Sunday

Grand Reopening Coming Soon


I've been on hiatus for an extended period of time, with my store on Etsy closed since the holidays (and this blog here has been silent for even longer than that). But I'm happy to announce that will soon be changing!

I'm back in the studio, working on some small-scale paintings. As well as trying to finish up some work that's been unfinished for awhile. And soon as these are ready for the public I'll be reopening the store (click here to get on the notification list for when that happens!) I'll also be blogging about getting ready for the grand reopening so you can catch the news here too. Oh, and also blogging about the painting process & progress, and what it's like getting back into art after a time away. And what made me set this all aside for so long.

This is not without some trepidation, of course. I'm nervous to get back in the swing of things, or not, as I'm more afraid will happen. Nervous that I'll fail and run away from it again. But you know what, I'll definitely fail if I don't try, and that's what I'm focusing on. So hang around folks, because I'm working on a comeback.

Wednesday

Speak out against censorship

Help stop SOPA & PIPA


There’s legislation being worked on in Congress, two similar bills known as SOPA and PIPA, which claim to stop theft of copyrighted materials by drastically altering the internet and the rights of US citizens.

Under these laws if passed, an accusation of copyright infringement against one posting on a site will get the entire site shut down. Without proof, without investigation, without warning, without the chance for defense or correction. This in not only unconstitutional but anti-constitutional. This gives a good-sized foothold for dismantling our right to due process under the law, not to mention throws “innocent until proven guilty” on its head & out the window.

As an artist, I am wholeheartedly for copyright laws and protection of intellectual property. As a person of good conscience, I am against laws that take our freedoms away by claiming to fight problems that are already being dealt with by existing laws.

Make no mistake: this will do little to end piracy – copyright violators will find other avenues to get around these blocks. But it will hurt innocent people & our freedom.

But don’t take my word for it – check out this infographic on how SOPA and PIPA will work to censor the internet.

I urge you to find out more about these laws, and take action to let your Congressperson know where you stand. And if you’re not in the US but are concerned how the enactment of US law could affect the global web & global economy, you can write to the US State Department. Tools to contact Congress and the State Department are located at the Stop American Censorship website.
Join Google in fighting these laws by signing the petition at Google's Take Action page.


If these laws are passed, what freedom will the lawmakers try to dismantle next? Where will it end?

Sunday

(Turning over a new leaf) - New Website!


Hi everyone,

I've got some news that I'm excited about - I've just launched a website! I built it to showcase my artwork and I'd love to have you visit. Please take a look at www.atthestudiodoor.com and don't be afraid to let me know what you think!

I also plan to start blogging more frequently soon, which I'll still be doing here. So stay tuned for more from me in the near future. Hope you're having a lovely autumn so far!

Summer please don't leave yet!

The weather will be changing soon.... I had hoped to spend some time at the beach this weekend soaking up some of the last of summer, but my plans were cancelled, so I suppose I'll have to content myself with lovely photos & artwork of beachy beauty that I've been scoping out lately on Etsy and Pinterest.

I think you could probably say I'm addicted to Pinterest, because once I'm on the site I could repin stuff for hours... here are some great beach links I added to my board "Beaches are my happy place":


No idea yet if we here in the SF Bay Area will get an Indian Summer this year. Yesterday I was still running the a/c all day, but this morning there were a few raindrops and so far the rest of the day has been mild so who knows. I always love it because I hate to see it go, really I could live with summer all year round. Maybe someday I'll move to a place where there's not much of a winter at all. (btw Wikipedia says that the term Indian Summer means different things in different regions, go figure!)

Here are some lovely Etsy finds (and my first treasury, what do you think of this collection?)

'Summer's Last Hurrah' by atthestudiodoor

summer is always over far too soon for me... i wish it could last forever...


Goodbye - 10x10 Fine Ar...
$30.00

Summer Love - set of 9 ...
$140.00

Striped Cotton Canvas B...
$30.00

Memories of Summer. Ha...
$17.00

Baby. Infant. Dress. Su...
$39.39

Laguna Beach photograph...
$17.00

Formal Dress Sexy Chiff...
$38.00

Summer Hammock by Sandy...
$18.00

Original Acrylic Abstra...
$20.00

Glisten-Original Signed...
$25.00

Large Original Painting...
$150.00

Lost at Sea (the good w...
$150.00

Summer Maxi Dress Organ...
$130.00

Lazy Day - Original Fab...
$35.00

Sunset Photo "Good...
$20.00

End of summer SALE - f...
$27.00

The beach is my happy place...

... yes, seriously the beach - any beach - is my happy place. I don't even have to be there, just looking at a photo featuring blue water and golden sands will chill me out. And believe me, this girl needs lots of chillin'-out time.


For my birthday this year I bought myself a fancy, overpriced, not-quite-as-good-as-a-DSLR camera. And I still haven't learned all the bells & whistles, but it does have a "pinhole"setting that makes any snap look instantly more professional. Which is good because as much as I admire photography I am not all that great at it.


These pics were taken at Capitola (a cool beach town in California just south of Santa Cruz). Doesn't the pinhole effect make these look lovely?






Reverb10: Wherein I only tangentially reference prompt #19 (Healing)

This should have been posted days ago. I wrote this in my journal the same day the prompt was delivered, and it took me a week to get it typed up. Because things really have been like that lately. This month has all been a blur to me.

And when I say that, I don't actually mean December, I mean the last 6 weeks or so that melded into an endless rush. Even downtime does not slow the feeling of accelerated time. The busiest weeks of the year for me at my dayjob - the second half of November through most of December - what are supposed to be happy, jolly, focused on communities, relationships, the people you love, and giving. And I didn't have enough space to focus on any of that.

All that I could do was swim through the torrent of work. 8 hours a day of extreme multi-tasking. No mind-breaks. Instant transitioning from one problem-solving to the next. My brain on overload, maybe even getting whiplash.

Oh yes, there was giving. Of work delegated to me, on top of the already-insane year-end deadlines. Racing to get everything done. Too much multitasking, too much data, my brain is mush. Just trying to gain a sense of rest, trying to rebalance, during my time off work. Forget about Christmas shopping or sending out holiday cards, everything left to the last minute or crossed off the list entirely. Skip this year - maybe the next. Perhaps at this time next year, I'll be in a different job.... Please, oh please let me not be in the same dysfunctional workspace next holiday season, so that I can actually enjoy it.

So yes. Healing. All my downtime for weeks, just trying to heal from the crazy-busy-ness.

And what I'd like to heal in 2011: Disorganized panic.

Mind-calming techniques. Perhaps meditation, in my own way. Not numbing myself so that I don't have to think about stuff, but working it out.

I can't always work stuff out with words, maybe my mind just doesn't work that way. That's one of the reasons behind my lack of posting during #Reverb10 (other reasons were mentioned before). Writing about stuff not being the way I can heal while I'm under the pressure, that is. Sometimes I just need to work things out in other ways, maybe that is why I'm so drawn to art. Color, form, combining and shifting - all get my mind into another state where answers can work themselves out in my subconscious. At this crazy time of year, with work deadlines, holidays, and my brain in some prolonged panic-attack state, what I've chose to do the last couple of weeks instead of write has been to quilt.

Yeah, you read right. I started making a quilt three weeks ago. Choosing the fabrics, pure delight for my mind. Getting lost in the colors & patterns - meditation.

Cutting the shapes. Arranging them together. Seeing the way colors & patterns & shapes vibrate next to each other - meditation.

Sewing the pieces together. Ironing them back flat. Placing the new larger squares side by side, seeing how the building of shape upon shape creates a whole new piece. The creating, the building, a metaphor. Sometimes, I want to build a whole new everything.

Photo credit: Christmas Lights by WH-B on flickr

Wednesday

Reverb10: Where's The Bounce?


Bounce, get it? When a sound bounces around in echoes (a reverberation)? Because it's been rather quiet around here even though I'm supposed to be writing daily.

I mentioned in my last post, and it's still going on - I'm just not connecting with the prompts for this year's #Reverb10. Maybe it's because the past couple of weeks have been brutally busy at my day job. By the time I get home, I just don't wanna think too much. Maybe it's because last year's introspective prompts were broken up by ones that were lighter & fun, and this year seems to be all instrospection. Not just regular instrospection, but the I could work on this answer for hours kind of introspection.

Not fun.

Which I know is what this challenge should be! Opening up, sharing and reading posts by other Reverbers. But that's not what I'm doing. And my Plan B of posting several responses together is just not working - I've already accumulated too many un-responded-to prompts in my inbox, just sitting there glaring at me (or so it feels). So, what to do?

I don't want to completely give up this challenge. I don't want to respond to prompts that I'm not feeling connection with, or that I don't have the right mindframe to write a decent & thoughtful response to. I don't want to push myself when it's not in me right now. And I don't need to make myself feel guilty about my limits - everyone has limits and they can change daily, these just happen to be the limits I'm currently operating under.

What I can do is post when I can, using a prompt if I feel inclined, or making up my own prompt if that's what I'd rather do. And I can squirrel away the prompts I haven't responded to, hopefully to spur me on for later posts. So I may be Reverbing well into the next year still. And that's ok.

Also, not sure if Reverbers and Reverbing are real words. I may have just made them up. That's ok too!


Photo credit: Jump! by Enid Yu on Flickr