Yippee Skippee!

This catalogue for Bead Fest Santa Fe just came in the mail, bundled with my copy of Lapidary Journal Jewelery Artist. And that's my silver and resin cloud on the cover!  Those little letters underneath say "Pat Evans" for all the world--or all the subscribers, anyway--to see. I'd been feeling a little down because I haven't heard from Bead and Button, which at this point means that I didn't get in. Getting this positioning on the cover for Bead Fest makes me feel a whole lot better.

The show is in March...I'm really looking forward to the trip. My cousin and I are going to drive there and sightsee all along the way. Anyone else up for a cool jewelry vacation to escape the dregs of winter? Santa Fe is going to be a great show, and I'd love to see my friends there. (And there are lots of cool classes besides mine.)

Feeling like a beginner....

I started taking some online art classes through my local community college. Although I think of myself as a jewelry artist, I don't think of myself as an "artist" artist. Being in a beginning digital art class with people who can paint rings around me is a humbling experience. (We won't even discuss Beginning Drawing.) However well I end up doing in these classes, I've already learned one big lesson--I'm remembering how it feels to not know how to do something, how frustrating it is when the teacher seems to assume I already know some vital step, how different my final product is from the image in my mind, how much better everyone else's work seems than mine, and how afraid I am that I'll never be as good as the other kids. I may not ever be able to sketch like Degas, but I hope I'll at least keep all these emotions in mind the next time I teach.

Summer work

It must be summer

when starfish hijack my art

and waves call my name

The Power of Lists

Even though September always feels like the "real" new year to me, thanks to many years of school, kids in school, and teaching, I like the fresh start of January, too. I love making lists, having the dream of achieving everything on them, and checking off accomplishments (which usually lasts a few days, at least.) The good news is that even though the lists go by the wayside sooner or later, the intentions in them live on. I recently found a list of goals from a couple of years ago, and I had actually achieved most of them, even thought the list was long forgotten.

So it is that even though I know myself well enough to know that I won't keep up with the check-offs for long, I am busily making lists of goals in various areas of my life--Health, Home, Art and Business. I'm breaking them down into smaller steps, and trying to do a little in each area every day. It's day 2 and I've already slipped up on some things (no walking yesterday, sigh). But that's OK. The intention is there, and I've learned not to let one slip-up stop all progress. So off I went to walk this morning.

It helped that I had an appointment to walk with a friend. I used to keep my goals closely held, so that if I goofed, no one would know. I've learned that sharing the goals with a few close friends, and working with them to attain them, helps to keep me accountable. So I'm adding another goal to the list--find like-minded people to work with in supporting ourselves in that perpetual search for growth. May you find many supporters on your path, too--and let me know if you need me to be on your team. I'll certainly be contacting some of you.

Building an Infrastructure

I've been following the amazing bridge repair feat of a lifetime that is happening this weekend on the San Francisco Bay Bridge (www.baybridgeinfo.org). The planning, practice and expertise that have gone into the undertaking are simply amazing. Go watch a video or two, and pay special attention to the faces of the people involved. They seem bemused and proud at the same time, and they fairly vibrate with excitement.

That's what I want to feel about my work every time I sit down to create. And the lessons these bridge builders have to share are lessons for makers of all sorts. Prepare every way you can--practice, have even more materials than you think you'll need, rehearse, know all the tricks of the trade--and then dive in. Tell the world that your work is important enough to inconvenience people for a few days and shut the damn bridge down. Accept the risk of complete collapse and go ahead anyway. It will never happen unless you pull out the tools and start. And then, keep going, because finishing matters. Unexpected problems along the way are no excuse. They found a crack in the old span of the bridge today that would have forced a closure of the bridge whenever it had showed up. But because they had all the pieces in place, the extra materials, the people, the expertise, they're just adding that repair to the weekend's work, and last I heard they still expect to reopen the bridge on time.

In my own search to become more professional in my work habits, I've made a lot of progress, but I have a long way yet to go. I think I'm going to put a picture of the Bay Bridge up in my studio as a reminder. I've got the practice, the materials and the knowledge. Now I just need to block out the time, shut down outside traffic, and do it.

Just a little test post...

to see if I can make this import to FB thing work. Maybe I'll stick a picture in, too, just to see if that shows up. I'll try to find one I didn't post yesterday. For the rest of you who are as clueless as I am, Sherry Cordova pointed me to this link for importing blogs: http://www.facebook.com/editnotes.php?import. I knew there had to be a way; I just hadn't noodled around enough to find it. Today I'm grateful for friends who lead the way!

34 Years of Practice

Today is our 34th wedding anniversary. That's a lot of practice at being married--297.840 hours, not counting leap years. And, of course, way fewer hours if you only count time we spent in each other's company. But we were married even when miles apart, and so I say count them all.

Now, this is a blog about design and jewelry, not about relationships, so why am I talking about our anniversary? Because the point holds, whether you're talking about a marriage or about design. It isn't only time in obvious practice that matters. You're designing all the time. This weekend in Napa I didn't make a single piece of jewelry or even jot a single note in my notebook. Still, I saw a fake Persian palace with great motifs that may show up in a jewelry design one of these days. Down the street was a castle, ditto. And of course there were those vines, laden with black-purple grapes against a sea of green leaves and brown vines. What a color combination! That greyish bloom on the grapes--just Wow.

A few weeks ago we went to the Tut exhibit in San Francisco. I started using carnelian and lapis together as a direct result of that trip. I'm crazy in love with that color combination now, but it wasn't one I'd considered before. Yes, I know all the design rules about using complements, but I didn't FEEL them until Tut. Those Egyptians had design rules down pat.

So if you're feeling like you haven't done much this week as far as design goes, ask yourself what you have been experiencing. It's a part of you, a part of your design background, just as surely as all those days when Glenn was in Canada working and I was juggling kids and their activities at home added up to the relationship we have now.