Land - A Creative Path

Land

If you had told me, just two years ago, that I would be making part of my living creating scale model miniatures. . . I would have laughed and shooed you away. . . but inside, I would have been wishing it could somehow, possibly,  be true.

I have been making art for 30 years. . . but the twists and turns of time, circumstance and fate that led me back to this childhood love are too many to mention. And I do not want to bore you with them all as it is.

What I do want to say is this:

We spend our lives so immersed in our own world, in our own situations, that we rarely get the chance to glimpse a life outside of our own. The world becomes more frantic, moving to an ever-quickening pace all the time. We are swept up in the currents of our own days, of our own battle for survival and, as if often the case in the deep waters of life, we lose sight of land.

Our childhoods are filled with these "other" worlds. Sci fi, monsters, dolls,  model railroads, imaginary places and creations fill our days. As i grow older I am more convinced every day that there is a reason for that which is supposed to serve us well as adults too. That is VITAL to our survival and our future happiness.  And that is all too often left behind in the rush to "grow up." Those early experiences and imagining. . . that is our landscape.  That is the ground under our feet throughout our lives.

When I first began making these HO scale buildings. . . just under two years ago. . . it was as if I had my first true glimpse, and feel, of that land in years.

They were a familiar sight as they appeared before me.
That childhood love and fascination with model railroads.
With small, imagined worlds.
With other places.
It brought back something I hardly had taken the time to realize was missing.

I cannot tell you what it is, only that it is pure and a part of the thread I never can let go of again.

There are many who also share this love of "other worlds"

We are drawn to them because they offer us those glimpses. Peeks into a place and time outside of our own. One of our own creation and choosing when, sometimes, we lose sight of that possibility in our own. They are unspoiled and clean. Simple and remarkable at the same time. 

For me, as the maker of them, they are something of a pole star. They are a magnetic draw towards the life I wish to lead every day. One of creation that opens doors for others. Brings a sense of joy and calm. Offering these glimpses into other worlds. A little hint of the magic that can be. . .

And maybe, just maybe, a reminder to not allow life to become so big.
So overwhelming.
So torrid a current

I invite you to find these places in YOU
Whatever they look like or how they manifest
They are like the distant shore in deep water
They are familiar
They are the constant
They are
Land

nicolas hall

Who's There? - Poem

The doorbell rings by itself again as it has done dozens of times since we moved in
We've taken to going down, opening the door, and welcoming our ghostly visitors in

I return just in time to look out the window and see the old man
Almost every morning at this time
He is walking slowly down the sidewalk
With his old dog
Their gaits, quite similar
Belying the time each of them has spent on this Earth

I notice him, as I do so many things here
Because there is so little else to distract me
Here, I seem to slow down
I actually breathe
And I feel I can see

I try to recall, in the cities, if I ever really "saw" people.
People in that environment are always on the way somewhere.
They are hard to see and we are too busy hustling ourselves to be able to see
Everyone seems to be moving a step ahead or, as is more often the case,
Falling a step behind

It seems many people in a small town such as this have arrived
They've caught up with themselves
They have nowhere to go
Their steps are measured
They aren't chasing anything
And I wonder
If the phantom who keeps ringing the doorbell
Is just me catching up
With me

nicolas hall - 2012

Lessons In Time (Everything Must Change)

When I was a little boy, my room, to the naked eye, looked pretty much like any 11 year old's with the sport's posters on the wall and the baseball glove and souvenir hockey pucks on the dresser and night tables. Yet, hidden way under the bed, in the closets and anywhere I could find, were the pieces no one was able to see.

I had entire cities made of cardboard boxes stowed there for my action figures. My closet was painted (as well as an eleven year old can) with Egyptian hieroglyphs on the walls and my dresser drawers were filled with all the little extras my imagination created to aid the hours of solitude and play time.

And, no matter how much I had already created in this way, there was a to-do list somewhere with another three dozen ideas. . .

This is pretty much how I am today with my Etsy shops.

I have a foundation of things in each shop that I make and remake as they sell. They are the things "on the dresser" so to speak, there for everyone to see. . . but I always have another three dozen and more in some form of process going at any one time.  Seriously. . . all. . . the. . . time. . .  lol

This is both the good and bad of my creative soul.  In one way, it allows me to constantly keep moving forward even when I am making that miniature stone chapel for the umpteenth time, which is the good. I never quite feel like I am in a rut.

On the down side, I can guarantee you I should be spending time making multiples of the things that, come the holiday season, I will wish I had made many of in advance. Because I know they will be selling but I would rather take that extra time and work on something new or undeveloped.

The thing is, my creative "success" has been directly related to a return to those childhood habits and imaginings. Much of what I create today is based on that 11 year old boys fascinations and interests in mysteries and unknowns. So, the change we experience in life is also, as I have found, cyclical.  

Everything must change or it stagnates. In my world I can feel stagnation, when it creeps in, like I can feel the slow movement of the hands of a clock. . . it can somehow be upon you without any notice.

So, take five minutes, if that's what you can spare, and just start on a new idea. Or find something inside from your childhood. Tuck it away and keep at it when you can. . . but consider doing it because, if nothing else, it's a movement forward.

It's a nod to the law of change.
It's a step towards a circle completed '=
And it will keep you ahead of the sands of time. . .if only by a grain or two.

*No tidying. . . this is just how I started the day. . . projects everywhere . . . LOTS of motion just like when I was 11. lol*

Thanx for reading!!

nicolas

This was inspired by an excellent post by Sarah on the AGTeam blog which you can read here:
Time's Catching Up: Making Big Changes

And another view:
donauluft

Never One To Follow The Crowd - Four Vignettes

(One)

When I began writing music 30 some years ago, I knew I didn't want to play in a band. I didn't want to play on stage. I didn't want to write normal "songs". The other 99% of musicians I knew aspired to those goals.

I set my sights on other ways of going about the business at hand and, in the end, I created and recorded music for meditation videos, wrote pieces for modern dance companies and entire scores for art installations and brought my own multimedia performance shows to the theater.

(Two)

When I decided to move out of the mid-sized city I grew up in, all of my friends were shocked that I chose a small town of 6000 all the way across the country. They had all moved to larger cities.
To huge metropolises.
Most were, admittedly, miserable.
I went off with the idea that a small town, even in bad economic times, could provide more opportunity if you had a variety of services you could offer AND were actually good at them. In those years, I was never at a want for work in ANY of the areas I pursued.  

(Three)

When I started my first coffeehouse, the last owner I had worked for came to visit my place.
"How can you make it with only fifteen seats?" he asked as he looked around the converted house-turned-bakery/cafe.

His restaurant, to this day one of my favorite places I have ever worked, sat 55 people in a huge and spacious room. Most nights it was two thirds empty.
It often felt even emptier.
And people talked about that all over town.

The same people talked about my place, with no mention of the small number of seats, but only of the fact that it was impossible to get into almost every day for lunch.

(Four)

So. . . is it any wonder that when I decided to set up art shops on the internet, I chose, in every avenue, to veer away from what is popular merchandise wise and any promotional avenues that are already over-saturated and pursued by everyone. A year later, I am making things I never dreamed I would be creating and I am finding niches in each area of my work that is allowing me to live, as a working artist, for the first time in my life. 

The few keys I always follow are to stay wide open to the possibilities and steered clear of the "brass ring" effect. People flock in droves trying to cash in on one idea.
Often one stemming from what others have already done first.
Often without the willingness to put in the effort and hours it takes to set their work apart form other's.

Then, as cliched as it sounds
I always follow my heart.

Not what the business model suggests would be good to do.
Just what I LOVE to do.
Just what my heart asks. . .
And, I
LISTEN

I think, in truth, many people have forgotten how to do this.
And listening to our heart, and to our customers as we cultivate them, is a niche market all of it's own
And while it definitely is not a guarantee of our success
It IS a guarantee of our sanity
And that makes anyone who follows their heart
The genius of the crowd

Thanks for reading!

This blog topic was inspired by Lee at One Clay Bead who wrote this charming post here:
Etsy AGTeam Wirter's Circle Post

nicolas

Climate Change - Poem

Climate Change

When it rains HERE
People do not talk about climate change
Day after day it comes
And no one thinks of it as an inconvenience
No one feels that their day is lost

Day after day it falls
And I watch from my window as people
Walk
With it
Not dashing, as if to slip as many raindrops as they can
While wearing a lemon peel puss

They move easily in it
As if it were just part of them
As if they were invisible

Now I am here
Far from that place where they throw stones at the clouds
Far from that place where umbrellas reign
Far from where no one wants to go unseen for long
Those places
Are gone now
Wiped from my memory
Due to climate change

I am here now

Moving with the rain
And I'm happily
Invisible

by nicolas hall 2012

Charity - Poem

Charity

My grandmother loved to give her money to charity
The unemployed sitting in the diner
The sisters from the church
The starving overseas
And then my brother who, daily, needed "a couple bucks for gas"
So he could drive the 20 or so blocks to his favorite bar.
My mother said she was, "trying to buy her way into heaven".

The rest of her mad money would go to buy flower seeds and bulbs
And I, who wouldn't take a dollar from her without earning it,
Planted these each year
From April through September

When I moved across the country
I called her that first February to tell her
That the camellias and the daffodils and the crocuses
Were in full bloom out here already

"Boyyyyy aren't you lucky!" she said
"We'll have to wait and see if anything blooms at all here this spring."
Her tone made it seem as if that might actually be in doubt
And I, basking in the glory of my early season, suddenly realized
It was never about giving anything to charity
Or buying a ticket into heaven
Or disappearing gas

It was simply, for her
A matter of hope

~nicolas hall 2012

Welcome By Committee - Poem

"Welcome By Committee"

He thought we were tourists and
Crossing the road back towards the docks,
He called out after us

"Where are you from?"

"We live here" we said
"Oh, really?" "Well I was going to say welcome to our beautiful land!"
We thanked him anyway and continued on

We are tourists, in some ways, of course
Just living in a small coastal town for three weeks does not wash off the last 11 years of city living.
And, we certainly weren't carrying the look of a crabber or a clammer.

A little while later we were standing on the walkway of a long, narrow pier
The wind off the ocean was coursing through the bay and chilling our warm moment in the sun
A gull landed effortlessly on the pier post just down the railing from us
She pulls her wings in and stares
She probably thinks we are tourists too
But she doesn't say so
And suddenly, I was feeling
Truly welcome

~ by nicolas hall 3 / 5 / 12