dear ada

Last month I found out that one of my favoritest blogs ever, dear ada, was, sadly, posting it's last post. Sadly for me, that is, since this gem of a blog has been such an inspiration to me over the last few years. It really was my introduction to the world of art-on-the-internet, to this fabulous community that has spread out and has been changing the way artists make their names, reputations and careers, and share their work with others, and also in the way that the average person is now able to be an art lover and follower and instantaneously see works they'd ordinarily not have access to. This was the first time that I realized that the game is changing for artists, and gave me hope with my burgeoning desire to return to art myself, the idea that maybe I didn't have to go back to school to get a degree and toil for years as a starving artist hoping to someday gain gallery reputation, so as to be a "real artist".

The thing that kept me coming back to dear ada, time and again, was the way that Birdie accompanied each post with the sweetest, most genuine and encouraging words for each artist she featured on her blog. For example when she says things like, Hello reason for heart to sing. Hello wonderful art... How can you not love someone who says this!?  She shared wonderful work that really expanded my perception of art. I would often follow links to the artist's gallery pages and marvel at their work for hours. Birdie is moving on to pursue her own art again, the inspiration she shared with the world these past 5 years having inspired herself! I wish Birdie all the luck in the world, and, I will truly miss her. Her goodbye post is sprinkled with pictures of some beautiful artwork that I believe is her own, and not to be missed because it is really lovely.

I just found out that she's decided to keep things going over on tumblr, I'm so glad that she'll still be sharing her discoveries! And the dear ada blog appears to be left up as an archive for the time being, so you can visit if you've missed out on all her goodies through the years.

Here is a roundup of some of my favorite dear ada posts, just a quick roundup because there are so, so many artworks she featured that I absolutely adored!

Ian O'Phelan, whose photo below I cannot stop thinking about, what I wouldn't give to design a textile like this one!

Raymond Saunders, whose portfolio I drooled over for for at least an hour after seeing him on dear ada!

Jennifer Bain and her beautiful monotype collages.

Fiona Watson, who makes the coolest, most interesting, now-why-didn't-I-think-of-that assemblages that she then photographs and posts on flickr.

And finally, because I really just can't help myself, several collage artist whos work I'm all jealous of and wish their work was in my own portfolio: fred free, anna wolf, tods2tods here and here, peter kupas, elad lassry, waterhalo here and here, katy murphy, and silvia cordero vega.

So many things to do. Not knowing what to do.

Do you know that feeling? Having so many ideas, so many things in progress, so many things nagging at the back of your minds that you need to find time to do someday, a total abundance of things to do. And not being able to pick one? Which one is the best thing to work on now, in this moment? How to choose??? This scenario stops me every time. Makes it hard to step away from the computer to get to work. Makes me want to clean my apartment, which I hate doing, to avoid the choosing. Sometimes even makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning.

Even with an extra day in which to get stuff done. Today, thanks to my back (bad back!), I'm at home and therefore have another day away from the job in which to get my personal stuff done. Do you think I've done anything yet? It's a little after noon and so far all I've done is sleep in really late and catch up on one of my favorite blogs. Oh, and run my little brain around in circles trying to decide what to do with this extra free time. Sometimes it makes me wonder: the workaholic syndrome we seem to have here in the U.S., could it be because people know what to do at their jobs, and by continually rerouting their focus to work they can avoid the things in their personal lives they don't know how to deal with?

Wonderings aside, since that's not really what I came here to say - Yes, there are lots of things I want to work on today. I just can't seem to get to them, and this has been going on for a couple of weekends now. (I'm not counting the weekday evenings, because I'm often so exhausted after the job that I'm completely ineffective in my personal life.) So much I want to do: the new artworks I have ideas for, the works already in progress that I need to finish, the organizational things I want to do to get my act together, the plans for opening an etsy store that I need to work on, the half-drafted blog posts that I haven't finished, all these things that are just vague ideas flitting around in my head that I need to grab onto and get to work on. Like all these things are on one side of the river, and I'm on the other, thinking that it's too difficult to get to the other side (even though I have this suspicion that the way across is quick and so obvious that I can't even see it. It is obvious, isn't it?)