Creative Every Day

Weird and Wonderful World

March 31st, 2007

gelatin print made last summer

I've been feeling a bit quiet the past few days. The fiansor has been sick and so I've been taking care of him and I think I might be catching what he has because today I'm downright exhausted. I'm loving, loving, loving all the sunny weather we've been having. It was a bit crisp today, but still sunny. I met a friend for breakfast and then walked through the little town center which has a plethora of toy stores and gift shops. I walked into most of them, touching the pillow shaped like a tiger, the miniature playing cards, the vintage jewelry and eventually stopped at a section of children's books. As part of one of the book's exercises, I read a bunch of them, they made me smile. I loved a book called The Dot. I brought a couple home, one for my best friend who is pregnant and one for me, just cause. I picked out a bilingual version of Puss in Boots. hehe.

This week with Finding Water has been about being more gentle, letting go, and enjoying the moment. Several times I have found myself smiling quietly. Life is good. Last night I was reading The Red Book by Sera Beak (which is fabulous), and I loved a section on intuition which read: "...The universe was winking, and all I had to do was shut off my logical brain (and drop the expectations I had...) and follow through...Being intuitive is not about trying real hard, it's about relaxing real soft." (my italics) And it's so true, it's true not just about intuition, but about everything. I learned this lesson over and over again in massage school. Once you start, you need to let go of that logical/technical side, get soft in your body and go with the flow. At least that's what made the massage a good one for me. It's also true in my art. I think that's why I like to give myself permission to make crap. That permission allows me to let go of trying to get it right and allows my subconscious to come through.

This week in Finding Water, there's an exercise about searching for the silver lining in our rejections. Sometimes it's not even about searching for a silver lining, it's just about knowing that some things happen for a reason, a reason we won't necessarily understand at the time. This happens in small and large ways and this week I had a small example of this laid at my feet. I've been searching for a studio space for awhile now and now that my nanny job has ended, I've been trying to figure out where I will settle. Last Saturday, I went to see a space that is opening up in a few months. I'd been corresponding with a women who is part of a cooperative of artists who share one floor in an old mill building. I had a left a flyer there with my email address saying I was looking for a space and she responded. So, I went in there, thinking I was just meeting her and seeing the space and found out I was there for an interview. Five of the artists on the floor were there. The head woman asked me if I had brought slides saying, "I know I didn't ask you to bring slides, but did you?" Um, no. I was seriously taken off guard and then thinking on my toes, I spotted her laptop and suggested that she could look at my art website. They told me about how the space was run, a floor divided up into about 20 spaces, with walls that only go up about 8 feet in a room with super high ceilings, so the air space is shared (therefore you have to be careful about sound and smells). That was ok with me. We all sat in a circle and the head woman grilled me with questions about how I work, when I work, what I do, how I would afford the space, etc. I got the feeling she didn't like me much. I hit it off well with two of the artists though, so that was nice. But I felt so intimidated. It reminded me a bit of being back in art school and I felt uncomfortable, like I just wasn't good enough. The woman in charge let me know that they were interviewing other people and she'd let me know in a week or so. When one of the women gave me a copy of the floor agreements so that I could look it over, the women in charge stiffly said, "This is not an invitation. We're interviewing other people." I said, "of course, I understand."

At home, I told the fiansor about the space and how it made me kind of anxious, but that I liked two of the women and it could work. A few days later, I got an email from the head woman telling me that they had chosen someone else. She asked if I was interested in a two-month sublet this summer (I'm not) and said she'd put me on a list of people to notify if another permanent space opened up. I told her I was disappointed, but understood and to keep me in mind for future spaces. When I told the fiansor that I wasn't chosen he was very angry, but I laughed and told him I wasn't angry at all. I was disappointed, but not angry. I told him, that it just was not meant to be, something else will come up. I decided not to take it personally, who knows what went into their decision.

About 2 days later, I saw an ad on craigslist for brand new art studios in the same complex of buildings where I was last week. I corresponded by email with the woman who was helping out the landlord by posting the ad. She rented out space on a different floor from the one I visited and she was super friendly, telling me to come by for a visit. (There's also a really funny synchronicity in her being the one who responded...I saw a flyer of hers a few months ago in a Starbucks and wrote down the name of her website and loved her work.) I got in touch with the landlord and I'll be seeing the space on Monday. I can decide how much space I want, the windows and bathroom are brand new, it will be a floor of artist's studios, but sectioned off into individual spaces, I don't have to interview for the space, and this building will participate in the same open studios. Wowzers. I'm super excited about this and hopefully it will all come together beautifully. And I'm just so glad that I was able to see that the other space wasn't meant for me. For whatever reason, I trusted that something else would come. And I was right! There was something better waiting for me.

Sera Beak writes, "This is a mysteriously connected universe. We don't always consciously know how far our energy might reach and how intense its effect might be, but by doing what you intuitively feel you should be doing in this world...., you are actually, believe it or not, helping to infuse this planet...with deep soulful purpose as well as encouraging other beings to seek out and bravely live their own role." It is a mysteriously connected universe and I've always liked to think of these little synchronicities as winks from the universe. I have trouble trusting in these small coincidences, but either way, I love them. The blogging world is full of them, those crazy connections that bring us together. Just the other day, a new blogger let me know that on the same day I was taking pictures of jellies, she was doing the same on the other side of the continent. Life is weird and wonderful.