Blog

*Warning this post may be long, but this is the "SHARING" I eluded to in my first Welcome post.*

For the 3rd time this week it appears that sleep will escape me. I don't know what else it could be,besides full moons,creative energy spurts,and secondhand java absorbtion from the filters, but I am just not sleeping. Tonight I have spent who knows how many hours re-working and tweaking my Blog.

For years I have had my priorities backwards and for a very silly reason.

First, let me just say I am my WORST critic. I have given away artwork just because I thought I wasn't good enough. My Aunt (and the recipient of alot of it) would tell me "make sure you sign it,so when you become famous it will be worth alot!" It became a joke to me.

I have very good creative friends that on a regular basis tell me that I needed to create and get my work out there,of course my response would be an excited "yea I have so many ideas to share with the world" and then I'd do nothing. When I get an idea,I have to run out and buy everything I need to create it and once it's home and in my studio the rush is gone. Needless to say if i had a reciept for everything I've bought and returned it,I'd probably be able to make the house and car payment! I defend my "needs" because ,well because one day I'm going to follow through with whatever hairbrained idea that propelled those purchases in the first place.

So what is this mysterious reason I speak of?

My Blog. Yep, my silly little blog. I felt that I couldn't create my art because my blog sucked. Crazy? Delusional? Yea, I know what a dumb reason to hold back the fury. I have 2 other blogs not counting the one's I created then deleted because they didn't feel right.


Then something changed.


First Artful Chica's Studio crawled into my head. I have another name that I had been using on my other blog and Myspace and I was pretty sure that it was the "one," again ACS had other plans for me. So I looked around to see if anyone else was using it,and no one was. Originally it was just Artful Chica,then it evolved into Artful Chica's Studio. It sounded more complete to me. I threw down my flag in the blogoshpere and struck my claim.

Then wheels started turning

Before I ever posted on this fresh fertile soil I made notes. Then the notes lead to lists with bulletpoints and outlines. I knew what I didn't want this blog to become,I just couldn't pinpoint what I did want. So I did some mock ups for my banner,but nothing really jived. I did the plain black & white on for the sake of getting things rolling.

and I started getting nervous

is this what it feels like when you're on the right path? That intuitive knowing,that Hey! maybe I got it right this time. So again I put up the header and wrote my Welcome that was more like a mission statement to myself.

The coffee filters came up when I was rearranging my paper cabinet. I had been saving them for a few months. I took a few of them out and layed them on my work table. They stayed there for a few weeks collecting dirt (when you live on a dirt road everything collects dirt instead of dust). I had gone back to California and while I was there I had bought new paint. As is my M.O. I came back and placed them on a shelf and walked away. The filters and Paint must have been conspiring together,because one day I was just scribbling some ideas and Quiet Solitude came up. I thougth nothing of it,but it was persistent. So I sketched her on a filter,pulled out the paint and she was created. The other 3 were created in one night and the latest one was conceived during Thursdays sleepless night. I looked at my blog before writing this post and I was amazed at how far I've come and you know what? for the first time in my life I know, I just know I'm going to create it and I'm going to make it.