Rambles About Work

Time and Money
At what cost will I sell my services? Yes, there is a price to the hours of my day. That price fluctuates, changes, inflates, increases with time and experience. Yes. But that is just money. What about the other currency; time? How much time will I give to the work? How much of my energy will be consumed in time, stress and anxiety keeping me working through the evening and night, moving through my dreams and startling me awake?

Doing the Work (and failing)
I am torn. I want the work. I want to be wealthy, and have money to spend on occasions, festivities, on my loved ones, and importantly health and emergencies. My whole life I have lived with the minimum. I never believed I needed much. Things are changing with age, as I ponder what I want in life, who I want in life, what I want to surround myself with, and what the trade off is worth. I want to live well, happy, healthy, and sure, with money to spend. I want to make my clients happy too, give them what they really want. Whatever they envision, I'd like to give them that. The hardest part of my work is probably having to show a process that isn't perfect. The process IS the work, and I've learned that. But I wish everything in the process was perfect - then I wouldn't be stressed, then I wouldn't worry about how much work I'm putting in. It would all just come out beautiful every time I put pen to page or stroke to design.

Choice
No matter what, if I do something I love, I will experience the heartache and the stress. How do I know that I should be continuing, moving forward with what I've got? How do I know that this is the best version of me, the best version of my work? What if I am keeping myself from diving into something much more ... Me? What a first world question this is, I realize. The simple power of being able to choose what I want to do with my time, and especially what I want to do with my time for money, is absolutely a privilege. At what point am I not using this privilege properly?

Who?

I am a composition of all the things I have said yes and no to. All of the people I have allowed in.

No wonder we're all so confused as teenagers and young adults! We haven't chosen enough yet; the world hasn't happened to us enough yet, to make a solid report about who we are. We are constantly wondering who we are. But we do not have a who unless we add up all of our past actions.

Yes, I am all of the good and bad of the history I built for myself.

Yet, I remain a mystery to the next day. To the next moment. My decisions will certainly be based on yesterday's, but only as much as I am willing to sacrifice the new me for the old.

If I am brave enough

If I am brave enough,
I will wait an eternity for you.
Not only wait -
I will give it to you,
hand you time,
for there is nothing else to give.
The only currency
for our love
is time.
Holding on to this abundance
will only make you slip away
through my fingertips.
Note by note,
key by key,
the black and the white ones,
depicting the saddest melody,
the longest chorus,
the bridge that never ends,
where your love waits on the other side
of every note of the song of our lives.

If I am brave enough,
if I open my eyes to the darkness
that falls before the day,
if only I can see the silence
between
which creates the space,
where the sound takes shape;
then I can give it all.
With the eternal exchange
of the currency of time,
we can be wrapped in harmony
forever.

Brrr

"The feelings and thoughts pop up sometimes, but the cold and the stars move me through."

Eating your tail

You are noble
you are kind
you are sweet
you are wise.

You are caring
you are deep
you are understanding
you are all of these beautiful things.

No matter your nobility
your kindness
your wisdom
your sweetness

No matter your care
your depth
your understanding
the poison will slowly seep through your scales
and feed you your own tail.

Nobility, kindness, wisdom, and sweetness,
care, depth, and understanding -
these things will no longer suit your character
and you'll have no choice
but to try on their antonyms for size.

Then your skin will shed like a decaying garb
revealing all of these beautiful traits anew
this pattern will repeat once, twice, forever
until you have shed your deepest layer.

Your truest form will find liberation,
and become the symbol
you had suffered through time
of the snake that eats its own tail.

Given and Taken

How can we ask for what we want,
Without taking from someone?
How much suggestion,
is too much suggestion?
Would two human beings ever
fall into something together
at exactly the same time,
with exactly the same depth?

A description of my new mural, "Time"

A philosophical (and perhaps too lengthy) description of "Time", or "Lady Bell", on the Bell Apartments

'

At first, 

you think you're creating this piece, 

that you have all of the reasons, 

all of the metaphors created, 

you have all of the tools 

in your own pocket 

to bring this concept to life.

In the end,  you find that

a piece of art has its own things to say. 

It knows more than you, 

and knows to incorporate what you never thought to. 

Now that it exists in the physical realm,

it will dance with the shadows

and flirt with the sunlight.

It will morph and accept its meaning

from every person's sight.

It will accept your projection,

and will not be moved by your assumption.

Originally, I wanted an image that personified the building, The Bell Apartments. This building was erected in 1912, and renovated in the 40's. The developer taking on the feat of renovation after a recent fire is bringing in elements of both eras. One floor reminiscent of the 1900s, the other 1940s. She arose in my thoughts, a proud, wise lady, standing tall and strong, looking at us from up high. She may have been incarnated in human form once, in the early 1900s, with her late-Victorian style attire. Now, she is a ghost - she does not exist (she never really did, but can we argue that the past was ever as we imagine it to be?) I wanted her to take the memory of time along with her, using symbols we understand. When we see a book, when we see a timepiece or hear the bells ringing, we are reminded of where we are right now and where we might have been in the past. We may think of where we're going, and why we're headed there. The decisions we've made, and are continually choosing to make. As for the pattern behind her, I was inspired by the floor tile used in the building itself, specifically chosen to have that 40's elegance and style. It ended up reminding me of a starry sky. 

This concept grew beyond my own original idea, and as I painted her she told me what to do. She told me what she needed, what the piece itself needed in order to conjure a sense of emotion around time. It became deeper than this, the building showing me its curves and cracks and needing a certain kind of attention to details I did not foresee going in. The beautiful tree, sitting quiet and unassuming beside the building, cast shadows on her that also could not be ignored : now I was dealing with more than a painting on a building. I was handling light, shadow, curve, direction, weather, perspective, height. The tree would also end up playing in with the concept of time; the seasons, the change in the shadows as it loses its leaves and sways in the breeze. 

I was also blessed by community involvement: Tonny's idea of her watch displaying the time the building was erected, 19:12. David, the Jungian Psychiatrist next door, giving me a book on Time which became the title of the book she holds. Jordan's father (Jordan Milne, the developer of the building) guiding me towards illustrating the flower in her jacket as a poppy to depict wartime. 

In short, Lady Bell is a depiction of Time. 

a bell

a book

a watch

a poppy

details, seen

on her gloves,

stripes on her blazer,

the pearls around her neck.