The Mellower Season

Snow Queen

Around here, fall has finally come and is firmly ensconced in the changing of the leaves, the falling of acorns, the scent of woodsmoke in the air, and oh yes, the rain. Goodbye, sun, see you in May...if we're lucky.

As someone who likes to take each season as it comes, it makes me a little crazy to have to be thinking about winter when we're one month into autumn, but there it is – the life of an artist.

Although, I am told by highly reliable sources that some people are already looking forward to sending Christmas cards and going crazy with decoration and all that festive stuff. I must confess, I am as well, maybe just a little.

Anyway, I have some winter and Christmas themed cards in the Crowgirl Studio Etsy store right now. Here's to looking forward to the festive stuff!

“Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.”

― Samuel Butler

Tis' A Gif

Lately, I've been having a lot of fun playing with animated gifs. It's good to have something to do just for fun – just to (hopefully) make people smile. It helps keep me focused on having fun and not to get too bogged down in being Serious About Things.

Is this artist getting too serious? Nope!

Calendar Girl

This thing? Changed everything.

Like most of the artists that I know personally, I'm more than a bit of a packrat. Especially when it comes to books. I have, um, a lot of books.

This? Totally me.

In my own defense, I have to say that it runs in the family. My mom once had so many books in her room, it was bowing her floor down. The solution was not to pare down books, as some sensible (and perhaps book-hating – yeah, I said it) people might have suggested, but to install a sturdy post under her floor. Problem (temporarily) solved. She didn't have to let one book go.

Now I, on the other hand, occasionally try to recognize that I have a problem (not enough shelf space for my books) and weed out a few. Books with little sentimental value, books I haven't read in years and feel no desire to read again, books that belong to a part of my life that is done...while I won't say that it is easy to pass these on to their next owners, it is easier to let them go.

That's what I was doing in August when I started my collage project. I was looking at a shelf full of books on collage and mixed media and thinking "you're not doing collage right now. You haven't done collage for months. You should pass these on to someone who will actually get some use out of them if you're not going to."

"Oh yeah?" I told that inner voice, sticking out my tongue for unquestionably mature good measure. "We'll just see about that." 

And what began as a ploy to avoid paring down my library turned into something amazing. 

A Crowgirl Is Born

When you're an artist, what you do is what you are. Being an artist is one of the few jobs in the world where you can be reluctant to name what you actually are. Because basically you're saying to the world, oh hey, you know those famous guys, Kahlo, Chagall, DaVinci? I am what they are.

And you're saying to yourself, okay, all those artists you really admire? I want to be what they are. I want to be that. No, more that that - I am that.

And that can be really scary, that public declaration of allegiance - claiming that you have something in common with people you just about worship. For an introvert like me, it's terrifying every minute of every day.

I've wanted to be an artist from the moment I understood that it was actually possible for me. Before that, I think I had this vision of being an artist requiring something like divine madness, or at least a fairy godmother coming down and banging your head with a wand and saying, "Ok, kid. You're an artist now!" And then, one day, I just sort of realized that I could be an call myself an artist, if I only had the courage to claim the title and the understanding that I already was. Because basically, I've been making art since I was a tiny little thing.

My artwork has been going through an evolution over the last few months. Back in August, I got this wild and crazy urge to commit to doing a collage a day for a month. And I did it. Over the next few weeks, I watched my work evolve before my eyes. I found myself gaining fluency in a visual language that I'd long despaired of saying anything in besides "Hi. Please. Thank you." Something magical was happening. I think I was being reborn.

Complete with birthing pains.