Here’s my story (and I’m not sticking to it)

I’ve been in between things for some time now. Like in my career. And it is glorious. I mean, literally glorious. Each day feels like an adventure, my curiosity is alive, and the loving life lessons just keep coming in. I’ve been exploring interests I’ve had since childhood. You know, regressing in all the right ways.

And there’s been plenty to write and make art about. For real.

---

---

For instance, as I face down menopause, I see that my body has a budding fat baby right where the real ones once grew. This rounded mass is a monument to my love –and grief– around passing fertility, and a symbol my body is chemically alchemizing in real time. Of course, it is also a sign of my love of chocolate.

In our western culture, it is acceptable to talk science and hormonal imbalance as the cause of change, but not what our souls may wail out into the world, “life formed here” and “I’ve been feeling sad but transmuting it.” I also kind of want a prize for capacity to form life inside my body, but then you’d need to give a prize to every other woman whose ever lived. Okay, maybe just equal pay for equal work would be nice.

So because folks don’t like to hear me wail (I don’t even like to hear me wail), I’m making things like this here blog post instead, with the goal of my words helping someone feel not so alone and to gain some insight and spice to move forward with grace and maybe even creative enthusiasm.

My friend Robyn Ivy,¹ an outstanding coach, said, “you are in transition.” Transition to me now means having an inner life rich with imagination and creative takes, childlike wonder, teenage defiance, an outer experience of amazing friends, and enlightening surprises.

Fortunately, the adult realist in me also has a recognition of process, the skills to communicate and make a website. So here we go.

Transition is regression and development in motion.

So, one goal is to live this time fully, so I can help and connect with other folks who may need this kind of deep support in my community. In some ways, this time is about coping with grief of what’s gone by and replacing it with something new. I write about creative process so as to articulate the mechanics of it. And I keep feeling like I’m going to get in trouble for revealing too much. But maybe that’s just me. I like to hide the vulnerable stuff.

So, I’ll just lead with: Transition, It’s a Bitch.

I’ve also come to know that average folks can’t tolerate a transitional space for themselves or others for very long. That without an “elevator speech,” of who you are and what you do, society may give you side eye. And that’s okay. It just means you are touching the outer bounds of ‘fitting in,’ and there’s a place for people who dance around those edges: Seers, Healers, and Artists.

So, I’m practicing thriving inside this space, and it is useful for gaining clarity, creativity, revealing ancestral story-lines, and stoking wonder. Rolling in the in-between is not easy, but it is surprisingly calming and energizing for the human nervous system.

So, if “self-regulation” is a goal, then conscious, artful transition is a great way forward. For me anyway. Not surprisingly, the creative path is also chock full of synchronicities, which makes it interesting and helps me discern the next best step each day.

So, artful, art-filled transition is a highly recommended swap for “work like hell and burnout.” Just saying, Five Stars!

---

Back to the “Relatable Narrative”

Yesterday, a bright guy challenged me before my flight (I’m writing to you from a sweet YMCA converted into a hotel²). He said, “very few people understand what you are up to. Maybe you can clue them in. Or write a children’s book.”

What are you trying to accomplish?
Where are you going?
What is your STORY?
How will anyone know how to help you if they don’t know what you are doing?

As a lifelong creative, I’m now long-form acquiescing that if people don’t know what you’re aiming at, they won’t know how be a part of your world. So, I’ll toss down some bullet points about that in a 4-beat scroll down the page (in case you want to skip to it).

Life is complicated, man.

Most real work too, is complicated, psycho-spiritually multi-dimensional, collaborative, intuitive, challenging, and innovative. And it rests on the shoulders of those who’ve come before us. That’s work’s nature.

And women’s work includes weaving together – and sometimes trimming apart – all kinds of relationships and things, with focus on naming and sorting, and protecting and nurturing the growth of our children, our communities, and the Natural World from which they, and their children’s children, will spring.

So, I’m guessing brand-and-money-oriented people, and influencer-follower types may find themselves confused by what I’m doing. Especially since I worked in marketing, and ‘know better.’

Aside: traditional brands may be dead anyway. Now that AI can churn out picture perfect graphics, working code, and perky prose devoid of lived experience, provenance³, and synergy – well, it’s time for a new, human way to be forged in marketing as well⁴.

∴ Art is a different kind of work

Art doesn’t have to fit others’ ideas of how art should be or even rely on past conventions.⁵ Artists possess the freedom to put forth what they’ve come to know, how they see at present, and mix that with a vision of the future. This rarely fits inside a cute little branding kits or narrative story-lines, as you can imagine. Art does not need to be called “art” by experts, galleries or museums either, though this helps direct the public’s attention to the masterpieces and emerging talent.

Art is not confined to any medium, or to its demonstration in galleries, or by affectation of people wearing raspberry berets and black turtlenecks.

Art is something that over-arches all media-based disciplines and paradoxically, exists inside other disciplines as well. Think the “art of tennis” or “the art of the deal.” The life of an artist sometimes means creating culture in communities as much as it means making things.

Art is what I’ve attempted to bring to my life at every turn, even while working as a waitress, and later when I was marketing small businesses and building digital properties for the benefit of others. Art is connected to creative principle, and cannot be tamed nor controlled. Art can be as challenging, harsh and edgy as much as it can be beautiful. Art can trim away as much as it produces, notable in sculpture, when the form of creation reveals itself only as the non-art is chiseled away.

Finally, what the F I am doing these days. Get on board if you like, or jump off you hitching hobo if you don’t:

1. I’m reinventing myself so that my next vocation is aligned with (and represents in collage-like style) everything I’ve become.
   
2. I’m leaning into the idea that perfection is unnecessary, perhaps even to be avoided; replacing a people pleasing-perfectionist tendency with courage, authenticity, fun, and creative freedom.
   
3. I’m sharing inner explorations, life experiments, produced works, and my passions in hopes to connect with others who value the same things I do⁶.
   
4. I am sharing visual sketches on Instagram, with their source photos, that others may enjoy seeing and alchemizing the magical stuff of ordinary life.
   
5. I’m re-framing my current work space, budget, and other limitations as a fun challenge.
   • Because “necessity is the mother of invention,” I am practicing producing meaningful work using my perception and presence and only the simplest digital tools. Hey, they are small, and don’t clutter my dining room.
     
6. Because I love to make beautiful things and well-crafted, and lasting thought systems, and I also carry a “leave no trace” mindset, my work includes reconciling staggering paradox.
   
7. I’m also being protective of nature. By obscuring location and images with digital markup, I cover energy sources, while showcasing their natural beauty and revealing my vision in tandem.
   • In some ways this work is like graffiti or tagging, but is non-invasive and leaves no trace at the site. In a digital environment, the practice of “painting atop” nature photos has minimal environmental impact⁷ and creates distance between the natural site and undesired predators.

---

FOOTNOTES & SUB-SUBTEXT 😉

1. Robyn Ivy Podcast & Coaching. ↩︎
2. The Maverick by kasa ↩︎
3. I love the word provenance. It hearkens to how individuals can come to know things honestly, like by lived experience, not just someone else’s expertise or copying a suggested plan. In the art world, provenance shows the string of ownership of the piece. Each verified, and hopefully, also legal. ↩︎
4. More pieces on this are in this blog. ↩︎
5. I am a little pre-occupied with time these days, including the dilation of it, representations of it and the nature of how measured and by whom. ↩︎
6. WCS = Worse Case Scenario:⁴ If others are not interested, then I can still feel good about having made honest work, and practiced my craft for my book/s. ↩︎
7. Even though “low impact,” digital creations still require electricity to host, so I have a ways to go on this too. As stated earlier, there is no perfection here, hopefully though, there is progress. ↩︎