My friend Heidi and her daughter Rachel – two girlies who always make me smile!  Taken in Santa Barbara, CA August 12, 2005.

I am worn out from working on my floor all day amidst a scattered assortment of old magazines, plywood boards, paints, scissors, glue, ink, books, pens, pencils, tape, and containers of glitter.  I’m glad I decided to put a drop cloth down on my studio floor – I took full advantage of not having to worry about messing up the carpet so there are all kinds of paint marks and wee bits of paper all over it.  The drop cloth has been broken in and I have silver-painted fingernails to prove it.

Now that this month is about half over, I know I will probably not accomplish every single goal on my to do list for August, but I will have marked a good percentage of them off and my creative energy is still full tilt.  There really is no reason why I cannot continue going at the pace I’m going in September, aside from whatever develops from my "Mystery Project".  A lot also depends on how things progress with my online store – if things start selling at a consistent pace, then I will need to get creating again.  If sales are slower, then I will have more time to focus on other projects.  Either way, I will be presented with nice "problems".

It is funny, though.  I am pouring my energies into all of these new artistic endeavors with an awareness that if none of them takes hold, I may very well be considering an entirely new career path a year or so down the road.  I suppose I could always fall back on freelance graphic design work, but I imagine if presented with that choice, I would most likely pursue something totally different.  Right now I have to devote a great deal of time and energy to find my way in these new arenas, find my voice and create, create, create.  Once the creating is done and pieces are for sale on my website or in a show or my book is off to a publisher, it is basically out of my hands.  If work doesn’t sell and/or no one is interested in publishing my book, then I will be at a serious crossroads.  For about the millionth time.

I do not stroll too far down that road into actual worrying, but I think it is important to keep it in mind so that I appreciate this time I have to be an artist while I have it.  So far everything has worked out just fine in terms of me figuring out what my role as an artist is, and I am not worried about failure in these new areas.  If things do not sell, that will be a disappointment, but I cannot consider it a failure.  I am doing the work I have set out to do.  For now, that is enough for me and that is why I feel like I am having a successful month.  I was talking about the meaning of success with Katrina today, and we both discussed the importance of defining success on our own terms.  It is easy to get caught up in what other people believe is SUCCESS.  What is more important is for each of us to take the time to figure out what our deepest priorities are and create our definition of success around those.

"The secret of success is constancy of purpose."  -Benjamin Disraeli