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Soundtrack: Ingrid Michaelson - Keep Breathing

School started with the bi-annual portfolio presentation (where all the teachers and classmates are present and you get to show whatever you’ve been up to in the last six months). Don’t know about the other students but those critiques always leave me in pieces, everyone else’s work seems so much… more. And being an illustrator just never is that punk rock. (Me and my ever-present want to be cool… )

I’ve been veering off the thought of illustration as a career for some time, thinking that design is the way to go, but it keeps pulling me in. Now I’ve decided to make peace with it. Working with illustration makes me a better designer, learning about design makes me a better illustrator. I also start to like more the label “artist” because of the fluidity of movement between different media. More and more I start to dislike the idea of “a career”.

Careers don’t allow us to be fully ourselves; careers take as an index of success money and status rather than pleasure in work and creativity. ‘Vocation’, on the other hand, means ‘calling’, and it is a task that earns you a living and which you enjoy doing. … We have a duty to look into our hearts and discover our vocation, our gift. Once we have done this, we will find that other parts of life follow quite naturally.

- Tom Hodkinson: How to be Free

When I think of it like that, it all seems pretty clear.

(Oh yeah, and I turned 27.)

P.S. Still lots to do with this renewed blog, but at least there’s a working feed now. Sorry about the old comments, they are gone.

Just a quick post today, because I need to work on some exhibition pieces. (No, not a solo show yet, something smaller, but exciting still.) Other happy things: a new espresso mocca-pot and the most perfect teacups. Now I want to have someone over for an espresso (I have the most beautiful espresso cups too, ones I haven’t used in ages, because -no coffee pot), will you come? I have chocolate too.

Courage and fear - I am still thinking about those. I have this mindgame that I play all the time “what would I do if I had no fear”. And then I try to do it.

on repeat: fink - this is the thing

And the things that keep us apart
Keep me alive
And the things that keep me alive
Keep me alone
This is the thing

came home from Berlin to this package from Sia.

Today I like being just where I am. Today is about rainy day things: work, emails, tea, crafting. Listening to slow things like maps and diagrams. I want to have time to decorate, a workspace with an inspiration wire, now that I have room. (I can hang out all my treasures and postcards!) I want to bake cupcakes. I want candles. See, the little things are starting to feel good again, slowly.

Sia and I were talking about that laser quote (pale … glow) again. I think you need reminders like that around. I am sick of being so afraid of everything. I am sick of constantly worrying about what other people might think of me and the things that I do. I am sick of my blog-writing being so constrained, not to appear too boring or flakey… to appear cool (what an absurd thing to want to be at 26, surely I am over that). Perhaps I am shedding skin.

this I jotted down at the jewish museum:
If we don’t use our physical and mental capabilities, we lose them. I notice in conversations that I have to look for words that I often used in the past but can’t remember now because I no longer use them…
-from Jean Heinemann’s notebook

I feel like this a lot. In totally different context, of course. Growing up seems to be about missing some parts of yourself… has something better taken place?

——-
Over the weekend I worked on this:

These are (were) my favourite shoes of all time, but so “well worn” they were starting to hurt my feet. I thought they deserved a proper funeral… It was so much fun to craft! I need to do more this type of projects. Some t-shirts, maybe.

Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one’s courage
-Anais Nin

The above sentence is written on a postcard that came with Living Out Loud. Last week I taped it above my desk, to serve as a reminder, motto, intention, whatever you want to call it. Since then I have built my portfolio, applied to one magazine illustration job (they liked my work and will contact me about the next number) and started blogging again. After feeling stuck for a long time, something is shifting.

I am starting to believe in what seems to be written in every success/creativity book. You need to state your intention. And not in a vague kind of way. I want to make it as an illustrator some day, won’t cut it. I am a successfull illustrator, is more like it. Whatever you want, write it down. Post it in the place you see it. Think it, breathe it, live it. It will happen.

My intention - to live on my illustration alone.

Right now I am employed otherwise. And little by little my work has become (to paraphrase Tuukka) a life-sucking experience. But to make the leap to full-time freelancing? Scary as hell. Yet I think about it everyday, so I know, something’s got to change.

I also have the hardest time promoting myself. In my mind every magazine AD becomes a scary monster. Do I want to email a scary monster? No! But now I push myself. I stare at the postcard and think: I want my life to expand.

Art is not often commissioned.
We commission ourselves to make art
- Julia Cameron, The Sound of Paper

Week ago a friend and I talked about choosing careers, and especially about creative professions. She said she just doesn’t have it in her. Whatever it is. She is one of those multitalented people who is pretty great at whatever she tries her hand on. Writing, making clothes, painting… you name it.

She tells me doing that stuff is nice, but she has no real urge to do any of it. She has trouble following through her projects and although she thinks she would like a creative profession, the thought of the hard work and unstability cripples her with fear. She also fears not being original.

Half-mockingly she says I live in “the world of big plans.”
What it comes down to, I tell her, is that the excitement is far bigger than the fear. There is some kind of residual childishness, that makes me see the world as a way more magical place than most. Do what you love and things will turn out fine. “But you know me, I am such a flake,” I end the conversation.

Now I want to say -
It’s so much easier than you think. Do the little things, one drawing, one page at a time, make it work for you, not the other way round. Find your muses and catalysts, whatever works is not cheating. It’s real work, but remember to have fun…

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.

(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.

Days that stretch, that feel like Sunday. Complete with Sunday music: Jill Scott from Amsterdam, last spring; Jack Johnson. It’s hard to come down from the stress hype. I sit and stare out of the window. Wait.

Work: Resume work on print-projects. Next up, corporate identity type of work, my favourite thing.

Lately I’ve been thinking how life goes, how you build it, how do you get where you want(?) Some say: break it down to small, manageable steps. Practice your drawing today, it will pay off eventually. Read a book on starting your own business. That kind of thing.

And: Successfull people are the ones who do the things no one else will. They make the smallest job a learning opportunity. Then move on to create their own opportunities.

Some say lifeplanning, mapping, writing goals down helps. (Have you done it? Has it helped you?)

My dream life is about fun design projects, painting, a spacious studio. It’s about the books I’d like to write and/or illustrate. Travelling. Living somewhere with longer springs and autumns. Owning a beautiful old house and a garden.

I want peaceful things. The dreams about where to study don’t weigh in as much as they once did. More and more I find myself drawn to non-profit, activist kind of work. I’m more of the type to work in an anti-advertising agency than in a real one. Being my own boss is important to me.

Mostly life just flows. How can you plan ahead, when you never know what life springs at you? How do you know what is a good thing and what is not? A gut feeling? Sometimes you have to go with that.

P.S. grr. I registered to take part in this art competition, but guess what, participants from other countries may submit work but not win! What’s up with that?

Constable worked in a mill
David Smith worked in a factory
Degas and Matisse were lawyers
Van Gogh was a preacher
Cauguin started painting in his 30s
Salman Rushdie began as a copywriter
Rousseau began as a customs agent
Wallace Stevens was an insurance agent
So was Raymond Chandler
T.S. Elliot was a banker

Artist is just another label.

What’s the difference between saying, “I’m writing a screenplay” and “I’m a screenwriter,” “I paint” and “I’m a painter”? I think it’s simply insecurity. Call yourself whatever the hell you want. Or don’t. Just keep working.

Talk less about your identity and do more to define, live, and believe it.

from the creative license by danny gregory

Too many conversations about this lately.
Graphic designers, artists, illustrators who are not artists. Ad guys and ad girls, and business people. And opinions who and what is creative. Sometimes how we categorize everything and everyone gets to me.

I paint.