Art and Commerce

I had a story that I was telling myself about making art. It was told to me by someone who influenced my life at an early age. The story goes like this. To be an artist you must not do anything else to earn a living. You can only make art and that is it, nothing else, you will suffer because no one really understands an artist's life but you will be superior because you have made this ultimate sacrifice in the name of art.

I understood that I needed to make a living and I chose graphic design and that is what I have been doing since I set foot on the pavement outside my college. Internally I made the distinction between art and design. Design was a living, art was uncertain. I chose a life with some certainty of an income and for many years I supported myself and my artist husband while he suffered along making art but very little money. We both suffered and I think art suffered too.

What I now understand about art is that it's a practice, and in the 29 years since I graduated from my college with a degree in Fine Art, I have been practicing my craft and my craft is art. I feel a sense of relief at this revelation. There was no time wasted—as I had thought—not making art because I was making art, and I was living a life that I had solely created for myself. In the 29 years since graduation I have been  honing my visual acuity and my discipline toward art making and art theory.

Lately I am working on projects that seem to blur the lines, or bridge the gap between art and design. I am supporting myself and my child by working hard at what I know and love and I am challenging myself all the while enjoying the life I have created for us.

I will always work. I think working in collaboration with others is what really makes us whole. I am sorry for those who lock themselves up in their suffering and superiority in the name of art. Art doesn't ask that of you. Ultimately being self supporting is the most freeing of all things. To be an independent person, a free thinker, unencumbered seems a good goal to me and the right thing to do to really begin to explore creativity.

There is a subtext here about the person who told me this story. We have to pay in this life. We either work and pay our own way and carve out time for what we love, or we find a way to integrate work and art, or we siphon our living off the backs of others, our spouses, parents, the government. Whatever you choose you have to eat and keep the lights on and someone has to pay those bills. Someone has to get up everyday and have a plan for how you are going to eat and I think it's reasonable that everyone who is eating is contributing something in some way, artist or not.

Falling Up

So much to report. The changing leaves are sublime, we've been enjoying mysterious fog. I finally got rid of my car. It feels really good to be able to drive around again freely, at night without that fear that I am going to get pulled over for having headlights out or for polluting my town with cloud of blue smoke that had begun following me around. The Passat served me well over the past 12 years and it was beyond fixing. Finding a new vehicle was a challenge. We looked at Explorers and Suburbans, vehicles that could tow our little trailer. The Fords were cheap and plasticky, the Suburbans were smelly and I could feel myself slipping into a sadness that was alarming. I had been driving a fairly nice, higher end vehicle and I was learning the hard way that the status of said vehicle mattered to me, a lot. We were cheaping out, looking at cars that were under $2k. I got my cash together and we got onto looking at smaller Chevys, V-8s, newer models. I want something that was born in the 2000s, the Passat was a '95. I needed to get out of the nineties. We finally hit on a 2001 white Blazer, 4dr, 4WD. It suits me, it has good pick-up, the body is bigger than the Passat but not gigantic like the Suburban, it fits in the carport and handles pretty well in tight spaces. It sucks gas but nothing is perfect, I ration my driving. I drive more slowly. It's a huge relief to have this mundane task taken care of. I knew the drive to Smithers would be the last for the old Passat. I took it to the recyclers and they paid me $260 to crush it. My ownership of that car can only be described as the classic abusive relationship. The car looked good and I felt great in it, but it beat the shit out of me, time and time again. On the drive to the recyclers I kept thinking how good it felt to drive it again, how nice the leather seats felt, how well it handled, low on the road, quiet on newer tires. I put all the bad stuff out of my mind and enjoyed it one last time.

It's been two months since I forced the kid onto the X-Country team at school. The first few weeks were brutal. Teary pick-ups and dirty looks. My gut feeling that it would be good for her has payed off. She loves the team interaction, and the running practice has visible benefits. She still complains a bit about their training but this week she shaved 4 minutes off her time for the 5K and man she looked great doing it. She surprised herself I think and was pleased with how it felt to do well. She's healthier and happier and the experience of going to all these mid-week and weekend meets has been good for me too. I have reconnected with many moms I knew years ago when Pearl was small. One woman in particular, was instrumental during the time I was choosing an adoption agency to work with. She was also looking for an agency she could work with and eventually adopted just after Pearl was born. Her daughter is also running XC for a school in town. I feel a great sense of renewal reconnecting with people and also seeing my daughter blossom along with her peers and make new connections through physical activity.

And me. How am I? Well the weather has been perfect and I have been busy enjoying it. I have been helping in the garden, taking out the tomatoes and cutting down the spent raspberry canes. I am deeply grateful for everything and mindful of my self care as we slide into darkness. It rained a lot early in September and I just wasn't ready to fold up and go inside. Miraculously the rain stopped and October has been dry. We have been given a reprieve, more time given to strengthen and steady ourselves before the deep grayness of winter sets in. We have no control over how our reactions to dark will be from year to year. There are so many variable but for now I am just plain grateful for good weather that allows me to be active outdoors and to have so many good friends on whom to lean if I do start to falter. It rained in the night but the sun is back today so out we'll go and continue to beat back the wilderness.

I'm rapidly approaching my 50th birthday and while I am sure I will experience some more feelings about it, for right now I feel okay. The last few years were rough and I still have the occasional moment when things feel sketchy at best. I know it will pass and in the moment it's a good idea to get out and move around, put yourself in nature. Connect to something greater than your measly-self. Feel your body's sensations, good and bad, move around. When I start to feel that separation of what I know to be happening and that which is imagined, it is best to get up and go outdoors. I find that engaging my body in physical activity I can move through the worst of the rising confusion and despair. Set your hands to labor, knit, wash the dishes, dance, scream if you have to. It will pass. The more I am mindful of the effects of my readjusting hormones, the less scary their manifestations become. We are all unique, the point is to see what works best for you. (Sorry how this is written. I had had a discussion with a friend who had hit a few rough patches and was seeking a pharmaceutical answer. I was encouraging exercise, rest, and kindness.)

Monday again and time to get back to work. Halloween this week which I will thankfully miss. I hate dressing-up, isn't it enough that I get myself dressed and put together and presented to the world everyday? I have enough trouble with my own ego let alone an alter one. Above is a snippit of a piece I am working on, must get to the finishing. Off we go!

Swept away.

So far it's one of those springs when the weather got hot early and the snow has melted quickly. The local creeks are full and rushing and the combination of this and fine weather seems to draw young men (typically) to fast water. Two were lost at the height of the heatwave in Gold Creek near here, in a swimming hole we have swum in but that was late in the summer and by then the water was tired from rushing and the only danger was the icy temperature. Even my dad leaped into the granite pool carved there by centuries of falling water. Young men have also been lost in capsized canoes in deep interior lakes that bear pioneer women's names. Bodies are washing up on the banks of the Fraser, remains have been found up north in Prince George. Yesterday a boulder crushed two campers, a man and his daughter. Harsh spring, but a beautiful one.

The sun has been shining and so I have had no time to be reflective beyond noticing how tremendously hopeful and happy I feel. On Monday while I hung out the laundry on the clothesline I could hear bees buzzing loudly and naturally thought it sounded like trucks and cars whizzing by on the Trans-Canada highway 5 miles to the north. It turned out it was a bee swarm in a tree above my office. Mark was panicked as he has an irrational fear of bees and he was in the office when they appeared. I was over-the-moon. Let's face it the last few months have been rather hellish in the work department so the appearance of nature's busiest creature felt more symbolic than plagueish to me. The bees have stayed and so have the indications that I will probably be okay after all. I launched my new website, and reinstated my land line after a year and a channel of communication as wide as the Ganges has opened. We borrowed a box for the bees from our neighbor on Tuesday and thanks to the internet we set it in what seems like a good location. We rubbed the box with lemon rind and Mark put a bit of honey near the entrance. He relaxed around the bees and let his natural obsessive tendency kick in checking on the swarm and box every 45 seconds.

It's 8 days later now, it's been raining and I have returned from Canada to discover the swarm still up in the tree but the bee box is quiet and I fear barren. I have been busy with work and in between things today I took the opportunity to prune a few limbs along the driveway. I found myself under this red twig dogwood and the blossoms were alive with bees. I felt so pleased to discover they were here on the property. I am hoping that there is so much pollen to be had that the bees are lingering around and are enjoying being up that tree. Who can blame them, they have a view of the whole yard. I really want to open the box to see what went on in there. Did they just come in and raid the cupboards, so-to-speak, rob the hive of its honey and move along? It's a possibility but they are still up there so I am still hopeful that they will let me make them a home here.

Mood swings.

Holy cow, almost a month since my last post. Time flies and not in a good way always. In some ways I am just hanging on by a thread but in most ways I am a hardy Fir tree, sturdy and deeply rooted in my routine which feeds all my needs, creatively anyway. Spring is arriving like baby teeth, coming up and receding, sometimes all in the same day. I am rebuilding things, re-making myself, coming back out of the shell I put myself in now and then only to realize that while I love shell life I love the bigger world too. What I want to know is if all this positivity is due to the weather or if I am generating it myself. I haven't felt this good in years, maybe ever but I was a bit surprised when I noticed other people were feeling super good too and it was sunny and we all got outside. Am I responding to mass hysteria brought on by the pollen rich air? I prefer to think I am the master of my moods and that the sunshine just makes it all more pleasant rather than the other way around. I want to think I can control how I feel about things. I think I can, I think I can, I feel like I am.

My Ideal Day

Here it is in a nutshell, my ideal day.

6:30am to 7am: Mom duties. Sandwich making, lecturing, checking in, hugging.

7am to 8am: Drink coffee and write, take notes, make lists, think. Ignore negative thoughts.

8am to 11am: Work without distraction. This means staying off the web. When the urge to get distracted hits, make note of said distraction to explore later. No Facebooking*

11am to 1pm: Break for exercise and nourishment, possible reading, knitting.

1pm to 4pm: Work without distraction and perform simultaneous afterschool check-in with the offsrping. Stay in chair.

4pm to 7pm: Take care of the business of being alive. Meal prep, house cleaning, animal care, errands, fire prep, odd jobs.

7pm to 10pm: Free time. Explore web distractions from earlier in the day, knit, sew, paint, whatever. Lay face down on couch. Snuggle with offspring and cat.

10pm: Time to lay this redhead down. Read.

Repeat from top daily to maintain mental, financial, and creative health. Seems pretty doable and it adds an hour to my billable time which is positive. I am hoping that by following this schedule I will have time to do the things I need to do while giving myself time to float and think and entertain all the other stuff that ricochets around in my spongy brain.

* More and more I see Facebook as a way we are being kept down and controlled by marketers. There is too much information available to us and we begin to think it's all important. It's not. I am finding that self directed study is more helpful and honestly healthful.

Study

I am. Trying. I am trying. I am studying. I am thinking. All these I am statements. I am confused. I am lost. I am tired. I am tired of I am. I am taking a bath on Friday morning and I am thinking of Winston Churchill who took baths every morning to sort himself out before his day. He painted too, to help ease the black dog of depression that followed him about his English life, his misunderstood to him at the time life. Let's assume that we all have this and decide never to speak of it again because it is neither productive nor interesting. It is dull and we don't have much time so why not just read happily in the bath and be glad our belly is not as huge as Winston's was and be pleased about our female genitalia soaking in the hot water and just feel good. Let's try that. I am drifting off from where I have been, where I came to 30yrs ago. This land called America. I am moving north in my mind at the moment, later my body will follow. I am noticing things about my womanhood, more now as it perches at the edge of one phase ready to sweep down into the next phase. I am noticing things about my place in my world and where I belong based on my DNA and the information absorbed by my cells when they were forming and growing. I am thinking about but not quite making the art I want to make but I am coming to it, rolling it around in my brain, in my mouth, my hands, my heart. Sitting in water on Friday morning reading about politics while listening to the radio from the north straddling phases and borders, roles, disciplines. Rise up. Leave the skin filled water behind and walk out into the gray day which lays before me. I am moving ahead and despite the periodic blindness that seeks to derail me all the signs are pointing to success whatever that is. I have always been lucky. I am not afraid of hard work and I like making progress so that is what I will do. Thank you for reminding me of what I already knew in the face of what is unknown.

September Manifesto

Because I didn't have to, I spent the weekend working in my studio. Since January I have been working on a series of self portraits in an effort to give myself a vehicle for experimentation beyond my daily work. I began by taking photos of myself and then making paintings using water colors. In the beginning the paintings were small now they are bigger. I have never been adept with water color but I did it anyway. Each piece has resulted in a satisfying surprise. Needless to say the creative process or the process of making something is mysterious. You never know how things will turn out and often this uncertainty stops me from making anything and based on the number of self help books on the subject I am not the only one. I am still trying to keep connected to my morning pages and the self portrait series has given me some clearly defined parameters in which to make visual work. I bought a bunch of wood mounted Linonelum blocks a few months ago with a mind to create some lino-cuts but the mood never quite struck me until a few days ago. The pieces above are some of the results. I intend to add 2 more layers to the piece which will involve some type. I am not sure how I feel about the cartoon-ish nature of the drawing but I do like the authentically thoughtful facial expression. The main thing about these pieces is to not question them too heavily. I am trying to accept first that they are valid because of their mere existence and I will think more deeply about them once I have a lot of them to consider.

Storytelling

I am working on writing a story. I realize that I am not confident that I know exactly how to write a story but I am not letting that stop me. I have some key events to weave into something and I am not sure that I know where it is all going but I am moving forward with it anyway. My biggest fear is that the story won't go anywhere, that there will be no climax or resolution. Do these things even exist or is there just resignation, acceptance and adaption. I have no answers but maybe answers are not even a reasonable goal. I am writing this story and as things come to mind I put them in, like I am making a salad. I am a good salad maker so maybe I can focus on that, and making the story won't feel so uncharted. Now that I have mentioned it here I will have to finish it and present it somehow, that's okay, I am interested in finishing things these days.

On second thought

I had a whole shoe rant going but with all this sun it's hard to be committed to whiny negativity. I'll get some shoes for spring, somehow. They'll be black not rust or pea green but I will survive. Instead I want to say something about Facebook. I turned off all notifications to my email and Blackberry because I was getting a little obsessed, so now when I check in after a few hours away from FaceCrack it's like opening a little present, seeing peoples likes and comments feels good. So there, back to work all of you.

The Process

As much as I drag my feet when it's time to put a proposal together for a job I found today that I actually felt good about doing it. This is an improvement. I like making money and I feel pretty sure that what I do has real value. Where it gets sticky for me is laying out the entire process and assigning a dollar amount to each task, every job is different, each client is unique. So I decided to approach it in a different way. I started a few days ago, making a sketch of the process, a time line of sorts. I broke the whole process into 4 phases and then broke down the tasks in each phase and assigned time to each one. Now if I get the job I won't have to do much thinking about the process because I will have it all mapped out and if you're like me structure is super important. It's funny these little moments of clarity I have. I have been doing this work a long time but I still try to make the process better each time. I don't want to go through life dragging my feet, dreading the minutiae. I was inspired this week by this artist. We are not robots and there is a creative aspect to everything I do. After I sent my proposal off I went for a long drizzly walk, it snowed this morning, and tonight after I fulfill my duties as a mom I will reward myself with some more portrait painting.

New SIte!

…and it's live. The website I have been working on for the past year or so is finally here. The plight of the Shoemaker's barefooted children is true. I spend way more time on client work than I do on my own promotional efforts but like most things I set my hand to, they do get done, eventually. It is with great pride that I launch my fourth website associated with my own company. One tip, it works more like a book than a website. Enjoy!

Peerless Comfort

Back in my office after being away for a few days and looking ahead to several days of long hours at my desk, I find I could not be happier. I have few high-end consumer products but there is one that I would not trade for anything and that is my Herman Miller Aeron Chair. I am struck, while easing into it this morning-after working from my couch last night and Mark's dining room chairs over the weekend-you really can't beat the comfort of this chair. As usual I am still fighting the residual weekend funk, battling myself but sitting in this chair and feeling it's tremendous support I am encouraged to sit up and snap out of it. Maybe you can buy happiness after all.

Motivation

I think I might need someone to come over and yell at me a bit to get working. I am in some kind of strange placid mode where I am dreamily going from one pleasant task to another. Knitting, cooking, tidying, fire stoking, long pensive walks. It's all quite surreal but I really need to get back on the billable hours horse.

Quickie

I have 9 minutes to make a blog post. I have to get back to printing my annual pre-christmas job. It's been going well thanks to the miracle of polymer plates and friendly technical help from my friends at Bison. It was my birthday yesterday which didn't stop me from working. I love my work, let's face it and I feel good when I get things done so that is a gift. I had a nice day, a couple of friends came over and we ate and drank, two more things that are good to do. Mark put up the Christmas lights and suddenly I feel really good about the holidays, a strange sensation as it is not always the way. So I am buzzing with love from my family and friends, enjoying my work and the sun is even shining, not too shabby. Have a good week, I know I will.

Recent Work

Here's a little photo journal of a recent project. You might have to become a fan of DoubleMRanch Design on Facebook to view it. A small price to pay.

Hateful

Feeling a bit evil today. A little hateful. I have just hosed off my back patio for the umpteenth time because it was covered in peacock shit. I hate the peacock. I want to eat him, or stuff him. Actually eating would be better because then he would be gone. If I stuffed him I would then be doomed to move his almost lifelike body around my life until I drew my last breath, knowing my inability to get rid of things. I now seriously question the likely-hood that he is my mother incarnate. She was tidy and would never litter my yard with stinky piles, there is no symbolism here. He is a freeloader, a malingerer. The house is a mess and this is what's eating me. I need to clean and I don't want to. I have really been enjoying time in my office lately, working and plotting. It's been a long time since I felt this deep love for what I do and I want to engage myself fully but my domestic responsibilities are suffocating and distracting me. I made my bed today but even that task wanted more from me than I could reasonably give it. I smoothed the sheets and pulled up the duvet but I noted to my dismay a subtle imbalance in the distribution of the feathers under the coverlet. If I had more interest I would have pulled off the quilt and shaken it repeatedly, redistributing the feathers evenly throughout and returning the two to the bed so that the vast plain of bedding was evenly puffy. I am in the living room and this depression on the bed in the next room is weighing on me. The kitchen is chaotic, the dining room table is awash in mail, magazines, notes from school, tile and empty bottles of wine begging to be recycled and yet I blog. I need a wife. I need someone to come in and keep everything in order so I can do what I please, what a luxury that would be. Whining aside, I'll probably clean for the next two hours as I generally do on Thursday mornings and then I will work and take a walk and feel fine once again. Thanks for listening.

New Site

I am working on—have been working on—a new website for my little company. It's hell. Doing work for yourself is so difficult because it never gets priority. I am trying something new with this site and so there is a huge amount of angst and uncertainty about it. Plus, I can no longer do all my own programming (that is if I want the site to look any good) so I have to spend time communicating what I want to others and then like a horrendous client I am prone to change my mind because time passes between my work sessions and when I come back to look at what I have created, I think what on earth was I thinking. Here's the splash page and my new logo to amuse you while I grind the rest of the content out.

Splitting in Two

Not so much blogging going on as I am at a crossroads. Now that I have a Facebook page for my company I feel I need to blog in a more focused way. There was a time when I was willing to mush it all together, the professional and personal, but I have had a rethink in the process of redesigning my website. I am thinking a lot more about writing these days than I am actually writing and it's because the content of what I want to write doesn't really fit on a blog about design so sometime soon these blogs will split in two and you, my dear followers (hold up your hands) can decide where you want to read.

I'm floating on the surface of things and I long to go deeper and further with my exploration. So stay tuned, things are going to change.

A little Inspiration

Thought it was Monday but alas that ship has sailed and so it's on to Tuesday and a little inspiration to help you along. One of my favorite books when I am working on logos of a particular nature is the above shown book from Chronicle. It's cheerful and colorful and has lots of great examples of the type of typography that will warm the cockles of your heart.

A Fish Story

The one that got away

The process of branding is fraught with difficulty. Often times, in addition to creating the brand image we are also called upon to educate the client being branded. Sometimes the client is a willing pupil. In the best case scenario, the client is visually neutral but has an understanding of the importance of a strong brand and realizes that hiring a team of professionals is the best means to that end. Of course this only happens in my dreams.

Generally the process begins with conceptual discussions, we get to know the subject of the branding on paper. We make lists about what it is, what it should be and eventually what it could be. We consider similar brands, we take the pulse of the clients visual savvy. As concepts begin to appear and float past me I attach form, color, and typography to otherwise shapeless ideas. I create visual parameters based on our findings. We do this in a timely fashion, it's possible to spend a lot of time thinking about things, discussing concepts and possibilities but eventually you have to put mouse to mouse-pad and make something concrete. Logos are by far the most challenging thing I do in large part because of the public perception about them. The most simple logos that are out there in circulation took hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours on the part of trained designers, illustrators and creative directors. Often this simplicity of form is misinterpreted as simple and easily achievable. To hone an idea down to it's very essence takes time and experience. The saddest and most frustrating thing about brand development is that there is no accounting for personal taste and sometimes the perception of a client can derail the creative process to the point of unavoidable crash. I have heard careless words spoken in a meeting throw a project irretrievably off course. I never claim to have all the answers in these situations but I have my process and I have instinct which has developed over 2 plus decades creating things that communicate ideas. Like I said it's never easy and it can often be very frustrating for both sides of the equation.

The most surprising element of the whole process is the fear that often grips a client. I have seen clients, rather than choose a brand and put it out into the world to see what comes of it, retract their mission completely and do nothing. I am an adventurer and branding is a journey. We make determinations about our audiences needs and we trim our sails and set our ideas free to be received by the larger world. Shots across the bow are to be expected and learned from. The key thing being, it is more valuable to be on the branding journey than left without a voice or visual identity, tied tightly to the dock. If the idea sinks you go back to the drawing board and plot a new course. For the most part though, once a brand lives out in the world and is seen and understood by it's audience, over time the message overtakes mere graphic structure, the language of the brand develops and word spreads.

My team and I had the pleasure of working on a branding project earlier this year. Sadly, due to circumstances beyond our control and despite our years of informed experience the branding was stopped. I was quite pleased with the logo we produced for the budget that was available. We gave a lot of thought to what this logo would stand for and the message it would relay to a waiting community. I was happy that we were able to keep the form of the logo out of the hackneyed realm of pictorials involving salmon and coastal mountains. We asserted the brand was about making the concept of urban development feel acceptable to a suspicious public. It was about process and collaboration and the environment. It was a map, a streetscene, a neighborhood quilt, a community forming itself for the public good.

It's easy to come away from these experiences bruised. With this project though I feel that we listened well and we did our homework. We understand the process of branding very well and we were all disappointed when we were not able to see the project to fruition. Our loss was not monetary but philosophical in many ways. We take what we do seriously and we know the power of our work. It's too bad this one got away.