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When you get your best illustration gig ever, three days before your entrance exam, do you refuse? Hell no! The work in question being banner-illustrations and banner design for one of the biggest (the biggest?) webportals in Finland, which is going through a complete site redesign soon.

A friend comments that the thing architecture school left me with seems to be the ability to deal with crazy deadlines. I think it’s more about learning the freelance desiger ethic: when you’ve got work flowing in, you push other things aside and do it. And when there’s no work, you resume other things. Flexibility, to some extent.

The entrance exams start tomorrow. Good thing I haven’t had time to be nervous yet. After Tuesday there will be another cut and only half will be picked for the final stage, which will go on from Wednesday to Friday. Yikes! Wish me luck! I will get back to work now…

Rain. The raindrops tapping on roofs. Sun. A walk to the beach. It’s like two seasons in one day.

A great conversation with a friend made me try to refine some thoughts on growing up: I think the biggest lesson to learn, something that deems adulthood, is starting to do things for you and no one else. Not doing harmful things to spite someone else. Learning to take care of yourself, your health, your happiness. Learning to think you really are worth it. (sometimes I feel that so few of us do.)

Ask yourself some simple questions:
Am I feeling comfortable or uncomfortable?
Am I feeling happy or unhappy?
How am I alllowing myself to feel unhappy?
What am I allowing that isn’t making me happy?
Then ask yourself, What steps can I take?
- Bija Bennett

music video to make you smile
a book to make you smile
(gotta love the title)

head in the direction you are drawn to, even if you think it’s impossible or you don’t know how you will manage. Once you make the decision completely to do something the universe will jump in to help you out.

This week I’ve kept going back to Keri’s blog just to read the words above, again and again. I don’t know what they told me. Waiting for the letter they calmed me.

Trust the universe.

And then I got an invitation to take part in entrance examination to TAIK’s graphic design and illustration program. Yay!

(old and quick illo I still love)

April pointed me to this speech given by Steve Jobs. (love it!)

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something; your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

more inspiration:
directions in work
lunapark
kelly lynn jones
akiko kino quilts
ruby mag #6

(today spent looking for a retro classic modern font)

Ask yourself this question: “Would I have ever gotten started with this project, relationship, career, etc. if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I now know?” If your answer is no, then get out as soon as possible.

There is no honor in dedicating your life to the pursuit of a goal which no longer inspires you. You must constantly re-assess your present situation to accurately decide what to do next. Whatever you’ve decided in the past is largely irrelevant if you would not renew that decision today.

Reading this article made me realise why career conversations with my parents (or my mother) are simply fruitless. We are not even on the same page. No matter how much I try to explain my point of view, our ideas never meet. And nothing really hurts as much as lack of support from your parents.

Where do we get this “life is short, make the most of it” -mindset? Maybe it’s the way my generation thinks. Maybe it’s the events we live through; surviving a serious illness (check), a best friend dying unexpectedly at sixteen (check). Life events that make us take stock. Or maybe it is simply a question of personality.

I think it is courageous, how young people dare to dream, and try, and fail. Especially these days when degree doesn’t equal a career anymore, and it’s probable we will never be as well off financially as our parents. I am sick of all this talk about us being unrealistic and spoilt. It is so much harder than you think! So shut up, and let us fail our own lives.

[/ vent]

Most people seem to have an innate fear of failure, but failure is really your best friend. People who succeed also fail a great deal because they make a lot of attempts. The great baseball player Babe Ruth held the homerun record and the strikeout record at the same time. Those who have the most successes also have the most failures. There is nothing wrong or shameful in failing. The only regret lies in never making the attempt.

weekend inspiration:
drawings by stella im hultberg
letterpessed goodies from peculiar pair press
art by gina triplett
tea towels from third drawer down
everything from mahar drygoods
and so cool

There was an empty little shop space near to where I live. Yesterday I noticed it had been turned into a gallery, some photographs hung on the walls. The gallery name was spelled with yellow tape on the window. “gap year”

I smiled.

I am great at making alternate plans. Right now they are: evening art school. Dutch courses at University. Not that my two fab jobs won’t keep me busy (two? you ask. the other one is still a secret.)

But you never know what happens. If you’d asked me last spring where I’d be in a year I’d never could have predicted what I am doing now. Last year has been the hardest, scariest, longest year. And lately, the happiest.

A year ago I had no clue what to do with my life. I had initially applied to architecture school because it was The Right Thing To Do (at least according to my family). I got in and did my schoolwork half-heartedly, but spent my freetime surfing illustrator sites, reading about typography and coding websites. The only class I ever enjoyed was the one and only graphic design course offered.

I grew to resent school more and more. Then a year ago in March there was this email sent to the architecture department mailing list, looking for an illustrator for a cookbook. “I wish I could apply,” I thought, “but I have no work samples.”

Except for the drawings in my sketchbooks, I realised. I had started to draw some everyday things around me, fruit, flowers, kitchen things. I scanned some of my drawings and sent them to the publisher. I got as far as making a sample page, but didn’t get the job. What stuck with me was what my best friend said, “Your eyes are shining. I have never seen you as excited about anything.”

Sometimes I forget it’s been only a year. That I can’t expect to get into school right away. I haven’t been drawing for long. The important thing now is that I’ve started to look for the right thing for me.

Now tell me your story.

No mail. Nothing. From the third choice school.

And when it’s this hard already, how am I going to keep it together for two weeks before the last letter? Stress is a funny thing, you keep yourself in piece to the last straw, but little things start to crumble. Returning emails, getting any work done, sleeping, all become difficult. Irrational fights. Hysterical crying. All flavour of past couple of weeks.

And when I say, that not getting in to school would be the best thing for me, so that I will put together a kick-ass portfolio, learn Dutch, and find myself a school in Holland next year…
I mean it. But right now, I just don’t feel it.

I will be fine… in a little while.

Dealing with rejection is something that we all struggle with, even when we are doing what we love. Especially when we are doing what we love. (wish jar tales)

(see more pics here)

A while back I did two illustrations of jazz musicians for Eva Nouveau, for her clients jazz-themed wedding. She picked one to use for the Save The Date -cards and this is how they turned out. The other illustration (of an upright bass player) might be used for a wedding cd.

There is no feeling like the one you get when you see your work in print! Especially right now. Thanks again for working with me Eva!