . from your earliest imaginings, and follow them." and to the obvious: " Only do what you LOVE!"
But there is little practical "how to" knowledge in those and, even if we explained them from our perspective, they must be adapted to each individual and their situaton. .
But today I think I can put it in one word. The one that absolutely WILL make a difference and help generate success.
Realization
As in, the evolving realization of the potential of your creative abilities and every idea you'll ever have.
And that realization comes with these simple things. . . practice, repetition, dedication and time.
There is no quick fix. No Instant success. Four years later I am still creating some of the same things I did at the very beginning, like these fairy mushroom houses upon a star:
But four years later everything about them is more realized. The mushroom shapes, the grass blend, the flowers, the trees, the tiny mushrooms under the trees, the windows. Each part has improved. . even the spots!
And four years from now they will be better still. . .
That is the essence of realization. Nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. . . but that also means loving what "is" at the time too. And it goes for the skills of your craft as much as any one product. As they improve, so will you!
And this is hard for people to take in because ultimately so many want the success and the payoff NOW. But like any great thing in life. . . and creating one's art from the soul is certainly among the greatest. . . it takes a lifetime. Not one day less.
nicolas
Monday, September 1, 2014
Ten for Thirty
I am, by all accounts, at my best in a strong routine. I don't fit creativity in here and there. . . it is the main focus of my days. I found, thru the years, that when I maintain a fairly monastic-like schedule that is centered around one or two main things, I am able to be at my most productive.
And as it turns out, my happiest.
But this means that many things and activities are sacrificed and get left out. It is harder for me to make time for something once a week rather than every day.
It is one of the main reasons I seem to be unable to keep up a blog with any regularity here too. I'll think of so many things I want to say or show but, often, the thought of trying to squeeze in half an hour here and there without it being scheduled is just hard to make a reality.
And there IS so much more I want to share here. Ongoing work, thoughts, plans and experiments. .
So I decided to try an experiment this month. I want to blog every morning, scheduling it into my morning check in's and day planning. But to do so I have to be realistic and say that I am only going to allow myself 10 minutes each day to do this.
Ten minutes for thirty days.
I hope you'll come along for the ride and enjoy the things I share here this month. If it works and I find that it has become a beneficial part of my days, I will continue it beyond the end of the month.
So, without any delay ( as I am already 8 minutes in for today!) here is something new that I just finished for a client. It's a custom set of five miniature terracotta warriors.
This was right up my alley as I have long held these figures in my imagination and am overwhelmed by the thought of them being created in such scale and arranged as an army of the afterlife for Qin Shi Huang the first Emperor of China.
I'll just add that it is probably a good thing I did not know about these figures in my childhood for, as the boy who created an Egyptian tomb in his bedroom closet by drawing hieroglyphs on the walls and making royal statuary and jewelry out of tinfoil, fake jewels and paper I shudder to think what I might have tried to create to represent this in my paracosm. I can just see my grandmother going into the canning room in the basement of our house to be confronted with an army of papier mâché and cardboard warriors watching over the peaches and preserves!!! : )
So I will see you here daily this month then. . . short and sweet.
Thanks for coming along!
And as it turns out, my happiest.
But this means that many things and activities are sacrificed and get left out. It is harder for me to make time for something once a week rather than every day.
It is one of the main reasons I seem to be unable to keep up a blog with any regularity here too. I'll think of so many things I want to say or show but, often, the thought of trying to squeeze in half an hour here and there without it being scheduled is just hard to make a reality.
And there IS so much more I want to share here. Ongoing work, thoughts, plans and experiments. .
So I decided to try an experiment this month. I want to blog every morning, scheduling it into my morning check in's and day planning. But to do so I have to be realistic and say that I am only going to allow myself 10 minutes each day to do this.
Ten minutes for thirty days.
I hope you'll come along for the ride and enjoy the things I share here this month. If it works and I find that it has become a beneficial part of my days, I will continue it beyond the end of the month.
So, without any delay ( as I am already 8 minutes in for today!) here is something new that I just finished for a client. It's a custom set of five miniature terracotta warriors.
This was right up my alley as I have long held these figures in my imagination and am overwhelmed by the thought of them being created in such scale and arranged as an army of the afterlife for Qin Shi Huang the first Emperor of China.
I'll just add that it is probably a good thing I did not know about these figures in my childhood for, as the boy who created an Egyptian tomb in his bedroom closet by drawing hieroglyphs on the walls and making royal statuary and jewelry out of tinfoil, fake jewels and paper I shudder to think what I might have tried to create to represent this in my paracosm. I can just see my grandmother going into the canning room in the basement of our house to be confronted with an army of papier mâché and cardboard warriors watching over the peaches and preserves!!! : )
So I will see you here daily this month then. . . short and sweet.
Thanks for coming along!
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Growing an Idea
"To see is a trick of the mind but to believe is a trick of the heart."
-Ronlyn Domingue from "The Chronicle of Secret Riven"
Maybe it's just me. . . .but I have to say that I never feel a sense of "completion" in my creative world. There is no "done" when it comes to an idea or a technique. I am always looking forward to the next iteration. To the sharpening of the skill set and the expanding of the inner mythology that allows each creation to come alive.
I think that desire to re-imagine, recreate and reinvent is part of what makes being a maker-of-things a lifelong pursuit.
And I experience a connection in this to many who are able to make their living in a creative world. Because on the other side of that equation are the many who start an idea, perhaps a really GREAT idea. . . then make one or two of something, and then expect that they have done the work to be able to sell what they have made. When, at the heart of every creative soul who makes a living from their creativity, there is usually a deep, driving desire to carry their ideas to their greatest and fullest realization. Whether they sell them or not. . . In fact, to carry each little component or technique within those ideas to the same extent.
Many people "see" ideas. . . but only a few, in my experience, believe in them enough to carry them out.
Don't misunderstand. I've left ideas behind. More than I can count.
I've moved on to new and more interesting ones too. Not everything is meant to be carried forward and invested in ( in life AND creativity!) and I certainly have my share of feeling like ideas have reached their logical conclusions. But those are few and far between.
I love stories and great stories, like ideas, in my world never really have an end.
So I wanted to just present this little "road map" of an idea for you to peruse
This is how an idea grows. . .
It began right after the New Year with one little tiny fairy house. I had been working for some time on finding an interesting idea I could develop and grow and, as is often the case, it turned out to be the idea tha was least hollering for attention in my mind that grew into something larger. lol
That first house/style just seemed to have a certain Alpine feel to it. A little square chalet style with wooden door, stone archway, mossy tiled roof and flowers.
Tiny textured walls that allowed me to paint the individual "stones" in a plethora of color. I loved the very first one and I believe it sold in two days. So I made another. . and another. . . and another. After selling a dozen or so of this one model, I decided it would be interesting to grow the idea and it's story a bit. So I wrote a little piece about Alpine Fairies and thought I should christen the cottage after one of the Alpine peaks. . . a quick search led me to the revelation that there are literally hundreds of peaks ithat make up the Alps. (I'd been there twice but somehow forgotten the scope of the Alpine range!) And that each peak does indeed have it's own name. This one above became the "Monte Rosa" Well, that got the creative brain going and what has come of it is an endless and ever-growing series/story/paracosm all unto itself.
The story grew. . . (each mountain band of fairies had their own distinct fairy cottage style) the house names I liked are so numerous I can't imagine how long it might take for me to create a distinct style for each. . . Matterhorn, Hochwilde, Mont Pelvoux, Lagginhorn. . . sometimes the name suggests the style. . . sometimes it works the other way around.
While I am still working in the "stone cottage" style, I do have a desire to move this series forward into making some half timbered minis too! When that occurs, the story will get re-imagined and grow yet again.
Then came the desire to photograph these little cottages in a unique style so that, when people saw them in the shop, they would instantly recognize them as being a series. A background was found among my pictures of the time I spent in that region and I created a long-overdue photo fairy garden in the studio to shoot them in too.
At this point, there are 10 individual styles in the Alpine Fairy House series and it grows each week.
I can barely keep them in stock these days which, if you know me, is sometimes very frustrating as I love to have them around as much as my clientele does! But that ensures I will kep the production of them going and each time I remake one, I try to work on a new model or idea as well. :)
Below is the first group shot I took of the houses in this series. There are already four new styles being completed as I write. So this group image will grow and change as time goes on too.
But the thing I want to say here is that this idea also fit so well into all the areas I love most about creating. There is the challenge of keeping it ever-evolving and fresh and not being able to see an end in sight. The expanding story that allows me to grow the idea slowly and create the mythology as it comes to me. The time needed to "research", which is, in effect, me happily spending hours pouring over images of quaint Alpine villages and settings! And last, the constant honing of certain techniques that, I believe, make these little cottages so magical.
And most of all, these allow me to create yet another world to inhabit within myself. The story unfolds the deeper I go and the more I allow it to become a part of my day to day life.
If there is an end in sight, I can't fathom it.
And that wide open road ahead is, to me, the epitome of what real-world magic is all about.
It's not a trick at all.
It's alive
And it is completely invested in the heart of it's creator.
So take care of it just the same. . .
See you all in Alpine fairy land!
nicolas
-Ronlyn Domingue from "The Chronicle of Secret Riven"
Maybe it's just me. . . .but I have to say that I never feel a sense of "completion" in my creative world. There is no "done" when it comes to an idea or a technique. I am always looking forward to the next iteration. To the sharpening of the skill set and the expanding of the inner mythology that allows each creation to come alive.
I think that desire to re-imagine, recreate and reinvent is part of what makes being a maker-of-things a lifelong pursuit.
And I experience a connection in this to many who are able to make their living in a creative world. Because on the other side of that equation are the many who start an idea, perhaps a really GREAT idea. . . then make one or two of something, and then expect that they have done the work to be able to sell what they have made. When, at the heart of every creative soul who makes a living from their creativity, there is usually a deep, driving desire to carry their ideas to their greatest and fullest realization. Whether they sell them or not. . . In fact, to carry each little component or technique within those ideas to the same extent.
Many people "see" ideas. . . but only a few, in my experience, believe in them enough to carry them out.
Don't misunderstand. I've left ideas behind. More than I can count.
I've moved on to new and more interesting ones too. Not everything is meant to be carried forward and invested in ( in life AND creativity!) and I certainly have my share of feeling like ideas have reached their logical conclusions. But those are few and far between.
I love stories and great stories, like ideas, in my world never really have an end.
So I wanted to just present this little "road map" of an idea for you to peruse
This is how an idea grows. . .
It began right after the New Year with one little tiny fairy house. I had been working for some time on finding an interesting idea I could develop and grow and, as is often the case, it turned out to be the idea tha was least hollering for attention in my mind that grew into something larger. lol
That first house/style just seemed to have a certain Alpine feel to it. A little square chalet style with wooden door, stone archway, mossy tiled roof and flowers.
 |
| This was not the original but likely the second or third iteration! |
The story grew. . . (each mountain band of fairies had their own distinct fairy cottage style) the house names I liked are so numerous I can't imagine how long it might take for me to create a distinct style for each. . . Matterhorn, Hochwilde, Mont Pelvoux, Lagginhorn. . . sometimes the name suggests the style. . . sometimes it works the other way around.
While I am still working in the "stone cottage" style, I do have a desire to move this series forward into making some half timbered minis too! When that occurs, the story will get re-imagined and grow yet again.
Then came the desire to photograph these little cottages in a unique style so that, when people saw them in the shop, they would instantly recognize them as being a series. A background was found among my pictures of the time I spent in that region and I created a long-overdue photo fairy garden in the studio to shoot them in too.
 |
| The new, very- incomplete, fairy house photo garden! |
At this point, there are 10 individual styles in the Alpine Fairy House series and it grows each week.
I can barely keep them in stock these days which, if you know me, is sometimes very frustrating as I love to have them around as much as my clientele does! But that ensures I will kep the production of them going and each time I remake one, I try to work on a new model or idea as well. :)
Below is the first group shot I took of the houses in this series. There are already four new styles being completed as I write. So this group image will grow and change as time goes on too.
 |
| 8 of the Alpine Fairy House Series |
But the thing I want to say here is that this idea also fit so well into all the areas I love most about creating. There is the challenge of keeping it ever-evolving and fresh and not being able to see an end in sight. The expanding story that allows me to grow the idea slowly and create the mythology as it comes to me. The time needed to "research", which is, in effect, me happily spending hours pouring over images of quaint Alpine villages and settings! And last, the constant honing of certain techniques that, I believe, make these little cottages so magical.
And most of all, these allow me to create yet another world to inhabit within myself. The story unfolds the deeper I go and the more I allow it to become a part of my day to day life.
If there is an end in sight, I can't fathom it.
And that wide open road ahead is, to me, the epitome of what real-world magic is all about.
It's not a trick at all.
It's alive
And it is completely invested in the heart of it's creator.
So take care of it just the same. . .
See you all in Alpine fairy land!
nicolas
Sunday, July 6, 2014
A Month of Gathering
Back in 2004, a few years before he died, my father and I spoke often about life. We were never close when I was a child as he and my mum divorced when I was four. This was, for all intents and purposes, a very good thing for her AND I. He was very stodgy, quite mainstream in a narrow and limiting way and he had little room for self expression and the roads less traveled in life.
I cannot imagine who I would have turned out to be if he were a directive force in my developing years. . . but people change.
We reconnected when my grandmother, his mother, died when I was 19. Slowly, we built the strands of connection after he accepted my plea that, "I don't need you to be dad anymore. . I need a friend."
And a very good friend he turned out to be.
So that day, as I recounted all that was going on in my life, how I was pursuing my love of music-making and music production for others. How I was thriving owning a coffeehouse and creating digital art and poetry. (this is all about 5 years before my creative life as you see it now even began)
He listened quietly and patiently and then, when I had finished, he offered the following.
"Son, I've never told you this but I wish I had lived (he was 61 at the time) my life more like you. I would do it differently now but back then I always was so concerned with climbing the ladder of success and making more money and having better this and better that. There are so many things I thought to do but did not have the courage or the inner strength to try. And I see you, living your life this way and your voice is filled with joy and I feel every new experience brings you closer to something bigger. Maybe even closer to a sense of "purpose"? "
"But I am going to give you one piece of advice" he continued. "From here, the choices in your life will get tougher because you are still seeking and yet you have managed to eliminate all of the things people usually fill their lives with that are less than fulfilling. You love your job. You love where you live and you love the people around you. You have several creative outlets that take up every moment of your free time. . . and I know you, my son. You are going to keep finding things that you love and now? Now the choices are going to be between two or more things you love and where will they fit in when the days will always only be 24hrs long? And you don't do anything half assed. . . so where is the time going to come from and when those new "right things" present themselves? Because one of them may be "it". So remember that you'll have to make room for them. And that it is ok to let go of something you love as much as something you don't.
Oh, how right he was.
So the last 6 months as I've "struggled" with the lack of time that being a full time, all the time, maker-of-things requires and found myself overloaded with custom orders and requests as all the while the new ideas pile up and up and I cannot tend to them, And then, beneathe it all, this "new thing". . . this sense of something greater being right there all along. . . oh yes, it reared it's head and asked to be heard.
I once again took stock.
Made lists and looked deep within for the answer to what stays and what goes. . .
And here is what has changed from that kid who got that piece of advice 10 years ago.
The "new thing" is that I DO feel a sense of purpose in what I do now. It's the one thing I have done in my life (and I have done and tried more than my share) that feels really close to perfect and complete as far as being part of the thread I have known since childhood.
But these days I feel pulled to leave something behind. Something more than just bits and pieces and assorted lovelies. . . though those are as much a part of the "purpose" as what I have planned
My father was right,
I do not do anything half-assed. I don't know how. The details are everything and no matter how much I love something I make, I find myself looking to make it better and just a bit more innovative next time around. Good enough is never good enough even if I am the only one who sees it.
In truth, when people ask me for advice on making it with an online shop or with creative self employment, I usually include this one little piece of advice. What ever you do today, you can do better tomorrow and you have to want that, without fail, first and foremost or you'll not get far in the creative world.
First, you have to make room for it. . . and it requires lots of room.
Then, YOU have to
Grow
Change
Innovate
Reinvent
and
REACH
It's time now for me to reach. . .
I am setting a larger goal with the worlds I create.
They have been these lovely bits and pieces with little stories (also a must in the creative world I think. . tell a story!) that often are there before the pieces themselves.
But I want to bring them together and give something more through them.
A larger story that ties many of the smaller pieces together.
A world that is tangible and ever growing.
In my head, they always were this but, if I have one shortfall, it's that I often do not have the patience to write in such broad scope AND detail. I offer little detailed glimpses when an entire world is right there waiting to be brought to life.
And that world is what I want to leave behind. . .hopefully to inspire others as I have ben inspired by those that came before.
So this is what I have been doing the last month. Losing myself in reading about ancient civilizations, myths and stories I have loved my whole life and making notes, creating names, filling in gaps in my own stories and letting that world emerge. . . one village, one character, one myth at a time and, as is my way, the details sometimes come out first.
These are a couple of Elvin "reliquaries" I created this week that are just 1.5 and 2.75 inches tall. . . . perhaps containing mythic dragon scales or bits of ancient magic cloth, or a troll's tooth. . . or a thread of pure spun gold from time before time? Who can say?
What would YOU imagine to be found within an Elvin Reliquary?
More on their story in future posts. . .
Which is where the blog fits in with my future plans.
So many bits and pieces to keep track of and I am not an organized person by any means. So I will be posting more often and shorter posts with just that. . . bits and pieces of the larger story. . . threads that are all being woven into the larger world of my imagination. . . into the world of Bewilder and Pine. . . I hope you'll come along with me on this journey. It's going to be an adventure, I promise! :)
And my father, on that day I referred to earlier, added one more thing at the very end of the conversation that I took to heart then and still do to this day.
"No matter how busy you get. . . call your mother more. Because you'll regret it if you don't one day."
Thanks dad. . . you really were a true and beloved friend.
Thank you all for stopping by!
Soon again. . .
nicolas
I cannot imagine who I would have turned out to be if he were a directive force in my developing years. . . but people change.
We reconnected when my grandmother, his mother, died when I was 19. Slowly, we built the strands of connection after he accepted my plea that, "I don't need you to be dad anymore. . I need a friend."
And a very good friend he turned out to be.
So that day, as I recounted all that was going on in my life, how I was pursuing my love of music-making and music production for others. How I was thriving owning a coffeehouse and creating digital art and poetry. (this is all about 5 years before my creative life as you see it now even began)
He listened quietly and patiently and then, when I had finished, he offered the following.
"Son, I've never told you this but I wish I had lived (he was 61 at the time) my life more like you. I would do it differently now but back then I always was so concerned with climbing the ladder of success and making more money and having better this and better that. There are so many things I thought to do but did not have the courage or the inner strength to try. And I see you, living your life this way and your voice is filled with joy and I feel every new experience brings you closer to something bigger. Maybe even closer to a sense of "purpose"? "
"But I am going to give you one piece of advice" he continued. "From here, the choices in your life will get tougher because you are still seeking and yet you have managed to eliminate all of the things people usually fill their lives with that are less than fulfilling. You love your job. You love where you live and you love the people around you. You have several creative outlets that take up every moment of your free time. . . and I know you, my son. You are going to keep finding things that you love and now? Now the choices are going to be between two or more things you love and where will they fit in when the days will always only be 24hrs long? And you don't do anything half assed. . . so where is the time going to come from and when those new "right things" present themselves? Because one of them may be "it". So remember that you'll have to make room for them. And that it is ok to let go of something you love as much as something you don't.
Oh, how right he was.
So the last 6 months as I've "struggled" with the lack of time that being a full time, all the time, maker-of-things requires and found myself overloaded with custom orders and requests as all the while the new ideas pile up and up and I cannot tend to them, And then, beneathe it all, this "new thing". . . this sense of something greater being right there all along. . . oh yes, it reared it's head and asked to be heard.
I once again took stock.
Made lists and looked deep within for the answer to what stays and what goes. . .
And here is what has changed from that kid who got that piece of advice 10 years ago.
The "new thing" is that I DO feel a sense of purpose in what I do now. It's the one thing I have done in my life (and I have done and tried more than my share) that feels really close to perfect and complete as far as being part of the thread I have known since childhood.
But these days I feel pulled to leave something behind. Something more than just bits and pieces and assorted lovelies. . . though those are as much a part of the "purpose" as what I have planned
My father was right,
I do not do anything half-assed. I don't know how. The details are everything and no matter how much I love something I make, I find myself looking to make it better and just a bit more innovative next time around. Good enough is never good enough even if I am the only one who sees it.
In truth, when people ask me for advice on making it with an online shop or with creative self employment, I usually include this one little piece of advice. What ever you do today, you can do better tomorrow and you have to want that, without fail, first and foremost or you'll not get far in the creative world.
First, you have to make room for it. . . and it requires lots of room.
Then, YOU have to
Grow
Change
Innovate
Reinvent
and
REACH
It's time now for me to reach. . .
I am setting a larger goal with the worlds I create.
They have been these lovely bits and pieces with little stories (also a must in the creative world I think. . tell a story!) that often are there before the pieces themselves.
But I want to bring them together and give something more through them.
A larger story that ties many of the smaller pieces together.
A world that is tangible and ever growing.
In my head, they always were this but, if I have one shortfall, it's that I often do not have the patience to write in such broad scope AND detail. I offer little detailed glimpses when an entire world is right there waiting to be brought to life.
And that world is what I want to leave behind. . .hopefully to inspire others as I have ben inspired by those that came before.
So this is what I have been doing the last month. Losing myself in reading about ancient civilizations, myths and stories I have loved my whole life and making notes, creating names, filling in gaps in my own stories and letting that world emerge. . . one village, one character, one myth at a time and, as is my way, the details sometimes come out first.
These are a couple of Elvin "reliquaries" I created this week that are just 1.5 and 2.75 inches tall. . . . perhaps containing mythic dragon scales or bits of ancient magic cloth, or a troll's tooth. . . or a thread of pure spun gold from time before time? Who can say?
What would YOU imagine to be found within an Elvin Reliquary?
More on their story in future posts. . .
Which is where the blog fits in with my future plans.
So many bits and pieces to keep track of and I am not an organized person by any means. So I will be posting more often and shorter posts with just that. . . bits and pieces of the larger story. . . threads that are all being woven into the larger world of my imagination. . . into the world of Bewilder and Pine. . . I hope you'll come along with me on this journey. It's going to be an adventure, I promise! :)
And my father, on that day I referred to earlier, added one more thing at the very end of the conversation that I took to heart then and still do to this day.
"No matter how busy you get. . . call your mother more. Because you'll regret it if you don't one day."
Thanks dad. . . you really were a true and beloved friend.
Thank you all for stopping by!
Soon again. . .
nicolas
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