April 19, 2004
In the several years I’ve been working as an artist, I’ve asked for outside help with projects only a handful of times, if that.
Despite having access to a lot of fabulously talented and helpful people, I’ve never really called on any of them. Oh there have been so many times I’ve secretly asked for help but the words never came out of my mouth. It’s not that I was afraid of rejection or people giving negative feedback or help, but in being afraid that I couldn’t do it all on my own.
This has been a struggle with me because so many people think I am the one with all the answers. I am the one they come to with questions, concerns and calls for help – to which I always respond if I can. It just felt awkward to me to say, “Hey, I need some outside feedback.” It felt as though I were saying I wasn’t good enough somehow.
However, I realised this year that I do need help, especially with regards to a book I’m writing. I had the idea, I had the concept but I didn’t have perspective anymore. I had been in this book for far too long, the words all seemed repetitive and the idea almost boring. I had to create a new title and I couldn’t. I couldn’t step outside myself.
I knew I had to ask for help but it felt terribly embarrassing. What if people didn’t want to help me? What if they thought me daft for even asking? What if they thought the whole idea stupid? What if, what if, what if.
It’s a terrible state to live in, the what if state. I knew I needed to move out so I started to ask.
At first, I asked just several friends. Only one of them responded. My first fear of people not wanting to help me had been overcome – some didn’t want to help and I was still alive and no worse for wear. So I worked up the courage over the next several days to ask for more.
I put out a call on the Another Girl at Play Mailing List, asking for volunteers. I was slightly secretive about the project, not wanting to be public about something that could be seen as silly. A couple of people responded and when I replied to one with the details, I had accidentally sent the message to the whole list!
It wasn’t the error that embarrassed me but the fact I had now publicly declared my idea and need to hundreds of women! I sat for a few moments with this blunder and thought to myself, maybe this is the universe telling me I need to get LOUD and COMFORTABLE with sharing and asking for help.
So I did.
I said right after this, “I am ready for help” and then it literally started to pour in.
Lots of people were offering ideas, suggestions, information and most of all, support. In ten minutes I got further ahead because of other people than I had in the past two months of trying on my own. I had perspective, fresh ideas and most of all, the comfort of asking for (and receiving) help.
April 17, 2004
I believe that you have to actively be working on or towards something in order for people to actively help you.
So often I see people saying “I want help with my life/dream/goals” whilst doing nothing. They want someone to just drop in, tell them what to do, hand them their life and then just take over. It doesn’t work that way.
The universe (and people) respond to specifics. They respond to activity. You have to have an idea and be working on it (even if it’s just trying to really formulate the idea on paper first) in order to get a response. If you’re not willing to help yourself, why and how should someone else help you?
April 17, 2004
So much has been happening that it’s going to take me a couple of weeks to really dish it out. Many changes, new directions, lots of excitement.
One thing I want to get out before I mention other bits is that I am once again selling prints, after selling out completely last year. There’s a couple of new ones that I’ve created based on demand.
For more information, please visit The Gallery.
April 07, 2004
Last fall, a boutique owner contacted me to do some cards to sell in her shop. I told her I would look into this but never really found the time. In the winter, I sent out a few handmade cards to family and one friend, who is an artist and a production designer on movie sets, told me I should really market them because they’re really good. I said I would look into this but never really found the time.
I did, however, find the time to shop dozens of times for all the materials I would need. I would lose myself for hours picking out card stock, ribbons, colours, punches, stamps. There wasn’t anything that would make time fly faster than mentally creating these cards. But, to actually make them, well, I kept telling myself, there wasn’t time. I had work to do instead.
I went through this pattern again last night, losing myself in a supply shop, happily bringing the purchases home, knowing exactly what I want to do with the cards then saying, �when I have a spare moment in the evening, I�ll do it.� That�s when I realised that this is work, it just feels like play and that isn’t wrong � that�s exactly how it should be.
When people ask me for direction I always reply with the wise words of Carl Jung:
Somehow, I seemed to have forgotten that for myself.
With so much writing projects going on, tight deadlines, revisions, new ideas, trying to finalise books, the idea of play has been slightly lost on me. That’s not to say I’ve been working unhappily, on the contrary. I love my work and what I’m doing; I can’t imagine doing anything else. But it’s all been structured work, no free form like drawing, creating, or making cards.
I had begun to think of anything unstructured that didn’t have deadlines or a direct benefit as play and useless. If I sit and create cards during the day, there’s no guarantee that anything will come to fruition. That if I just do something that is fun with no direct pay off, it must not be work. It’s just too much fun to be work.
And that’s where I was wrong.
The one belief I’ve held very strongly is that creative people cannot do just one thing creatively. A writer cannot just writer, a painter cannot just paint, and a designer doesn’t just design. Creative people like to have messy hands dipped in many inks. We aren’t satisfied otherwise and this is OK. In fact, it’s more than OK because creativity inspires creativity. Doing many things help us to create in the different areas. Designing cards will help me to design, to write, and to remain creative. There is a benefit. It is useful.
One of the biggest struggles I’ve had working on my own is not feeling guilty about the freedom I have. The freedom to work the hours I want, to take days off when I want, to lay in bed in the afternoon or break for tea. This is a common struggle for artists and I thought I was pretty much over it. I no longer apologised for working at home while friends and family went to a cubicle. I no longer felt sheepish about saying I napped frequently in the afternoon and I could take days off without having work on my mind. But I hadn’t come to terms with the fact that play was good and useful. That creativity doesn’t have to be structured; it just has to feel good.
That’s why I called this site Girl at Play after all; I wanted my work to feel like play. It just took me awhile to get comfortable with that.
April 05, 2004
The Hip Traveller launched today, a fabulous travel web site with an article from my portfolio in it.
I believe in the cycle of support and not in the worry of competition. I believe if I want to continue to have a career in writing and in art, I must support it with either time, donations, work or purchases.