You've Got to Start Somewhere

They say don't sweat the small stuff, but it can be challenging to see the bigger picture while the small stuff seems to overshadow it. 

When you're just starting out--a new endeavor, a change in lifestyle--that newness, those tiny numbers--it all feels so small. You hear your mind rattling off the baby steps:

"I started my workout today."
"It's been 3 days since I stopped smoking."
"I've made 15 sales."

No wonder it's so easy to give up on a dream. After all, starting is half the battle, and that's a clue in itself that there's more than one way to look at the numbers.

Some things take time....

I recall taking a management course early in my information technology career that taught an astute approach to decision making. That method has stuck with me for nearly three decades and informed many tough choices in the workplace and beyond.

This approach, developed by the Kepner Tregoe consulting firm, adds the dimension of weights to scale-of-1-to-10 valuing. While the business version of this method can seem rather complex, you can adapt it to make almost any critical decision. Say you're wondering whether to buy a new car. Using KT, you start by making a list of the pros for choosing the decision as favorable, and then a list of cons for scrapping the idea. At the end of this first pass, you may end up with 3 "pros" that point to making the purchase, and only 1 "con" that says, "don't do it."

Now go back through both lists, assigning a weight of importance between 1 and 10 to each "for" and each "against" buying the car. When you include these weights with the original totals for each list, you may find a very different picture. For example, there might be only one downside: that you'll be tapped out financially each month to cover payments. Given the potential for certain disaster, you'll probably want to rate this a 10 on the importance scale. Even if the 3 pros rate 2 points each for a total of 6 on the positive side, that single negative factor creates a weighted total that advises against a car purchase for now.

But wait a minute. If we're talking about progress rather than decisions, how does all this math help paint a clear picture of steps toward a goal? Let's start by tweaking the KT rating method a bit.

First list all those things you've done to move forward, and then list everything that's held you back. Now go through each list and apply a weight factor, item by item. If you've started something new--anything from opening a new business to running a marathon--that start is a crucial step that deserves ample value. You may also want to include a positive line item for working each day toward your goal, no matter how slight that work seems. After all, daily commitment has certain value, too.

As you take the time to add up the reality of your efforts, you might be surprised to discover that you're more successful than you thought. You might even feel a little grateful for that small stuff. 

Handmade: Making Things from the Heart

Since the dawning of the Industrial Age, modern society has learned not only to accept, but to expect the products we buy to come from machines. We're accustomed to objects that are identical. A set of plates bought from a big box retailer in one location looks identical to the same set bought thousands of miles away at another of that retailer's locations and, of course, each plate in a set will look like all the others. That sense of stamped out perfection can feel almost comforting.

But is there something missing? Etsy, Redbubble, and ArtFire have staked their Internet sites on that supposition, providing artisans a way to sell their handiworks online, with impressive results. These "virtual marketplaces" are accessible from around the globe, delivering more customers to Web shops than most small-time merchants would see in typical bricks-and-mortar businesses. 

What's so special about handmade? Major manufacturers and retailers boast the advantage of quick production, the uniformity of machine-precision, and the presence only corporate-funded advertising and multiple stores can provide. 

Handmade "Primitive Celtic" Pendant

Yet handcrafted products feature things major chain stores can't touch. 

Each item is unique. 
Without a machine, it's seriously challenging to create two items that are exactly alike. Handmade craftsmanship takes advantage of this ability to differentiate, seeing uniqueness as an opportunity rather than a detriment. 

Time is spent in crafting each piece.
Even when the artisan is accustomed to a process, it still takes more time to create something by hand. In a world that's anxious to deliver, this can be a drawback, but for those who enjoy something unique, the joy of the carefully crafted piece is part of why buyers purchase directly from the artist. 

The artist focuses on one item at a time. 
Depending on the product, individual attention is spent on each item. This is an aesthetic value rather than a physical one, but for those who understand this aspect, it's important. In a world that often seems soul-less, the care of craftsmanship applied to handmade goods imbues a sense of quality that's highly valued. 

There is a connection between the artisan and the buyer.
When the buyer can directly access the artist, communication easily ensues, improving the experience. Buyers can ask for customization, request more detail, or simply share their interest in a particular product. And, when it comes to making a purchase, they often can expect to turn heads with clever creations that lead others to ask, "Where did you get that?!"

Shiny Things

When it comes to crows, several schools of thought apply. Depending on the one that speaks to you, crows are:

• Intelligent
• Mysterious
• A nuisance
• Lovers of shiny objects
• Bullies of other birds
• Spiritual
• Interesting characters in storybooks and legends

Moonlit Flight

Quite possibly, crows embody all of these aspects, making them not unlike us multifaceted humans. For this reason, I chose a crow as the mascot of my SandStorming shop.

Called by a variety of names (raven, rook, jackdaw), they appear in the Bible, Celtic and Greek mythology, European and American literature, Eastern and Middle Eastern lore, and Native American tales. And for the last few years, a flock in a Seattle suburb has been gifting one little girl: 

The Girl Who Gets Gifts from Birds

To pick up some shiny things for yourself, join the SandStorming crow on Etsy. 

Art and Philosophy

I typically find the words of Eastern philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti, quite profound. As an exception, and if I've understood him as intended, he once observed that churning out works of art struck him as a way in which the human brain avoids observing. While many of the philosophical journeys Krishnamurti shared ring true for me, this does not. Perhaps, not being inclined to artistry, he was making an assumption about it. I suspect he did not actually sit down and draw and find out what artistic production is all about, but made the conjecture by observing others who had. If he had had the experience of producing works of art, he'd have found that, to produce an accurate image of a thing takes an exceptionally deep observational approach.

The challenge of art is not so much the steadiness of the hand, but the steadiness of the intuition. Moreover, taking the accurate image of something in the mind's eye and then conveying it in a surrealistic way takes a certain profound understanding that's difficult to describe. The ability to observe some intrinsic quality in a thing may very well inspire the drawing of its essence, so to speak: the quality of the thing that allows us to feel it with intensity. For example, the saturation of color and light, and how these play across the landscape are qualities in a sunset that seem to move everyone universally.

The latest addition to the SandStorming shop invokes Spring.

Often, I draw while looking at one of my own photographs. Sometimes I draw a composite of images, creating something new, but still based on something actual. Very occasionally, I will create something that is surreal. But when I draw, that is, reproduce something my eyes perceive or my brain has recorded based on something my eyes have seen, I'm not thinking, "What species of flower is that?" or, "What was the name of the place in the picture?" I'm looking for the fact of the thing: What is (or was) the color? How does (or did) the light or shade play on the subject?

The drawing pictured here is based on a photo I took at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC, mid-Spring, 2009. Taking the photo required the close observation of these tiny flowers popping up along the edges of a walkway. Drawing this subject took a different type of observation. I had to match the colors as they present themselves in both light and shade, for each facet of the image. I had to determine which lines were objects and which were shadows of those objects. I also determined what from the photo I might decide to leave out or alter slightly--the beauty of drawing rather than photographing, or photographing and PhotoShopping, depending on your perspective. The truth is, if there is any sort of success in the effort, my thinking brain shuts off completely when I am drawing, or for that matter, photographing. In its place, a deeper sort of intuitive operation takes over.

And maybe that is the significant draw of art for me.

To do Krishnamurti justice, though he engaged in speeches and journal-keeping rather than dabbling in sketches, he too waxed poetic on sunsets and other common subjects of art. I can only assume he tapped the same intuition that conjures these images born of my camera, my memory, and my cognition.

32 Flavors, When it Counts

Grocery shopping occasionally leaves me feeling mildly overwhelmed.

There are so many flavors of, well, everything. There must be ten different kinds of Triscuits, for example. And don't get me wrong. I'm quite fond of a Triscuit. But the one that comes to mind is the original shredded wheat variety: slightly salt-infused, a bit of oil baked in to temper the dryness and add just a hint of nutty flavor.

But the word, Triscuit, means so many things now: fire-roasted, garden herb, rosemary and olive oil, and others I don't recall at the moment. It reminds me of a line from a song, "All the crazy you get from too much choice."

Hey, I really do appreciate expansive freedom in cracker choices, it's just that sometimes two options actually suffice and, in this case, choosing between a Triscuit and a Wheat Thin has always been enough for me.

It's not that I don't like choice. I do; and very much so, when it really counts. Take art and music: when it comes to variety, I can't get enough of either of these. Show me a sculpture formed from an ingenious blend of materials or play me a tune that defies today's audio pigeonholes, and I'm ecstatic. In fact, you'll restore my faith in the future of art and music, and clear my mind of crackers, all in one fell swoop.

Not long ago, I produced a drawing of a building (is it a barn? a house?) set in snow-covered woods. For a lark, I decided to apply a variety of filters to see how many moods I could create with that one drawing.

Were these variations of a single drawing necessary?  No; but there was something soul-soothing in sampling these many moods, something connecting me with humanity. While Golden felt sun-drenched surreal, warming up the snowy scene, Midday reminded me of childhood and the scent of my grandmother's cherry pies beckoning on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It's the eerie end of October when I look at Haunted, and I'm just arriving gratefully home from a long day in Dusk.

As they say, variety is the spice of life. But in life, as with food, to best compliment the experience, you need to know three things: when, what, and how much. If I had my choice (and there's that word, again), I'd lift the music business curse that now audibly limits the spectrum of songs produced. I'd launch a cultural revival of visual art in all its many forms.

But let's hold the fire-roasted Triscuits, please.

Art for the Eclectic Heart

The word, jewelry, typically brings to mind something sleek and stylized. Precious stones in a refined setting, perhaps. Though I'm not quite sure why, I tend to favor something rough-hewn. Old world. Primitive. Mysterious, in an ancient sort of way.

Celtic art and culture embodies the sort of mystery I find appealing. According to LiveScience:

"The relationship between modern-day Celts and their ancient forbearers is a contentious issue that scholars have different opinions about. Languages change over time, and people move, and how much modern-day Celtic peoples, language and cultures are related to the ancient Celts is an open question."

When I came across a circular metal pendant simulating an inscribed stone, I was curious to learn the history of those markings. After a bit of Googling, I discovered the medieval Celtic alphabet, called the Beith-luis-nin, based on the names of some of its letters. Not to be confused with the misnomer, "Celtic runes," the Beith (for short) contains letters bearing the names of trees, in what is known to scholars as the "Ogham" system. These markings appear in relationship to a vertical line and represent the branches of a tree.

Of the 26 letters in the modern English alphabet, 20 are represented by Ogham symbols. With some contemplation, I matched the missing six to those letters that sound closest to them. Then I got busy creating some prototypes of words spelled along my own Circle of Life, die-cut from polymer clay and either buffed using a metallic finish or hammered to look like flecked-gray stone.

"Love" inscribed around the Celtic Circle of Life

With a 1.5-inch diameter, the resulting pendants appear much like ancient artifacts made from metal or rock. Even so, they feel just weighty enough to steady them at the end of a length of leather cord.

As for inscriptions, depending on the word applied, they can bear as many as ten letters, or seem rather cramped at just five or six. Some space must remain at the top for the cord and also to discern where the word begins and ends. With these few limitations, it's still possible to create many variations on the theme, including a personalized version. Even in the case of a fairly common name, hand-inscription ensures that each piece will vary from all the others.  I'll admit, I couldn't resist the idea of a simulated "ancient artifact" with my own name on it. How about you?

Fearless Creativity

Those Etsy artisans taught me something. But it didn't happen overnight. 

You see, I opened my SandStorming shop before I was quite ready. Whatever for, you ask? 

It goes like this: A few years ago, I created some bras for an auction to support a dear friend who had developed breast cancer. [She is doing wonderfully well as I write this, for which I am infinitely grateful.] The bras were lauded as being rather clever, and I was encouraged to make more for sale. So I slapped a few photos on Etsy and left it at that. I sold one or maybe two--I don't even remember now--which left me with the thought that people are just being nice when they say, "Oh you could sell that, it's amazing!"

But I think now that, to sell, there's the product accomplishment, and then there's the exposure accomplishment. Clearly I was not cooperating when it came to exposing myself. Er, in the promotional way, mind you. After all, I reluctantly but diligently posed for that catalog-style shop shot. 

No. The problem was, everyone except me was certain I had something to offer. It's not that I didn't think the bras were worthy of sale. I simply couldn't wrap my head around having a shop that sold things I made, because, well, that would be too much like me, and I'd spent half a lifetime being everyone else but me. And after all that time, I thought, it just ain't fittin'. Ain't fittin'.

And then I encountered Pippenwyck's. Now that's a shop. Unique, delightful, imaginative. And a story behind it all, told in a guileless, delightful manner that sent me straight for a text window where I could finally and bravely confess my own artistic story. 

Astralana

It felt like a revelation to create this first drawing after more than a decade of closing off that part of myself.

In fact, this woman with star-tresses began as a scribble at the margin of a poem from the early 90s. I gave her a name, Astralana; and I've started to think of her as the superhero type: one of those characters of the surreal sort, with a mysterious background. A little dark. A little light. A lot of hope.