Mudstar Is One Year Old!!!

It's official!  Mudstar Ceramics is one year old.

Like most toddlers, Mudstar has been at once fussy, temperamental, giggly, and delicious.  She's contributed to a lack of sleep and many happy days.  She's been a test of patience and a source of pride.

Today is the Spring Shoppes at Johnson Park School, and last year at this time, I was stressing over my table coverings, a logo, how to run credit cards, how to set up shop.  It took me untold hours to get ready for this one day event that benefits my boys' school. Though I'd been selling on Etsy and completing commissions for a while, it was my first time where my face would be right next to my work.  I was so nervous!

Now I have several shows under my belt, some of them juried, some of them with thousands in attendance.  I have had people turn up their noses at my prices, wax rhapsodic over my lamps, buy multiple pieces, take cards that turned into wedding jobs and also that turned into nothing.

I am proud to say that today was easy.  Packing was easy.  The set-up a breeze.  Ran credit cards on my Square like a pro.  Though the Shoppes is a smaller scale show, it will always have a place in my heart for what it represents.  Right now, I'm selling my art down the hallway from where my little third grader is reading a story, with confidence, to his old first grade class.  And we're both happy.

Five Creative Finds to Make You Happy

1. Nicolas Burrows's light-hearted designs.

2. Stripe-y pots from Esther Studios.

3. Kinfolk Magazine's poetic journal about creative gatherings.

4. Post Punk Kitchen's Peanut Butter Blondies, O.M.G!!!

5. Anything from fabric artiste, Alabama Chanin, but particularly this wedding dress.

The See-saw of Finding Balance

BALANCE!!!

I see a playground-variety see-saw in my mind. For it to work properly, both sides need to be equal, and even then, balance is precarious at best.  But, if both sides are NOT an even match, they have to work extra hard going up and down, and up and down, pushing and kicking, to have any kind of fun.  It's tiring work, and it's easy to give up.

Lately, this is how I feel:

And, to add insult to injury, I'm not exactly sure which guy I am.  Both?  (Though currently, the state of my jeans is causing me to lean a certain way...)

If you're an artist, chances are you're probably a little crazy when you give over to your inspiration.  Yes?And it can be exhilarating and exhausting.  

I came across this quote the other day:

"...it's the nature of art to yield.  When you're an artist, you possess a drive, you clear yourself of it, you relinquish the outcome."

I love the idea that the act of making the art, is clearing yourself of it.  I always feel better when I've made something and it vaguely resembles the idea in my head.  I can get quite single-minded when I'm in that state.  Is that drive?  Maybe.  But more often than not, I think it's just called dogged.  (I love that word, dogged.)  

dog·ged  (dôgd, dgd)

adj.

Stubbornly persevering; tenacious. See Synonyms at obstinate.

I am definitely in the right line of work for dogged.  (Okay, and maybe obstinate...) Glaze mishaps, crappy firings, cracks when you least expect them, even the amount of time needed to bring a piece to its proper fruition can be infuriating.  Dogged implies not giving up, and stubbornness.  Check, and check.

I have not written a post in three weeks.  Three weeks!!  I love writing my blog because it marks a place in my timeline: what was inspiring me, frustrating me, making me happy.  Be assured, I haven't been napping.  (Could someone define nap for me?) I have finished so many big, big projects over the last month.  (And I promise to share next time...with pics!)  But for now, even though I have lots to do, I need to make sure I at least TRY to find some balance.  

I will doggedly TRY. Woof.