These Are The Good Days

My life is running on fumes these days. A day job paycheck is due at the end of the month, and there are paintings put on reserve waiting to be claimed and paid for. But until then I am carefully treading through each day so as not to incur any unnecessary or emergency expense. I do feel a little bad about not being able to cover a few necessities -- for instance, sending off  the snail mail. 

August was a devastation. I'll be spending most of September in recovery, and re-strategy. There are pinpoints of light at the end of many long tunnels.

I have given up so much but I have also gained so much. It's all a matter of perspective and priorities. 

The "ideal life" shot. Makes me look like a successful thriving artist making loads of munny from my artwork. Ha! Reality behind the photo is me squeezing my brains on how to make more sales and reach more of the kind of people who get what I do and are genuinely supportive of independent artists. I'm also currently struggling with balancing my original art and stories vis-a-vis the stationery for sales thing.

The "gallery wall" in the tiny studio. I added cut-out painted flowers to cover adhesive stains as I move paintings about when paintings get sold or when I simply want to freshen up the display. I'm at least happy with how my images are evolving. I had to take a stand about no longer indulging popular tastes in the hopes of making sales. I have to keep to my own Stories instead. Those who see will see. I have to keep the heart in the art, or else I might as well just get a regular day job.

A series that I'm currently working on. It's been on the to-finish list for quite a while but it's been slow to ripen. There are other paintings jostling for space and time and attention. I have been disastrously distracted lately with munny matters and day job and duties. But this series is a good enough bridgeway to go back into the wildforest after a month of pain and stress that was August. I am temporarily calling them Feral Hearts. There are poems sleeping inside them. I'll see if I can coax them out.

Lately I keep seeing in my head this thing I made in my journal pages on a large piece of paper or canvas. So maybe there's a series here too. I have to pour it out into being really soon, like maybe even later in the day.