So I’m sitting here at work, writing a sort of year-in-review retrospective blog entry for my work blog (which I am woefully behind on, hopefully my boss is not reading this) and it made me think, as I often do, of all the blogs I have started and left to rot over the years…from the most prolific, my LiveJournal, which was an interesting place from about 2005-2007. And I had a great run with a MobileMe account for a while there. That’s dead and so is the hard drive that stored the content for it. The short-lived Brunettes Unleashed was fun and may live again someday if Dana and I can get our acts together.
If not?
Eh. Life is loss.
At any rate, since my job is so nuts in the spring, I look forward to summers for my own creative pursuits. There’s still lots to do at the day job, it just doesn’t feel so much like you’re staring down the headlights of a Mack Truck. It might sound odd to hear that so much pressure can arise in the nonprofit performing arts world.
But art is pain people. Joyful, wonderful pain.
Which brings me back to this summer. I’m very glad to have a job that allows me to harness my not-so-insignificant persuasive writing skills and personality in service of artists and art, because I truly believe art is integral to not only the cultural vibrancy of any given community, but also to the energetic makeup of the entire human condition. And my own contributions to that condition, while admittedly humble in the grand scheme of things, are meaningful to me.
Summers are my time to make a little art of my own. Last summer, that involved a massive project in service of one of my favorite people on this planet and my now-sister Ashlea. I’m taking a moment to clarify the joy part of that project because, as my boyfriend Mike reminded me not too long ago….I often talked about the pain part of it.
What I’m not sure I have said often enough, so I am putting it out there now…was just how much I loved making all of the bouquets, boutonnieres and flower art for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding. It was painful in that the idea for it all came from a picture on the internet and spiraled into a massive dream idea that really only lived in my head, which I then had to translate into technique that would produce something that didn’t look like a cat ate a bunch of lace and barfed it on the table.
It turned out well. No cat barf to be seen anywhere. (Though when I look at my earliest elements of the projects, I see every flaw that I eventually worked out in the end and part of me wishes I could go back and re-do a few things)
I wish I had more pictures of the end product, but if you’re so inclined you can check out the Tumblr I started to keep the bride apprised of my progress as I went along.
It was a lot of work, and sometimes it was hard, because I am hard on myself about things, but that whole universe of invention actually yielded what I think is one of my favorite things I’ve ever created…Ashlea’s bouquet, which was made with love by my own two hands and incorporates little items of meaning from many women in her life. She’ll have it forever, and it has meaning.
This summer, with no major project for someone else on hand, I have a few ideas that have been floating around that I’d like to see come into the world. Not sure if I will love them right away. I’ve been known to birth a few ugly crafting babies before getting an idea right, but that’s OK too. I love the ugly babies for what they teach me in the process.
This week, I made my first piece of jewelry. And thanks to a quick tutorial from a master, Felicia Willow, I now know how to open a jump ring with out mangling it beyond recognition. BTW…that’s about ALL I know how to do at this point. But it was enough to get me started with this little feather mini-bib necklace.
And, as I learned almost immediately and Felicia verified…. Feathers are jerks. They don’t lay the way you want them to once you pick them up off the surface where you have prettily spread out the design. It’s almost like they think they should be attached to a living creature or something. Jerks.
Anyway, it’s not perfect, but I like it. Which, coincidentally, is pretty much how I feel about myself most days. We’ll talk more about that later.
More to come.
If you’re reading, I love you.
Jessi Can Tell 