Sidewalk Face

I Don’t Like This But It Seems Like It’s My Fault

December 9, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl8 Comments

My husband just told me that if we are on a plane together and something starts to go wrong, he is going to sit with someone else because I get too upset.*

I don’t like this at all, but it’s kind of on me, right? I need to calm down.

I am not good at being calm when a lot of unpleasant unknowns are coming at me.

My first reaction is to short circuit and yell. I start making it all about me. How dare reality impinge on my wellbeing like this?! Neither admirable nor attractive, I too would skitter away if possible.

On the positive side, I usually get my shit back together reasonably fast. I don’t stay in that state for hours on end. I burn bright and quick. Since I really want to be a source of strength and pleasure for those in my company, I try to tidy up the emotional mess soon after it appears. But I just can’t seem to figure out how to nip it in the bud.

I hate sharing this because all I seem to hear is meditation mediation meditation. I know! And I do! My goodness. That’s how I am able to right the ship. I am very mindful. Mindful enough to know I am an animal and when I get scared, that’s not the time to try and pet me. I have to have my little moment of pure shock.

Life is quite challenging. It’s very hard to be perfect. If you’re stoic, which is awesome on bumpy airplanes, you might not be the most fun. If you’re emotional, which is taxing, you might give the best hugs. If you’re resourceful and effective, you might seem too competent to empathize. If you’re a wreck, you might be exciting but unreliable. You just can’t do it all and be it all. I would like to, to be everything to everybody. But I can’t and I don’t and I’m not. Oh well.

But I think I will try to be one iota more contained. An iota a day keeps the husband not away.

*Just in case you are new here, my husband said this in jest, and it was well deserved. He would not actually abandon me on a plane or anywhere. He is a very nice man. I am glad he said it because it’s important to know when you’re at the boundary of too annoying to put up with. If someone cares enough to give you a signal, you can retreat a few steps back and just be moderately annoying.

Art, Creative Process

Do Ideas Come First or Second?

December 3, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl10 Comments

Sometimes there are so many ideas, they’re like a bowl of popcorn while watching tv at night, who cares if a few fall between the cushions, plenty to go around!

Other times, ideas are like your underwear drawer when you’ve forgotten to do the laundry. Uh oh!

When there are lots of ideas to go around, and you are acting on some of these ideas, then you can take ideas for granted. A dime a dozen. What a wonderful state of affairs. But just like a bowl of popcorn is easily consumed, ideas can suddenly be in short supply. You can find yourself digging through the couch cushions and looking hard at that stale kernel, wondering if something can be made from it.

I feel like I am in that state and I am wondering what happened? Where did all the ideas go?

I know exactly what happened! I stopped drawing.

I haven’t made an abstract since before Thanksgiving. Sure, I diddled around a bit in my little book and that kept things from a taking a radical turn, but I haven’t committed to a drawing in more than a week and now I have no ideas.

So, here’s my thesis, ideas are the result of actions. We tend to think it’s the opposite, that ideas come first, and actions follow, like, I have an idea to make cake. Now I am eating cake. How cool!

But that’s not really an idea, it’s an impulse. Doesn’t matter, ideas and impulses are almost the same and good ideas need a lot of impulse embedded in them. That’s why we have all sorts of grand ideas that never manifest. It doesn’t matter how cool your space colony concept is, you’ll never in a million years have enough impulse. Elon Musk might have enough impulse but who cares, back to cake.

While you’re mixing the batter, you may have an idea about adding crushed pistachios (that sounds good!) or adding green food coloring to the pistachio frosting, or maybe shaping the whole thing like a frog. Ideas need a portal to come through, that portal is the thing already happening. If you want ideas, start doing the thing.

The main reason I draw so often is because I want to keep my channel open. I want to have lots of ideas. I am greedy and I like to find lost ideas tucked into the couch. That happened with my last post. I had written the title and first two sentences only, saved it and moved on. I had no memory of doing that, a stray thought that came into my head, probably while doing the dishes, but I quickly captured it because that’s another thing about ideas, they have a very short life span unless you plant them. They waft in on the wind and they will waft out just as quickly unless you write them down, or draw them out, or in some way place them in the world of action.

I have to go draw now.

Art, Sidewalk Faces, wisdom

The Wrinkles/Concussion Conundrum

December 1, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl3 Comments

If you don’t want wrinkles, you need to strike while the iron is hot. If you want to give someone a concussion, strike at any time.

What the heck does this mean? I don’t even remember writing it. I came here to write something else and this was waiting for me.

Maybe I can make it work?…….Okay, I’ve got something. I think it means that things can always go two ways. One of those ways necessitates preparation. The other way just needs raw emotion.

I’ve been offering my sidewalk faces as limited-edition prints. This is something I have wanted to do for a really long time, as in years long time. It’s amazing how long it can take to do things that you really want to do. It can take so long you could question if you really want to do it. For example, say that you really want to wear freshly ironed, straight as a pin linen pants. You see yourself in these gorgeous pants looking like a million bucks, like you haven’t a care in the world on your remote Caribbean island writing poetry and hosting fabulous friends while wafting about in your timeless linen pants forcing those visiting friends to huddle together in wonder at your effortless effervescence. But seeing it and being it and are not the same. That vision is not about spending your time ironing and yet those pants have to be ironed. They don’t get wrinkle free on their own. We often want the fruits of labor we can’t stand to make.

But I have made the labor. I have ironed the wrinkles out of my prints and now I can offer them to you. And because of that I don’t want to throw the iron at anybody’s head, most especially my own. Hurray! Check out my gorgeous new offerings here (and also in the Limited Editions menu).

Thank you!