Loss and Gain - Inspiration

This week has seen both. . .

It is almost impossible for me to imagine the world we live in without David Bowie.  He's just always been there. . .  the thin white duke. . . the man who fell to Earth. . . Major Tom.

He taught us to dance under the serious moonlight. . .

It's taken me three days to figure out what I'd like to say because I wanted to offer something meaningful and heartfelt. Something to sum up his place in my own world. What I can think of is this. . .  Growing up we all had this small window of time when, for most of us, music was just this magical thing that was a part of our world. Before we knew of radio stations, MTV, Concert tours, the business of it, the sometimes disfunction and self-destructive tendencies of it, the money and politics of it.

A time when it really was just pure sensory bliss.

For me, there is no other artist that sums that time up in my life like David Bowie. Songs like Starman, Rebel Rebel, Changes, Golden Years, Jean Genie, Young Americans and Fame were all over the radio stations and became the soundtrack of my single digit youth. I'd often sit in my room on weekend nights at age 10 and 11 and pretend to be a DJ with my own radio station on my old red plastic record player and I'd look so forward to playing those songs in my "rotation".

There were other artists and songs that stand out, to be sure, but there was something so magnetic about Bowies songs. And in my pre teen years, getting my first look at the visual world of Ziggy Stardust or Alladin Sane. . . well I, and my hair, at least for the next 20 years, would never be the same again. : )

And I am reminded how at my first cooking job at an Italian Restaurant the gregarious dishwasher named Rudi who was literally straight off a boat from Italy, and who seemed so out of place and spoke so little English, warmed up to me and my flame red hair right away and pretty much from his first day just called me, "Bowie".

And no doubt, due in great part to that chameleon aspect of Bowies public image, I've also changed personas over the years. Reinvention is how I have always thought of it but, when one phase of my life ended, I tend to move on completely and reinvent the outer/social/expressive me to suit my new environment. Keeping the best o the past incarnations and leaving all of the rest behind. Those days are far behind now too in all likelihood but, with his passing, I am reminded of it all again.

This is one of my favorite quotes from David Bowie. It has served me well for years in many facets of my life and perhaps never more so than now. . .

"I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me." - David Bowie

And then, this past Wednesday, I received a book in the mail that I have been waiting awhile for. I know many of you probably are not very interested in the world of comics today but, if you'll bare with me, this may be one of the most wonderful art books, period, I have ever seen. 

In 2006 a friend of mine, and employee at the coffeehouse I owned then, handed me a comic and said,"I just think you might like this." That comic was the first issue of "Mouse Guard" by David Petersen.

I had not read or even considered a comic book for I don't know how long and was not prepared for the effect it would have on me. The art is, as I think the cover of this hardbound collected edition alone shows, simply amazing.

If you were ever a fan of Redwall or any animated animal series, DO check this out!!

David Petersen draws, colors and writes the entire series.

It inspired me
It lifted my soul
It righted a listing vessel which was, in many ways, my whole life at that particular point in time and it steered me back towards the possibilities and wonder of my youth. 

It was just the first of many comics I would come to love over the next few years (comics today are such a far cry from what I grew up with!)  and, whenever things felt a little dark or I lost sight of the connection between those early days of imagination and where I was at the time, I'd just pull out those issues and let them take me away again. 

Mouse Guard reminded me of my love of Redwall as a child and brought back a sense of purpose to the world I wanted to create as an adult. And, it led, indirectly and with many other little factors and influences, to what I create now. 

To this world I live in now. 

Never happier
Never more certain
Though, these past few days, a bit of sadness. . . missing Mr. Bowie and realizing time is always and endlessly marching forward for us all. . . 

“Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming”  ― David Bowie

xo

nicolas

It Was 20 Years Ago Today. . .

Give or take. . .

It was 1995. I was in my early 20's and I had, about 4 months earlier, moved my entire life across the country to the West Coast.

Though not the first, it was, easily, the largest reinvention I had ever undergone.

I brought little with me in that cross country trek in the old Chevy Corsica. My musical equipment, my basic necessities and just enough of everything else to get by til I got settled. But, as with any reinvention, I left so much behind for good.

Somewhere, tucked among the boxes, was at least one of the Calvin and Hobbes book of comics collections.

In November of 95, the strips creator, Bill Watterson, announced he was ending the daily. I remember being quite sad hearing that. Calvin and Hobbes had been the strip that I felt most connected to in my life. The often solitary boy and his stuffed tiger in his wonderful imaginary world. 

During the next 20 years, those comics would be a beacon to me. The more I tried to find my place in the adult world and struggled with my reluctance to let go of the threads of my own childhood that were such lifelines. . .

Recently I have read a few articles about Bill Watterson. One  a graduation commencement speech he had given years back and, another, a recent Washington Post article/interview about the Calvin and Hobbes strip.

This is from the commencement speech:

“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them. 

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”

Can I just say I adore Bill Watterson!

And there are two other things I'd like to say here and now.

Calvin and Hobbes continues to be that lifeline. Though now, after shedding that desire for an "important adult life" years back and fully embracing and returning to the imagination and paracosms of my youth,  it is an easy line to grasp. One of gratitude and simple acknowledgment.

A "thank you" of grand proportions from my beautiful world.

And two, that the Calvin and Hobbes strip, when I do indulge in it, is not a mere nostalgia trip. I still feel it's tug of emotion and possibility. I still believe that many people would look at my world as the "stuffed tiger". . . appearing still and lifeless on the outside. . . because you'd have to be inside to really understand the vibrant world within. That used to feel odd at times but, now, all these years later, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Ever. It's meant to be this way, if only to protect and preserve it.

And like other things I recall so clearly from childhood and throughout my life, I still see that final panel of that final strip. Calvin and Hobbes going off on their sled, heading down the hill, and the final words. . . "Let's go exploring."

It's winter many places. Maybe snowing. When it does, get out and see that world in it's newness and as the blank white page waiting to be written upon.

And explore!

(It's good to be back)

xo
nicolas

Returning Home

So, not even a week into November and the holiday rush is here. . . I am inundated with custom orders already and it's still pretty early. . . . to make things seem even more off track this comes on the heels of a week long trip back to my childhood home.

This always stirs so many things inside.

I am, of course, thrilled to see my mother who, in her 80's is not going to be traveling across the country to see me any time soon. And, those of you who have read my blog probably know that I had a magical and very inspired childhood. . . so that should be a wonderful thing to return to, right?

Well, not always.

Here's the thing. . . there is, undoubtedly, a very strong pull to the landscape of my youth but, every time I return, I am reminded how lucky I was to have traveled and explored the larger world before settling into myself in my 20's. I imagine this is a fact of growing up in any strong cultural area but, when I return, more than the nostalgia of my childhood, there is the reminding of the angst of my teen years and the fact that often haunts me is this.

If I had not "gotten out" all those years ago, I would likely never have found my way to the work or the life I have now. So for all of the wonder of immersion back into those fields of imagined wonder, I struggle with the painful reminders of how limiting life there might have been if I had stayed. While most kids in their late teens and early 20's in that neighborhood were partying on the slag heaps of the abandoned steel mills or sitting on the train trestle, feet dangling 50 feet above the river, with liquor bottle in hand, I was working double shifts at an Italian restaurant saving money like mad for my first trip to Europe. A trip that changed my view on life forever. A trip that set me aside from that neighborhood and left me on the outside looking in forever more.

For the few friends of that childhood who I visit with when I return, when we see each other it is like no time has passed. They exclaim time and again  "nicolas, you never change" and that, when I am home, they FEEL as if they are 12 again too. Funny to me because I am the one who really changed. .. . yet those times, when I return, are still as they were and not muddied with another 30 years of adulthood in the same landscape. Perhaps that is why, when I go home, I am able to pick up those days right where I left them? 

I imagine there WILL come a day when I will be too old to throw that Nerf football around or chase wiffle balls and fireflies. When an excursion through the woods will be best left to manicured paths and level ground. When the lure of those earliest creations and indulgences in imagination will fade to the background. . .  but it's hard to fathom now.

The hardest part of those trips back is that, in the time I have alone there, I find myself craving to also return to the games of my days spent in solitude. Which were many and more than those spent with friends.

In my youth,  I and my imagination were always best on our own. That's changed too of course, and for the better, but in those days I looked forward to nothing more than the hours undisturbed to dive into the creations and games and worlds that lived only in my own head.

And those, as an adult, in that landscape, are harder to recapture. Maybe it's adult self consciousness or just a reverence for something I know can never be relived?

So I return to the here and now and the myriad of new worlds I have created and share with like souls out there. That I share here with you.

It's every bit as good as those days and, for the adult in me, it's better for the soul.

But the child is there too, neve changing, never far away.
Smiling and dreaming
At home
Eternally and blessedly unchanged
and always
young. . .

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

Giving Imagination It's Space or. . . the Zen of Creativity

(1)  There was a time where I found myself very much a student of Zen.  It began at an early age when I came cross a book on Zen Buddhist beliefs n the first New Age bookstore in the fairly traditional town I grew up in. I was 12 or 13 at the time. . .

In browsing the pages I found that so much of what I read seemed to go along with what I already felt about life at that early age.  Later, when I moved across the country, I began attending meditations  and weekend retreats through a monastery nearby.  I loved the simple structure of the monastic days/routines such as the rising at 4am for meditation because, as my teacher explained it, "that's the time before the brain kicks in and takes over." There is work, meals, quiet time, meditation and sleep. A simple routine.

One of the most common comments one will hear after such a weekend from the laypersons attending is this: "I wish I could carry this feeling I have when I am here back to my regular life/world/"

(2)  As I tend to spend many hours thinking about, and revisiting, my childhood I can recall that all of my favorite and most creative games (especially those played and created alone) were a product of reworking and recreating their parameters and scenarios time and again. The thrill of pretending to be a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt is immediate to a 9 yr old boy. . . but it is so much better after weeks of making dozens of tinfoil votive statues and royal jewelry, fashioning a crook and flail and other  treasures out of cardboard, gold paint and plastic gems. . .   and even painting the inside of your closet to look like an Egyptian tomb! That takes time.

Some of those favorite games took years to reach the stage I ultimately remember today. Nothing was ever perfect "as-is" , even in that childhood state of having all the time in the world to indulge our imagination that we sometimes wish for as adults.

(3) There are, in my way of seeing it, many similarities between Zen mind and Child mind. There is a simplicity to both that sort of suspends the normal, over-worrisome adult brain. You know, the one we've all come to  "develop" with all of it's rigid beliefs and time-clock structures.

To be sure, we cannot go back and live completely as a child again and the monastic life is certainly not for most (including myself) but what I can say is that both offer clues and lessons as to how, as an adult, to get deeper into what you wish to ultimately create by letting go of all that keeps you from doing it!

Simplicity is what makes the monastic life work and what creates the feeling of calm and "peace of place.". It is not cluttered, is often cloistered, and based on a very simple and set routine. There is no one in this world who would not benefit from scheduling their creative time a bit more, paring down the distractions and number of people/events committed to,  and saying no to a few of the adult distractions that hobble us all on this path.

And if you can, doing so when the mind is least active, early morning or late night when the world is silent around you, is a good starting point!

From the Child mind there is no one who would not benefit from making time to allow the imagination to just run wild with no time limit/clock and no pressure to "achieve" anything. Not judging the results and working and reworking the creations made while giving them time to develop and become their best.  At 11 years old you don't think, "I need to perfect this game or craft by the time I am twelve or I am done with it!" You just do it because it is what you are wishing to do and you enjoy it. There's the key to adult creativity. . . 

This is one of the main reasons that, on a day where I may have 3 or 4 custom orders to work on or finish, packages to ship and message to reply to, I will often begin something completely new in the middle of it all. If only for 20 minutes or so. . . just to keep the child mind happy too :) 

(4) At the core. . . resilience.

I've never come across anything that can teach someone the workings of this little, invaluable key to life. Mostly because it too is a practice and not truly inherent to most of us. But resilience is a part of both Childhood and Monastic life. Kids usually do not give up on anything if left to their devices AND not made to feel a sense of failure. I am fortunate that despite having a Mother who thought everything creative was a waste of time and/or money, I had a grandmother who was a creative force and who always gave me the loving support needed to keep me going. It is worth mentioning that I also seem to have an inherent drive that kicks in as soon as I am told I can't do something.  So, in that way, I have to be thankful for Mom too. I stuck it out on things I might have given up on because of her negativity.  It's the stubbornness,more than a resilience, I inherited directly from her. :)

In the monastery, if one does not have a focused or centered day. . . or if one has a completely blissed out perfect day of awareness. . . well, in both cases, there is always tomorrow. Because it is all you have to do. Get up and do it again tomorrow. There is no fail or succeed. 

This is how I have approached my creative work/life. Whether today, sales are great, my work becomes more and more requested and desired. OR I sell nothing and no one responds to it at all. It's the SAME to me. Tomorrow will be another day. Get up, put on the hot water for coffee, sit down and create.

(5) The simple,workable equation for deeper imagination is this: . Create, recreate, and then recreate some more.
Or as it might be notated

c + rc² =  good

Imagination, at it's deepest levels, takes time, space, focus, some form or shape of routine and a commitment to it to access the deepest parts of it. We are all creative, of this I have no doubt. But how deeply we go with it is,in the end, a huge factor in what we create and how much it resonates with the audience or buyer we seek and, most importantly,withiourselves.

The adult measuring stick of "how busy = how successful our life is" is just about as far from deep creativity and imagination as we can get. Don't measure the time spent creating anything in hours, days, years or by a measure of success or failure. Let the timeless child, the queen of years, the infinite soul have reign over that and let the inner monk have his or her due when it comes to creating a bit of practical simplicity, silence, solitude and routine.


(6) A last thought. . .

I know many artists who think the key to a happy and creative life is to seek out everything life has to offer. New people, new places, classes, outings, happy hours, social media, organizations, new experiences and adventures great and small. They're so busy they swear there's a need for a planner and a personal secretary to keep up with it all. They are also, at the same time, always talking about what they want to do with their art, writing that great novel, saying something important, expressing their soul. . .  and vowing how they'll, one day, have a "regular" creative practice. 

I also, as I type, know more than a handful of artists who make their living completely from their art.

I do not know a single person who is a member of BOTH of the aforementioned groups.



<>OOo<> <>oOo<> <>oOo<>


Happy June everyone! May it be the start of a creative and deeply imaginative summer. . .

XO
nicolas

PS. . . those days as a Zen novice did indeed filter into my world fo creativity too. :)

My mini Jizo statues. Protectors of all spirit travelers, children living and deceased and mothers.

Do What You Want, Be What you Are

So I want to begin sharing more of the day to day process and inner workings of being a full time maker-of -things.  Let me start by sharing a little picture with you.

This is my studio work table on a random morning taken about a week or so back. Now, the funny thing about this picture is, I almost did not use it for this blog because, as I looked at it, I thought "Oh that's too neat. . . it looks staged." I'll pause while those of you with a neater bent to their organization and creative work spaces gasp and shudder at the thought. : )

In actuality, all I removed from the scene were paint rags and some scraps of notes that were not relevant. The rest, as seen, is pretty much how my work table looks. . . on a good day.

That little clear space on the front/right table, on the clay mat, that is where I make almost everything in my shops. All the rest are the parts of projects that are going on right now, things drying, things waiting for their day in the photoshoot sun, things in progress etc etc. This is the eye of the storm I suppose you could say. . . because it is always a clam and workable space to me. And, in the chaos, it all makes sense.

The point of this simple little post is this:

Too often I think we unlearn things that were simply inherent to us because our "teachers" believed their way to be better.  In the end, as we grow up, we fight our natural tendencies because we may have been taught that they were not good ways to be. Nowhere is this more destructive than in the creative realm.

In my world, that "teaching" was an endless string of contradicting statements that for years kept me from being the wonderful mess-maker that I am.

Family "teachers" said:
"When you are done (playing) put everything away! It's a mess!"

Except so many of my "games" were paracosms and ongoing worlds that didn't end when I had to stop playing for dinner, sleep or some other such nonsense. . . . They went on without me so how could I just pack them all away? How could I slip back into them seamlessly if they were neatly stacked in a closet or forced under the bed?

Art teachers in school said:

"Focus on one idea or technique. Don't try to do it all. Finish the project you've started. Perect what you are doing"

Except that I never was a one thing at a time person.
Not in reading books ( I have 5 going right now)
Not in traveling. The first time I went to Europe I looked at the map of the continent and said, "Right, 17 days and I'm going to 14 countries! (umm that did not work out once I hit France. . .  and so I DO learn you see!)
Certainly not in creative projects, which, I believe, tell ME when they are ready to be finished and not vice versa. So some sit for days. Weeks. Even months till the finish is apparent to me. 

In my first "career" of the culinary arts, I was taught by the chefs I worked for:
"Don't try to do too many things, just pick a cuisine and master it." (So, needless to say, I fell into the Fusion/cross cultural cuisine trend of the 90's with all my heart and soul!)

Oh the list goes on and on. . .

It took me years to learn that I have this pattern of creative chaos and that it works perfectly for me. 
Let every idea come forth.
Jump at making whatever makes me happiest
Figure the rest out as I go along.

That's being me.  That's who I am. Yet I spent a great deal of my early adult life trying to "do it the right way" by what I had been taught was best.

And while I had to do some work to learn how to make this authentic, natural me into a workable model that could make a viable living, it really only came together when I finally sloughed all that old, repetitive programming off and let myself be the creative soul I was born as. . . working with, instead of against, myself.

That's what allowed this to now grow into a full time occupation that suits me perfectly.

The interesting twist to the story is this. For all the "creative" mess one may see in my life, in my daily way of being a maker-of-things, let me tell you where my life has no mess and jumble.

Basically that would be in every other department.

There are few people who get my time, few outside distractions are ever allowed in, I make very few obligations/commitments and selectively extend myself and there are just very few things I feel compelled to do other than create. I have not heard my phone ring in four years and, like the old days, only return calls at the end of the work day when done. I moved to a place where I can walk to almost everything I need (including places in nature where I can be alone) each day.

That too was something of old programming that I had to break.  We are told to "do one thing" when it comes to work, art, careers, interests or anything we want to "achieve". . . but then we are told a well rounded life includes all that excess which pulls us in 20 directions at once.

How many people I have known that felt that a well rounded life was about having all THOSE diverse interests filling up their schedule and making the hours something to be counted and rationed?

How many people have I listened to as they lament not having the time to do the things they really love while constantly rushing off to yet another engagement or obligation?? How many friends have I watched running around frazzled all day long, every day, so caught up in being "busy" and saying it as if being busy were an accomplishment in and of itself?

But I'd swear, if you ask me, busy is a modern synonym for "messy" in regards to living life.
And when I did it, it just made me feel further away from what I most wanted to be doing. 

And so my advice to others, about a creative life, when asked,  is:

Neat or messy, one thing or a whole basket full of ideas, or anywhere in between makes no difference
Do what you want but be . . . what. . . you. . .  are.
And what you are IS inherent. Yes it can be molded and tightened up and tinkered with.
But the core of it is going to be something you always and already were. . .

Because following that path and being just what you are is always going to lead to happiness doing what you most want to do.

So as a word of advice from a mess-maker extraordinaire, messy is cool. . . it's fine to stray and wander and indulge in many wonderful ideas and pursuits. . . just tidy up the REST of life and let the true you rule the creative day.

xo
nicolas

The Thread

I think my blog will be taking a turn in the coming weeks.

I have, for two years, been telling myself I wanted to write (seriously) more often in the hope of sharing and explaining my creative path and the way my childhood informs all of my creations today.  I’ve been successful in fits and spurts. Yet it has been extremely hard to write about the most important details of that childhood and share them.

To be truthful, I had no idea why. 

Last night I read a wonderfully thought provoking short story called “Mr. Goober’s Show” by the esteemed sci-fi writer Howard Waldrop which, today, has me going deeper into my own world to understand why some things “work” and some don’t for myself, for others and for and within the creative life so many of us wish to live.

In the story a man relates the experience of his sister and he in the 1950’s when, while visiting with an Aunt, they uncover a mechanical (pre-war) television that, according to the Aunt, does not work because the way television is transmitted in the story’s active time (1950’s) has changed and so there are no programs broadcast the old way anymore. 

The children, left alone one evening, plug in the old TV and, after a bit of fiddling with the knobs, they DO find a broadcast which, since there is no sound, they can only watch.  They dub the show “Mr. Goober’s Show”. The genius of not explaining exactly what they see is part of the draw of the story. The years pass, the sister becomes obsessed with discovering what they saw as the brother seems to be less concerned and interested over time. The sister goes to work in the technical/ TV field and, in a series of letters over the years to her brother, explains the futility and ever-increasing obsession with wanting to know what they saw. How it was even possible given the technology and the science.

I won’t give the end away but, the thoughts that are now in my mind began with my own recollections of two shows I saw as a child that I simply have never been able to find in adulthood, even in this vast internet age of every little detail of every single movie, show and program being catalogued. They seem to not exist.

Now, the two characters, the brother and sister, go in opposite directions with Mr. Goober’s Show. While they both are totally taken with it as children and talk about it into their young adult lives, the boy, we are led to believe, simply loses interest and the girl becomes obsessed with  unraveling the magic though the obsession leads her deep into the technical aspects of what it COULD have been and away from the early experience of it.

To me, it reads as a dual warning for adulthood.

When I was a child, my world, from a very early age was filled with my inserting myself into many roles and fantasy worlds. These were based on historic or dramatized events. At one time or another I was an astronaut in a cardboard capsule fitted with hundreds of christmas lights and switches I taped in place or poked through holes. I was a high seas pirate on a front porch ship, a Shaolin monk, an Egyptian scribe (and sometimes pharaoh) , I stormed the beaches at Normandy and climbed Mt Everest, explored alien worlds and fell through time portals. I lived in Medieval castles and fought dragons and demons time and again the victor.  I lived on the Prairie along with the Ingalls family and solved crimes as many 70’s TV cops (often Kojak because it involved the lollipop and wearing my grandfather's fedora).  I created entire sports leagues in the back yard and invented my own futuristic sports, made up board games and card games of my own in winter too.

What happens in adulthood is clearly a duality that we often choose one or the other path as laid out in the story I read. We either lose the sense of magic and wonder of childhood and move on leaving it behind, or we get so caught up in the explanation of all things magical, how things work, what they mean, that they must make sense and what is and is not possible, what we imagined versus what is “real”. We get so wrapped up in this that those early worlds are torn down by the time we reach adulthood and left in tatters around us.

But adulthood is just another fantasy world.  And while people look at artists as dreamers, it is often the average 9-5er who is living just as distorted a dream.  Usually one that is constructed of, and constricted by, equal parts “have to” and “reason” that the magic is often left out altogether.

Have to and reason can destroy artistic magic too. . . which is why I think art schools ultimately damage as many as they help. . . so why would any other lifestyle be any less damaged by the same factors?

What’s the balance then? For me, it seems to be that we never should leave that magic behind or totally understand it either.  This is why, in a nutshell, I have been unable to write about those early experiences.

Technical explanations and scientific certainty can be fascinating but deadly to the imagination as well. I’d rather not know how things work and I’d rather not try to explain where my ideas come from or how they are completely linked, every one of them, to something within that has been nurtured since my childhood. There's a magic in them that I lived, have understood as inherent, and I have tried to explain without success even to myself. And there are those few events that are truly and simply unexplainable. How can I write about them without feeling like I have to explain them or say, "This is what I have come to understand about that day, that event or that memory." 

 I think the key to telling great, compelling stories, and that is what all artistic outlet can be reduced to, is in what you do not reveal. I tell bits and pieces of the whole but I leave just enough out to allow for the viewer to have a door in for themselves to my world and my work. I want to create things that inspire imagination and open to larger landscapes within. It’s pure storytelling and it is the core of every creative being.

It’s the ephemeral, untouchable essence of who we are. . .

In the simpler sense, there are parts of me that desperately want to know what those two old shows I saw as a 6 or 7 year old were. . . and an equal part of me that never wants to see them again.  I want to maintain my own memory of them as they were experienced then which, in seeing them 30 years later, can never be the same, can they?

So this creative dream I live now. . . yes, it is a construction of my own. No one wrote the book on living it and no one told me how to make it happen.

 I am asked constantly, "You can make a living doing THAT?" and while the simple, actual answer is "Yes." it leaves out all the magic because, in truth, not everyone can. It's not enough to be good at something or to excel in business or have great people skills and even a staunch self belief matters only a smidgen. The creative path requires the absolute presence of magic. And the magic requires that we never answer all the questions ourselves. We leave them for others to discover and to find within their own creations in their own time.

That’s the magic of the story.
Of life.

I’ll be trying to create a more revealing feel here in the coming months. Posting more updates on projects and little bits of inspiration here and there going forward. Turning the focus into more of a daily process of what I am actually doing and how. 

Focusing on the magic of my todays as much as my yesterdays.

In those posts, some of the larger story will come through but, in the grand scheme of things, the magic I want to convey is not from the past.

It’s in the here and now.
Today.
It’s not a memory but the one constant and unbroken thread of my life.
The one, as in the William Stafford poem, that I will never let go of.

I hope you will continue creating the magic of YOUR life
And follow along with me too. : )

nicolas

Protectors

I believe one of the many things we tend to leave behind as adults from our childhoods is the many forms of a Protector that we create in our imaginations and in our creativity at those young ages.

For me the role of protector came in many forms. From improvised sing-songs and night time routines that kept me safe from scary movie creatures and dark shadows to the devotional candles my grandmother kept burning round the clock in our home to the many little internal bets I made about how long I could do a certain task, with the inevitable success granting me safe passage or dreams.

There also were dream images themselves. And voices. . . which, as it turned out, DID save my life on two occasions but that is all for another time.

My draw to the pantheon of ancient Egypt dates back to when I was 6 or 7 and the treasures of Tutankhamen were touring the US for the first time.  The images of Tut's burial treasures were on the cover of every major magazine and many books were released about the discovery and the history of the tomb.

It was in grade school that I first was shown one of those books by my teacher. That was followed by a trip to the library and a venture through our family encyclopedia. (Anyone remember those? )

I was completely enchanted by the anthropomorphic Gods and Goddesses and the amazing array of symbols and meanings attributed to them all.

I fashioned many of the objects I saw out of whatever materials I could find. The  tin foil roll was a favorite target of mine, much to the dismay of my mother, and I made countless small little statuettes of the figures out of it.  This led to my first bit of sculpting clay but i was not good with it at all. I was much better at drawing and so, in short order, the walls of my bedroom closet became a tomb with hieroglyphs drawn on all three walls.

This also did not go over well with mom. :) 

I can tell you that I felt protected by the strange and wonderful figures. I memorized their names and forms. . . Horus, Isis, Anubis and Hathor were my favorites to render and, by age 10, I had taken to drawing them on the tops of my feet in felt tip pen, also with the understanding that they would protect me. Though I never felt I needed protection against anything in particular.

So when took up polymer clay work a few years ago, it seemed natural to want to create something from my childhood. Perhaps something I never could then. And while it did not leap off the page into my head to make Egyptian statues, it was not far behind the first thoughts.

One thing that had NOT changed was my lack of ability with clay. Art, in almost every form, comes somewhat naturally to me. But clay, even polymer clay, just felt so foreign at first.

Once I began trying to create votive statues of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, it all fell into place and I suddenly had the incentive and the motivation to stick with the clay. It has, to say the least, paid off.

I never knew there were so many forms and deities spread throughout the history of ancient Egypt. I'll never master them all but I do so love the time spent researching and learning just as I did as a child. It is as important as the art that comes from it.

 One of the forms I never knew of in my youth but who I am so drawn to now, is Bes, a multifaceted and infinitely interesting Deity of many faces and forms. Celebrated as the full-service protector god who served as the champion of everything good and the protector against anything bad, Bes had a long and impressive list of deity duties, including:

Protector of Women
Protector and Entertainer of Children
Guardian against Nightmares and Dangerous Animals of the Night.
Patron of Warriors, Hunters and Travelers
Patron of Music and Dancing
Guardian of Families and Keeper of Domestic Happiness
God of Good Fortune, Luck and Probability
God of Commerce
Guardian of the Vineyards
Guardian Against All Manner of Misfortune

I almost never make the exact same form of Bes twice! This is my latest.

Now, the world is filled with guardian spirits, angels, entities and deities. Bes is just one of many form cultures of every corner of the globe.

But what is often missing in the adult versions we hold to is the child's ability to take the image, the idol, the entity and expand it in our own universe.

Essentially, to reinvent and create it. And then, in doing so, to believe in it fully.

And while many people I know tend to believe this is because we "know" too much about the world around us and it's inherent dangers, I think it is quite the opposite.

We have forgotten far more than we have learned since childhood. For some, that is not a choice. Bad things. . . terrible things, definitely do happen to us. Sometimes placing us beyond the point of return.

For me, each statue and amulet. . .  or each fairy world or gargoyle . . .  or each elf or miniature house I create is a protector. Everything I create in fact could be seen as such. I find that the mystery is everywhere around us. . . and, unfortunately, there are still a few monsters out there too.

The deal we make with these created protectors is a simple one to strike.

I believe fully in it as I create it and, in doing so, it opens the door for another to believe in it as they decide to bring it into their own world. In whatever form, when it arrives, it is an acceptance of something that binds from the earliest days of our creativity.

 It is a desire to make sense of the world around us in the very same way the ancient Egyptians belief in their pantheon came to be.  It changes, it grows, it adapts and it reinvents itself over and over and over. . .

As we should too.

Every piece I create is a step into that reinvention.  It's a claiming of something that was inherently mine all those years ago and, for whatever time I have left in this world, I want it back as completely as I can manage.

And, along that road each day, I leave these little markers. These Descansos. All of them protective icons and imagery that allows me to step forward without fear again tomorrow.

Into the unknown and the well known.
All at once.

Silence and Gratitude

I've done it again. . . gone over a month without saying much. . . silence is a dear friend to me but I seem to lose track of time so easily these days.

Some of you may know that I spent part of June and July on jury duty here. First on a trial jury for an eminent domain case and then, as luck would have it, my number was called to fill an absence on our county grand jury for two months immediately following that.

It was, in our small rural county, a breeze and simply a joy to serve on the grand jury. There was only one case where the members of the grand jury had any disagreement at all. And that was simply on a lesser, unimportant charge.

But I have to say that 8 consecutive weeks of listening to the stories of people who just can't get their life together, who seem to have no idea that there is another way to live and who, often, repeat the same mistakes countless times over within the lives they live. . . well, it all starts to wear on a person.

It drove me to a bout of silence and solitude in it's aftermath.

And from that comes a wealth of gratitude.

As one of my great aunts used to say repeatedly, "There, by the grace of God, go I"

I grew up with a brother, much older, who made just about every bad choice you can make when it comes to life. And while some families seem to breed a consistent pattern of such behavior, I am happy to say that he was the exception to the rule in ours. And all that I saw him go through was like a guide book of what not to do. . . how not to live.

But there is one event in my young adult life that I believe was very instrumental to my not turning out like that or ever stepping down those pathways at all.

When I was 19, out of school, a little lost myself. . . a friend of mine at a club (where I was underage) one night asked out of the blue, "Hey, do you want to go to Europe?"

She was trying to get some distance from a suffocating girlfriend/relationship and just wanted to get far away for a few weeks.Europe seemed far enough. . .

I, with little thought, said "Sure, why not."

That trip and all of it's twists and turns was a life changer for me in how I perceived the world around me. Suzy, who I always thought was such a strong person, had trouble with the currencies, the languages, the constant need to be on our guard and make decisions and meet trains, get rooms etc etc. And I, who had no idea I could, stepped up to fill in when she was unable, and vice versa. . .  we were perfect travel companions and I leanred so much about my own abilities and areas that needed improvement.

We spent an all-nighter in Piccadilly Circus in London when we could not get a train out due to not having British pounds after banking hours. We considered, but rejected, an offer from a young couple to stay and work in their pub in the Lake District, and then our proposed "day trip" to Paris that ended up being a 4 day love affair with all things French.

There was the little Riviera village of Menton where I was solicited by a little old grocery store owner as a date for her granddaughter and, again, offered a job. ( I spoke French fairly well then)

The overnight mail train to Scotland and stepping out, pre dawn in Edinburgh, just in time to see the sun arriving over the mythic Arthur's Seat. . .

The list goes on. And while I neglect to mention them there were plenty of moody moments and discouragements too. . .

But the truth is, all these years later, I can look to that journey as the time I came to realize there were no limits to where I could go or what I could do. I returned to the US but could have easily stayed in France, Britain, Scotland, Switzerland, Belgium. . . somehow, just knowing I could, was enough.

And I can say in retrospect that I never looked at life the same again. . . suddenly the world was wide open and while I had little desire to roam the world in a drifting way, I knew that I was not limited to one thing, one place, one situation, for any amount of  time.

I grew to believe that I could create any world I wished as well, no matter where I was.

This is turning out to be true creatively too. I do not feel stuck to any one thing or "life" with my creativity. If I want to try to succeed at something new, I will. And, without a doubt, I have created the ability to make a living by not only doing what I love and being true to who I was in childhood, but by adapting and shifting when necessary to keep things moving forward. 

A little compromise, a little stubbornness, a little solitude . . .  and a lot of faith.

So yes, there is much gratitude for what I avoided by allowing myself to open to possibilities. Years later I learned that this country I live in is big enough to provide a wealth of scenery, lifestyle and opportunity if one is willing to get up and go. . .

In the end, I have chosen simplicity. Small town, rural county, more cows than people. . . the internet makes this possible, opening new opportunities to just about anyone. . .

That'sit really. . . not so much a story as a meandering of thought.

With a healthy does of gratitude for everything in my world.

For any of YOU if you took the time to read this.

Autumn is hanging so close on the horizon.
My season of choice
And as always
I will emerge
Create
And be grateful. . .

~nicolas

After the Pause. . .

When it comes to starting or maintaining blogs, more than anything else, the one thing I I hear people say about starting one is, "I just want to wait til I know exactly what I want to say."

Which is when I turn and say,  "It's more important to just sit down at the computer and write and let others decide what is of value and what is worth reading. . . you can always delete later"

It comes down to fear, of course.

But there are times, once the writing is started, to pause and think this over too. Not out of fear but out of a desire for more succinct expression.  And, for me, the first three weeks of 2013 have been that.

I could keep on going with just random thoughts, creative inspirations, mystic meanderings and poetic expression and that, of course, would be just fine as they are all part of me. But I am finding myself, on this rising side of 40, wanting to be a bit more succinct and to lay down the stories and thoughts that have taken me thru my life to this place. To a life I have CREATED just as I have created all thru my years and will for the rest of them, if I am able.

So first, what is "this place?"

It would be easy to say the "place" is a very small town on the Oregon Coast I chose because it allows me to live and work as an artist with little or no worry about needing to make more money to survive or combating the frantic and disconnected vibe of a city.

But it would be more succinct to say that this "place" is the whole of my inner existence. Much of which I , as many of us do, tried to shake off in my young adult years thru my early 30's.  under the guise of "growing up".

I feel fortunate now to have been allowed the gift of seeing myself clearly again. To have recognized that the only people I have met who are truly happy souls are those that are doing what they love. Those who are living their entire lives creatively and choosing their actions each day with thought and consideration to how it does, or does not, facilitate that dream.

It's not the creativity of painting or writing or sculpting. . . it's the deeper creative force of living. 

I am fortunate to have come to this place and time and to have believed in it, and in myself, enough to walk away from the rest and to create this world of my own imagining.  To trust what feels right and what opportunity seems to be presented along the way.

I also have left so much behind.
This life includes few people by nature of the necessity of so much internal and uncluttered time .
Few material "things" that are not true needs and only truly soulful luxuries.
It is not about acquisition or compiling something for the unforeseeable future.
It is about the one thing I know I have to believe and trust in.
The greatest privilege that any of us have
Living FULLY today

My direction then, for this blog, is to tell the story of how I got to this place again. The cycle from childhood to adulthood that took me right back to what I always was. A maker of things. And how I came to believe again in it and to create a life built from that instead of from what we are taught life is supposed to be.

If I am lucky, I will find the words to put even a piece of it into some sensible structure. . . and I will hope that it helps someone else out there to have the courage to step into who they are and to leave the rest behind as well. . .

Allowing them to come home again and to live their todays as fully as they can too.

Here's to hoping that is you. . . today. . . and always.

nicolas

Playing with Passion

I constantly get asked where I find the time to create such a variety of items in such a wide range of mediums.  In addition to the three online shops I also write music and poetry too. And, yes, I make time for all of it.

The truth, as closely as I can tell it is this. Since I was a young boy, creating has been the most important thing in my world in one way or another.  What people get to "see", through my online shops, is just the tail end of that lifelong process.

The shops have only been open for two years. But the creativity and passion behind them are a force that has guided me for the last 40 years.

I try new ideas all the time because I have, thru that 40 years,  eliminated that angst artists often feel about how "good" their work is.  I know when I make something for the tenth time it will be many times better than the first iteration. But I know that my calling for creating is going to make sure that my first iteration is definitely setting the bar high.

If I have one true "passion" in life it is to make things. Now, the list of things I love or have deemed as a passion thru the years is quite long. Cooking, golf, travel, history, mythology, ice hockey, Zen study, building tree houses etc etc from ages 10 to 40 I filled my "spare time" with all sorts of pursuits. . . and they have all served me well.

But there from the start, before and through them all,  was the desire to make things.  

This is the inherent quality I talk about a lot.
Figuring out what is at it's core is a must for each person to be truly happy in life.
And I can almost guarantee you that your true passion somehow, someway, ties into who you were at a very young age.

It will manifest in a variety of ways throughout the years.
But it will have a raw and undeniable form that you will recognize.

And that form will not be based on how much money it can make you or how many other people will relate or understand it. It may be the one thing that leaves you feeling so very much alone. . . that too, in my opinion, can be a beautiful and healthy thing.

Creating your life, creating the happiness you seek, is inevitably tied to things we have always known in life.

How we can best manifest that in a daily form is ours to discover. . .
And then, when we do, it is up to us to change our lives to accommodate it fully. 

So, how do I manage to create so many things?
I simply NEED to. . . more than I need many things that other people fill their days with.
More than I need any of those things I used to list as my "other" passions. . . there just is not time and, if I want to succeed in creating a life from creating, I have to be willing to let some things go

So far, so good. . .

I have 40 years of history and passion behind me every step of the way. :)

nicolas

Cycle of Seasons

I haven't written anything here for some time.

This is not out of a lack of ideas or content. . . it is more that my brain has been overloaded with thoughts.
Creative ideas
Reflections
Nostalgia
Memories
Possibilities and questions

It's autumn. . . or close enough
My mind does this at the end of every summer as it has since the days of grade school.

It's like fall is a reset button in my soul.
I find myself purging old thoughts and attitudes
My eyes open to new things and something in me seems to connect with the faltering of summer
and the transformations of fall.

It's the beginning of my creative season too
Following the warmest season which always seems to leave me in a fog. . .

And this year, on top of it all, I find myself thinking more about the possibility of whether there is a divine plan to it all

My life has had more than it's share of turning points and moments I can only describe as "guided"
All along, since I was 7, possibly earlier, I've felt the presence of other forms and entities around me.
Voices have, literally, saved my life
Imagination too has been a saviour of sorts
And I've gone off course before over the years
Only to pulled back by luck, fate, timing, circumstance. . .
Call it what you will
It comes along with the cycle of seasons too. . .
And life as one big cycle, is fulfilling that as well now
In the summer of my life, the fog all around me, I lost the way
Not completely mind you
But I read the signs wrong
Missed the opportunities to advance and grow
Or perhaps, I was just "biding my time"

Now, the autumn of life is here for me
The years are past their brightest and fullest point
this, I expect, is a very good thing

The fog is clearing
The voices and dreams are returning
I am on course again
Finding the strength to stay steady
Is a daily challenge
And so I come back to imagination
As I always have
The worlds I invent
Are what keep me in reality
As I create it
Walk through it
And disappear

nicolas hall

Spirituality in Miniature

Why do we do what we do?

I am not sure I ever asked my self that question until I hit my mid thirties.  I always enjoyed my work. From chef to coffeehouse owner to musician to recording engineer to multimedia performer.  Everything I set out to do in my life has been, for the most part, a joyful experience.

Each brought new insight and understanding to my world and each has imparted something to the creative path I am on now.

When I think about what I do now, the reason I make miniatures, why I create little worlds and spiritual descansos and dabble in whatever suits me on any given day, I see it is directly related to the days of my childhood.

There are, in play, rituals as profound as any other we may experience in adulthood.  Ones that set us on a path that, if it is true to our nature, will remain with us forever. As I began to ask the questions of "why" in my life, all the answers seemed to point back to those early days. And, the more I realized this, the less satisfied I was with the things I pursued as my "work".

When I was 12, and my mother decided it would be ok for me to have my first true model railroad,
I had no idea what lay ahead of me. I was instantly consumed with the planning and layout and creation of the miniature "world" beneathe our holiday tree. It came naturally to me. Just as I had done my whole childhood, I created stories and sub-plots for what went on in my little train town.

It became a ritual to bring the town to life every year and create new stories within it by adding new features. I started earlier, often planning the setup as early as my school summer vacation and I left the village and train up later each year.

The art of miniature from railroads to dollhouses to terrariums to keepsakes allows for the creator and the buyer to indulge in this highly spiritual ritual. The time spent on  such things is meditative and relaxing and allows for the creator to "get away" from the other life they may lead.

We can create ideal places and can pour our innermost dreams and desires for how we wish to live our own lives into them. We make a ritual out of the creation and care of such places and, indeed, the way we tend them over time often runs parallel to the way we tend to our other, adult lives. And sometimes, when that falls out of balance on the imagination side, it is a sign that we should look at changing that "real world" around us to reflect what it is we are missing.

So yes, for me the creation of miniature is truly about ritual and a spiritual application of the work it takes to make such things.

Ritual combines repetition and a certain spiritual or religious observance . . . and both of these are traits that, I believe, are common in many of us during our childhood years.

We cultivate ritual in our games and in our imagination. Those worlds we create are what keep us aligned with our true inner voices. They speak through the roles we create and adopt within those adventures, It stands to reason then that I also believe one of the things we cast aside all too often in our desire to be "adults" is that ritual of wonder.But it is never far away.

Life offers every opportunity to find or create such places again.
Along the way we do need reminders though.
We need little votives marking possibility
Miniatures may act like polestars.
They may be signposts
They can keep us on track

I have never been more content than I am right now in my life. I feel completely at ease with what I do and where I am going with it. In between childhood and this moment, I definitely lost my way at times. But it is funny how, along the way, there would always come a reminder. . .

A model railroad catalog
An artist working in miniature
Walking through a toy store or hobby shop
Sitting in the silence and ritual of a monastery
Visiting old, forgotten towns that seem to linger in simpler days
These were my polestars
They kept me close to the path
Tugged at my childhood love of ritual
Once again became my religion
They brought me back home

And I will never leave again. . .

nicolas hall

Any Given Path We Choose

I, and so many more people I know, are certain that their life's "spiritual path" lies along the lines of creativity.  In this day and age when it is becoming ever more realistic to entertain the idea of making a living from ones creative work, I think it is important to say a little something about the reconciliation between the two.

For one, I see a lot of people give up way too quickly on their creative goals, both as a means of making part, or all of a living from it, and in terms of exploring it as a spiritual path. I suspect this is, in great part, due to what my Zen teacher used to say all the time. "Anything that you truly love or love to do will be lonely."

Creative work usually demands we spend time alone and many people simply are not good at this.

So I would just like to share a quick thought on these ideas above. Just my own perspective.

I am fortunate in this way to have always craved my time alone. It's a preference I developed very young and though it came from a myriad of factors, some just circumstance and some created, it is something I treasure for all of those reasons now.

The spiritual part of my creativity is easy for me to accept. I have been creating since I can remember and there is nothing in the world that makes me feel more at peace, more at one within my own life and more true to who I am. It can take many forms and, in truth, I have been working in fields that always allowed some creative outlet since I was 19.

Now, that spiritual exploration is separate in every way from creating with an idea of it being considered "art" or being "marketable". The two do not coexist in most ways. Any idea of what art is is a creation outside of the spirit. A marking of the time and place and a mix of history and relevance but not at all to be linked with the spirit of creating. For me, this makes it easy to see my creative work as my spiritual path. It is also why I work in so many different disciplines. 

Making music, for years, was how I dealt with the world around me. A therapy undoubtedly. . . but not my creative spiritual path.  When I realized that, I began to try other disciplines. Photography, painting, writing. . . of course, they were all there all along. But the spiritual path has to come from something deeper. More from your landscape of childhood and early experiences.

That path was reserved for the creating of worlds and sinking into them. . . BELIEVING in them. . . that is at the very heart of who I am. It is how I live my life daily. And it has always been that way since I can recall.

As a child, empty cardboard boxes became houses and cars for action figures who not only were part of a world with identities and lives of their own, but who were integral to my own. Not separate.

I became part of the sports teams I followed through my own invented games and ways of playing those games all on my own. For the most part, I could not share them. . . nor did I want to.  They were a part of me. A spiritual part I realize now.

But then I just played because it came naturally. As it does to most of us in childhood.

So, after 20 years of playing the "adult world" games and never feeling the same satisfaction, I began working towards merging it all again.

I am just two years into this process and nowhere near where I want to be though, yes, I do primarily create for a living now. I work at home and spend countless hours in my own imagination once again.

But in both the potential for that creative life and for it's spiritual depth, I am just scratching the surface.

Everything I create for sale has a story, Each story has layers to go before I reach the depth I want to achieve with my creations. Also, the level at which I execute each piece is just beginning to grow. This ideal is also what keeps me from ever being bored. There is always more to learn and deeper levels to go to. And this is another area where many often fall short and give up.

There is such depth in routine and in working through repetition that cannot be found any other way. Especially in the spiritual realm. Much like people who travel, bouncing from place to place for a day here a day there and never settling in and really taking in a culture or a locale. It is still wonderful to travel but it lacks the depth of understanding that comes only with investment of time.

I feel like the transition back to this creative, all inclusive world was somewhat easy for me.
I was fortunate in this way too.
I have always believed in what I do.
In the things I make.
In what I have to offer.

That has come with the 20 plus years swimming in the adult world.  And the time invested in places, people and endeavors. . . all learning lessons preparing me for now.

That's all I can say at this moment. . .I am still just beginning in so many ways.
And I do not believe one masters this or any path.
I think it is a daily process of learning and growing that never ends.

But at the core, either creatively or spiritually, are a few truths

Be strong enough to work at it daily
Embrace being a beginner and the learning curves that go with it
Believe it is the most important thing you can do for yourself or your life
Accept that it will be hard and lonely at times

But if you love it, if you have ALWAYS loved it. . . know that it is the right path for you too. 

Thanx for reading,

nicolas

The Value of Time - Etsy Lessons - Creating a Life Around Creating

It is one of the biggest discussions in the creative marketplace.

"How do you value of the time you spend making an item you sell?"

The mistake, to me, is in the asking of the very question itself.

The question, from the working or want-to-be working artist's perspective should be:

"What is the value of the time you are given to spend creating?"

Subtle difference? Only in the wording.

The first question asks us to look at how much we want to make for our creative efforts. Regardless of the skill level, the perceived value, the quality of materials, the market that exists for the finished product etc etc. It's a sales/financial oriented question top to bottom and often, in my experience, it puts people in a huge hole from the beginning in their attempt to make a viable living from their craft.

The second question asks us to define how valuable it is for our SOUL to spend time creating.  There are only 24 hours a day. How many of them can be spent doing what we truly love is directly influenced by only one thing really. How we have built our life around us to sustain those creative hours. In other words, how simply we live. The less money we have to make "out there" to support ourselves, the more time one can spend within. In that creative space.

The question, at it's deepest root is, do you value "having" or "being"?

I believe the reason more people focus on the first question is because it is how we are programmed to think by the society we have grown up in. An acquisition based philosophy that leads to so much suffering and sadness.

How much money we make is at the core of so much stress in our lives. But that is a perspective that needs to change for the better good in this world. How much we need to make is directly influenced by one thing only. What kind of a life we have created and are creating for ourselves.

I am amazed when people talk about the problems within the world economy today that no one mentions the one thing that seems, to me, to be at the heart of almost all of it.

Greed.

Gone are the days of valuing a simpler life and in it's place we have sunk deep, thirsty roots in the soils of acquisition, status and wealth.

Call it whatever you want but when we NEED the newer car, the faster computer, the nicer house, to live in the middle of a city, the designer clothes, the two week vacations, the dining out, the best concert tickets etc etc etc we are choosing that. They are not necessities. They are superficial needs and that need is a product of human greed and desire. We choose them. And, that is perfectly fine. . . but, if what we want most, if our soul NEEDS is to create? What do those niceties have to do with anything in that chosen life?

We choose. It is all our doing and our undoing.
So, my next question to anyone who wants to make a living creating is:
"How much are you willing to do without?

It might mean tough choices. Giving things up. Doing without. Settling for less.
But sometime less IS more.

Somehow we have gone from a society that once believed in building towards a dream to one that believes we simply DESERVE and have a right to be living the dream.

Charles Bukowski, in one of his better known works, put it best:

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone  . . .

 <><><>

Our time here on this planet is deceptively short. Too short to think we have enough of it to do all that we might like to do. So it is important to first define what we truly need, one or two things at most, then show that we value them and build our ENTIRE life from those points and ONLY those points.  If it does not serve them, it does not belong. Period.

Remember that if it is in our soul, it is a lifetime's work. It will take a long time to fulfill it. A lifetime of building towards that dream we hold. No guarantees. Just the pursuit of a soul fulfilled.

It's enough,
Trust me

Just let go. . .

The Name Game - Etsy Lessons - Creating a Life Around Creating

Etsy Lessons ( short essays on making a creative life )

"The Name Game"

I have wanted, for some time now, to begin to write about my experiences as they pertain to making a living as a "maker-of-things". I suppose that very phrase may be as good a place to start as any.

This question is for the creative soul. . . What do you call yourself?

I prefer to describe myself as a maker of things as opposed to an artist. The reason has nothing to do with my thoughts about the word itself being too general, which I DO think by the way. Saying one is an artist narrows the field about as much as saying physician, custodian, counselor, teacher, performer, laborer etc. Nothing wrong with it really. . . but beneath the surface it usually seems to belie a lack of certainty and confidence while still attempting to stake claim to a desire to be creative.

For me, the realization came that calling myself an artist allowed me to stay stagnant and not move forward with my desire to live a creative life. I floated in apathy and dead space. Though I never stopped creating.

I realized that the term artist described nothing about my passion or my creative soul and offered me no motivation to get moving. At the same time, I had come to think of some of my favorite people around me as artists though they had no traditionally creative outlets.

They were artists at living. They created a life that suited them in every way.
That appealed to me greatly

So, a maker of things? Yes, that, although as general a term at first glance, came to seem far more true to nature. At least, to my nature and to the life I wanted to live.

I make a living by making things. Simple and true enough.

What is most important to me is to be working with my hands and my mind in unison. Exploring many avenues and always in search of new roads to explore and ideas. All with the intent to tell my stories and offer my customers and casual observers the opportunity to be a part of them.

I didn't want to settle on one form of expression.  If I was to be true to my creative origin, I could not do that.  Though it seems that is what an "artist" is supposed to do.

But me?
I make photographs
I make miniatures
I make entire worlds in forms and words
I make music
I make poems
I make things
And above all else, I play

I felt that, to be successful,  I needed to embrace every fiber of the vivid and unending imagination of my childhood. . . or more precisely. . . to bring it all forward into my "adult life" and allow it to take over now as it did then.

With that comes the pleasure and the pitfalls and the constant fight against the programming I believe we all receive about what life and adulthood are "supposed" to be and look like.

Also, it is imperative to say that nothing went as planned during this transition period of my life. I had to think on my feet and constantly rework the original plan, sometimes daily.

I was able to change my life completely in a little over two years.  And while I feel that I am well on my way, the path is just beginning in many ways too.

The excitement as raw as it was in my youth.

So, yes, a maker of things indeed.
Not just art
Not just craft
But of a life itself.

nicolas hall 2012

Postcards

In the postcard, the old man is stands along the edge of a rough and stony shore
It's on an inlet or a bay perhaps
A wooden fishing skiff sits at the water's edge
Weathered and worn as the man

The scene around him is vivid and raw
Stones reach to the sky, jutting from the water
Their outlines worn and shaped by the ever present forces of time

The obvious natural beauty of the scene is not the essence of the image though
To me, the draw to it is something more
The man in the postcard belongs
This land is clearly as much a part of him
And he is of it

There is so much talk in our country of seeking in a spiritual context
And it occurs to me now that perhaps what is missing is not the lack of community or of a faith
Not the lack of belonging to an organization or a lineage
But the lack of belonging to a place
To a landscape

But instead, here, people flock in droves to the same urban bone yards
And what their spirit seeks is never going to be found there
We've leveled and scorched that landscape
We've built above and through it's heart
We've left ghosts and shadows on this bloated vista
 Inhabited by empty souls
Dead weight

Our place can't be found among the hordes and the groups born of so called common interest
That is not what we are bound to connect with in this life
We have created that purpose in our mind
To stave off the constant hunger
Just as we have created so many other distractions
So many other false starts

But maybe you have felt it stirring inside of you
Along a weekend country drive
Or at the water's edge
Across a plain or a plateau
In the forest or the sea 
Just a moment perhaps, when everything you deem your life was left behind
When it all disappeared into a dream
And the place filled you
Consumed you
Recognized you
As you seemed to recognize the place
What lie did you tell your heart then?

Often, in the end, we let all our superficial needs pull to the bone yards again
How would we live without our pleasured distraction?
How would we live without our tribe and causes?
How would we live without ambitions and status?
How would we survive?

The answers is
If you truly listened
Heard the landscape
Opened to that spirit
You might actually find yourself
You might actually find that you ARE alive there
You might just. . .

One day I hope to be the old man in a postcard
In the right place
A part of the landscape somebody captures
Whatever the background
Wheteher a storm is coming
Whether it is dusk or dawn
Whether it is sea or sage
I want to look, not like an awkward visitor
Not like a stranger
I want to look
As if I too
Belonged

nicolas hall 2012

Crossroads

A few months ago I left the city to return to the Oregon Coast. Leaving the spiraling, urban sprawl of 600,000 for a quiet fishing village of 900.  The return to a simpler place and a less frantic pace has allowed me to breathe for what seems like the first time in years.

I return to the city twice a month, for now, to help out at the coffeehouse I used to own. I work two shifts in a little more than 24 hours and I get to see many people who were part of my daily routine over the previous 10 years.

I am asked time and again "Do you miss it?" and the answer, without hesitation is "No."

Now, I left the urban sprawl and static once before, years ago. And, after five years in a similar small town, I felt I had to get back to where things were "happening".

So what is different this time? Most people would tend to put it down to little more than the fact that  I am 10 years older?

In retrospect, I think it is simply that I realize the site of the crossroads when I am at them now.

In any lifetime, I believe we come to those crossroads again and again.
Many times over actually.
Some large and some small
Some almost daily.

But all of them are marked by choices we make or have to make and then, by the directions we turn. Often we do not turn. We just plow ahead with no acknowledgment that we are even passing through one or slowing to think about where the other road might lead.

We think that the slick, well paved highway we are on must lead to a better place than that little dusty road that transects it.  But that well paved road was once just dirt and gravel too.

When I return to the city, I walk about  25 minutes from the train station to the coffeehouse. Crossing through downtown and then across the river into the old industrial SE area of the city. I pass by hundreds of people going about their day. Some walking firmly with each step a foot-fallen vow to "make it" and some stumbling along just barely making it.

And I fee l this hanging, smoldering presence pressing down on so many of those I pass.

They've all reached the crossroads in life too.
Many did not think to slow down at all.
Most did not turn.
They just kept on going.
They made choices at each crossing whether they know it or not
And they are living out the result and destination of their choices.

Yes, it gets harder to go back each time

I am grateful to have seen the signs
To have known when the time was right
And to have turned down this little dusty road where few would think to turn
Off of the fast track
Leading to a place where I belong
Where I can slow down
And now
Thrive

-nicolas hall