How did I not write a blog post at all during the month of January? I guess it was good to take a break. We had a lot going on during the month of December. My family and I were anticipating celebrating our son's second Christmas with our family and a new cousin. Then, we caught COVID and our household was sick for twenty-five days (that's how long it took to have three negative tests). Obviously, art did not happen during that period of time. Rest and recovery was the priority. This also meant Christmas was small and only with the three of us and four fur babies. It wasn't really what we had planned. We welcomed in the new year in isolation - and with a miscarriage. It was devastating. So, I've been taking a little bit of a break. And that's ok. So, no art and no blogs for January. 

I had decided that I needed to talk to a career coach to figure out what I wanted to do, exactly, with my skillset. And in the week that I was supposed to meet with one I had someone ask for a print to be sent to Virginia, had someone buy a children's book, had someone tell me they regretted not buying an original I had for sale a few years ago, and had a gallery space ask for more art. So, I don't think that my issue is my art - my issue is marketing. The career coach agreed. 

I left Etsy last year because of the fee structure. I don't think that it's a good idea for my art to stay there. A lot of work (time and money, too) went into building my Etsy shop and their fee structure made it very difficult to feel like that was a productive use of my time. In searching for different sales platforms I've finally landed on my shop here - I'd even looked at moving to a different hosting site. 

This month I am continuing to focus on changing my marketing strategy. That looks like more art-focused Twitter posts (because I do a lot of shit posting on that site, don't we all?), focused TikTok's, focused Reels, and focused posting on Facebook and Instagram. It's been really hard to shift away from Etsy - I just had to pay money and enter keywords and a lot of the marketing was taken care of for me. So, I'm trying to figure out. marketing over here. Thanks, as always, for coming along on this journey. It's been a lot of change in four years and I can't wait to see where 2024 takes us! 

We came home from running errands this weekend and saw a neighborhood dog carrying something in its mouth. At first, we thought that it was a mother moving a puppy. No, not the mother. This was the big male. The body it carried did not struggle and it did not move. It hung limp. A cat. He dropped the cat on the grass in his yard and nosed it. It was dead.

We were shocked. We've had issues with this neighbor and this big dog before. And now, a cat was dead. The loose dog was reported to animal control. The cat was taken away. All I could think of was the final moments of the poor, black cat - full of fear. That's not something a being that is 95% tiger should ever feel. A tiny predator. 

I hope cat heaven is better than life in this neighborhood. 

​Remembering Neighborhood Cat, Name Unknown. 

I have quite a few projects to finish before the end of the year, and I find myself struggling with prioritization and overwhelm. I have 8 weeks until the end of the year and 52 days until Christmas. I have home renovations starting again (a small phase that should be easily completed) next week. All of these tiny little things - cleaning rooms out, working on commissions, finishing a wedding gift, planning for Thanksgiving, checking things off of the Christmas list - seem like they're floating around, hard to manage and organize. 

I saw a really great idea of writing down one to three things that have to be accomplished TODAY. It helps with prioritization. Ok, sealing a gift and getting it ready to mail is definitely a greater priority than wrapping a Christmas present (even though the Christmas present feels more pressing in my brain). Yes, working on a commission is important, but it's deadline is a little further out than this weekend, so I need to clear off my dining room table and prep it to move into a different room for the renovation that starts on Monday. 

So here are my top three priorities for today: 

-Pilates (so I'm moving my body and getting out of my head)
-Charging my iPad for some concept sketch work (not working on the concept sketches yet, just charging my iPad - which I have been forgetting to do for days)
-Transferring a design to a canvas (not painting it yet, just getting started). 

​Doable. 

This piece is called "When Peccaries Fly" - and I'm pretty delighted. It's a digital, mixed media piece and I'm really thinking about putting it on a canvas. 

I've decided that I wanted to start doing some stuff with clay. And I don't know anything about clay. So I decided to start with a simple project: air dry clay and a paint palette. It's imperfect and that's ok. My husband reminded me that we're everyone is a beginner at something new. And that the important thing is that I had fun - which I did.  We'll see what happens in a few days when it's dry. I'm going to paint the thistle and then seal everything.