peace (of mind)

how I would like to approach most aspects all of my life ... but I tell ya it's not always easy

Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego. You're so sure you'll do everything wrong you're afraid to do anything at all. Often this, rather than "laziness" is the real reason you find it hard to get started. This gumption trap of anxiety which results from over motivation, can lead to all kinds of errors of excessive fussiness. You fix things that don't need fixing and chase imaginary ailments. You jump to wild conclusions and build all kinds of errors into the machine (my artwork) because of your own nervousness. These errors when made, tend to confirm  your original underestimation of yourself. This leads to more errors which leads to more underestimation in a self stoking cycle. The best way to break this cycle, I think, is to work out your anxiety on paper (journal). Read every book or magazine article you can on the subject (having/being a successful creative business person). Your anxiety makes this easy and the more you read the more you calm down. You should remember it's peace of mind you're after not a fixed machine (business).

Robert Persig

More on gumption traps from Robert Persig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Fearless Wonder Heartfelt Joy
my mission statement

comfort

You Rock My World - 8 x 10 mixed media collage - still a work in progress I think

There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force it's sap and stands confident in the storms of Spring without the fear that after them may come no Summer. It does come. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful…

Rainer Maria Rilke 

Working all day at the TTD* on a fabulous big jewellery design project - hooray !  & more Rainer 


Whoever you are: some evening take a step out of your house, 
which you know so well. Enormous space is near.

Rainer Maria Rilke 


*Teak topped desk

perfecting imperfection

grey, grey, grey, wet, a bit of yellow & one black shaggy gal with cheeks of sweetness - Miss Winnie Dixon

Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes 
but he's a little bit of an asshole 
and no one invites him to their pool parties. 

Ze Frank - here at TED (& watch below thanks Kate I)

always & forever

always & forever - 8x10 giclee print (can be customized see below) available here

Perseverance, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

Ambrose Bierce 

ma gumption

daphne almost at the end of their blooming in the terracotta gardens this early morning

I like the word ‘gumption’ because it’s so homely and so forlorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a friend and isn’t likely to reject anyone who comes along. I like it also because it describes exactly what happens to someone who connects with Quality. He gets filled with gumption. 

A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption. 

 If you’re going to repair a motorcycle, create a new masterpiece, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most important tool. If you haven’t got that you might as well gather up all the other tools and put them away, because they won’t do you any good. 

Robert Pirsig  - author of Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (the Prince's favourite book)

Last night the Prince arrived home (around 4:30pm) to find me (with les entire Gang) stretched out on our bed in the chocolate brown bedroom nursing a glass of wine (I don't drink) & I had taken a teeny 1mg, under the tongue, pill - ativan. Ativan & wine, ahhhh!, a sure badness killer, one I'm not necessarily proud to confess of nor would I feel comfortable recommending it (works like a charm). Probably much more healthy to do some yoga, go race around a block or 2, rake some leaves, houseclean (uh huh !?!) but no - it is my, go-to "break the glass dome", my mind is racing and not in a good way, les emergency ! cure for the big bad yucks.

The Prince grabbed a beer and sat in the chair at the end of the bed to listen to my woes. At the end of it all when I was telling him how all these sad & frightening woes had completely drained my productivity yesterday & rendered me kinda brain dead he said

You just lost your gumption. You fell into a gumption trap (of worry & care, obsessing about bad things that you really can't change much). Care connects with quality by way of gumption. If you've fallen into a gumption trap your enthusiasm is lost (temporarily) and it's very difficult to create any kind of quality & care with no enthusiasm or no gumption. 

Shut ! Up !! I say I lost my gumption --- omg I fell into to a big, black gumption trap

He'd been reading Zen & the Art of Motorcycle maintenance on the plane home (the one and only book he owns, which he takes everywhere he might have to sit & wait). His bookmark, his boarding pass, placed just at the end of the 25 pages discussing gumption & gumption traps. Coincidence ? - I think not.

20 more thrilling moments from the past week in & around 29 Black Street

care full

be love - 6 x 6 gallery wrapped mixed media - Susan Black - file under ... mediocre at best

don't cry, 
don't sigh ... dear
be love

Yesterday unexpectedly turned into a busy, spontaneous (that's a rarity here at 29 Black Street), increasingly stressful, heartbreaking-ly sad – perfect storm of badness. My kind of badness - caring too much - caring too much about things, especially for/about situations, that are out of my control (& yes I do love my control). Being too full of care - the Prince thinks that's my superpower - but I'm most often convinced it's a very nasty curse

After watching umpteen episodes of Modern Family in bed (season 2 borrowed from the library) & plying myself with Miss Vicki's kettle cooked potato chips desperately trying to medicate myself with sweet & oft hilarious comedy and salty, crunchy carbs I tossed & turned, worried & fretted the entire night away. At 5:30 when the coffee maker began to gurgle it felt like I hadn't slept a wink. I woke with a killer headache & an extreme feeling of dread helplessness & hopeless sickness. That darn Prince has been away (he's back today - hooray!) so no in-house sounding board or support except for dear sweet Oliver who slept on top of me purring softly all night - which was tres helpful.

I mention all of this because I know I'm not alone with these feelings. Those feelings that sometimes gang up on you. The thinking that surely you will not be able to stand one more sad or worrisome thing. Believing with all your might that "ignorance truly is bliss" but knowing with just as much might that that isn't who you ever want to be. Those "things" piling up, sticking to you, pinning you to the ground - making you feel completely paralyzed. Wishing so hard that I wasn't so care full.

To top it all off I spent the entire day Wednesday creating this mediocre (at best) mixed media piece. I know, I know - it's all part of the part of the process, every day can't be Christmas - every piece isn't be a masterpiece - why not !! I say. Yes there is heartbreak, sadness & injustice in my our world, there are uncaring people living amongst us. yah ! yah ! yah ! I know ... but I sure don't have to like it.

sure-ity

mind blowin' beauty & words - poppies (& any variety will do) always on my top 10 favourite flowers list

If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable ...
we must be content to creep along the ground, and will never soar

John Henry Newman

I know one thing for certain that every day that goes by I become less & less sure of anything.
Uncertainty I'm recognizing is the thrust that moves us forward in every way ... at every moment.

Cool.

Doubt is uncomfortable,
certainty is ridiculous

Voltaire

dame de chat