Apologies for the flippant subtitle, but it's always been one of my favorite lines from Mother Goose.
And I'm so HAPPY to be HOME.
Yes, it's hard to believe I woke up in my own bed this morning, got to hug my kids goodbye (okay, I got to ADMINISTER a hug to my teen son) and made myself a really good cup of coffee. Even the dirty dishes in the sink looked pretty good.
I flew into the airport yesterday afternoon just in time to give my husband a quick hug and kiss as he flew OUT. His flight attendants stalled as long as they could so we could have one precious moment together.
I know everyone's wondering how the ACC show went, so I'll get that out of the way. It was not as awful as I'd feared, and not as good as I'd hoped. Enough wholesale to pay for all show expenses, absolutely no orders or exhibition offers on the wall hangings, and enough retail sales to make me think it could be worth trying again. But already I think I have a call from a customer who has had second thoughts about the wall hanging she ordered, and that would be a sad thing.
I'm still processing all this--would being juried in for jewelry have changed this? Would I have expanded my sculpture line if I'd been able to do jewelry? Because expanding the sculpture was a GOOD thing, accounting for all my sales at the show. There is much for me to think about.
I was home two days and immediately flew out as a faculty member for the Arts Business Institute http://www.artsbusinessinstitute.org/ at Haywood College in Clyde, NC for four days. My good friend, Alisha Vincent http://www.alishavincent.com/ took over the entire conference (actually, SEVERAL conferences) as she temporarily took over for the departing executive director of ABI. I flew in at the last minute to take over her teaching sessions. I owed Alisha big-time--she has helped me so much and so many times over the past few years--so I said yes when she asked me to come immediately after I was done wtih ACC. And it was, as usual, a rewarding and heart-warming experience.
A big welcome to guest faculty member Mark Zelis, who gave great insight and advice on designing and implementing web sites into your business plan.
There are two things on my mind this morning as contemplate unpacking that mountain of menacing shipping cases piled in my mudroom, wade through a slew of e-mails, orders and bills, and try to settle back into my routine.
1) It is really, really hard to be on the road.
2) Artists--women--PEOPLE--are desperate to be listened to.
I have new respect for people who have to travel for business.
It IS nice to come back to a room that's clean no matter how late you woke up that morning, the bed made, even your make-up carefully arranged into some semblance of order. It's nice to meet new people and to see new cities and mountains.
I love the synergy of ABI, I love love love my fellow faculty members and I love sharing what I've learned with others and inspiring them to their OWN greatness.
But ohhhhhh, it's hard on an aging body.
I've made huge life changes in the last five years, not only professionally but physically. It's taken discipline in my daily routines, constantly making good choices about food and exercise and mental states. I want to be as healthy as I can so I can make art as long as I can.
That all goes out the window when you travel.
My husband, who has ALWAYS made good lifestyle choices, struggles with this, too, and his tips have helped me immensely. I try to avoid "rewarding" myself with big meals and desserts, sticking to salads and soups instead. I try to keep exercising daily. I try to write, to keep my focus and core vision intact as I run from set-up to selling, from break-down to get-down, from mentoring sessions to Powerpoint presentations.
But it comes apart.
As a middle-aged woman, I will never feel comfortable running along strange highways at odd hours. I've learned no matter what my intentions, I'm never going to swim laps in those tiny, tiny pools at the hotel. At some point, that key lime pie is gonna look just too good, and at 7 a.m., it's hard to find something to eat that fast, cheap AND good for you--especially if the hotel charges $15 a day for a microwave. I come home thoroughly sick of almonds and oranges and soggy salads concocted from the Pizza Hut salad bar.
The second point involves the people who attend ABI.
Sometimes I think the best thing we do for them is to simply listen.
We do more than that, of course. Every faculty member is highly committed to providing the best, most concrete, most up-to-date information and resources they can. They walked the walk, and now they can talk the talk. The presentations are high-quality and loaded with good information. I had a few minutes here and there to sit in on some of them, and came away with new insights and great ideas.
The attendees self-select, of course, as artists who are willing to take their work to the next step, wherever they are in their art careers.
They know they could be doing better, and so they take precious time and their hard-earned money to find out how to do better.
They come from all walks of life, with a rich variety of backgrounds, and they come to their art for different reasons--for money, for love, for fame, for fun. For some, their old lives came to a crashing halt one day, and suddenly, they had to choose a new life or die trying.
I know what that feels like.
Do I always know what they should do about it?
I wonder.
But I listen.
I don't think of myself as a particularly good listener. Especially next to one of my mentors, Deborah Kruger, whose workshops "Empowerment for Women in the Arts" is all about listening. Listening to each other, listening to your art, and listening to your heart.
In fact, I'm infamous for TELLING people what to do. It's easy and fun to simply tell people what they should do--far more fun than telling YOURSELF what to do. It's a terrible habit and I struggle to harness it.
Listening is a delicate skill; one that's difficult to master.
But I try. You HAVE to, if you really want to help people get to their next step.
Because if you don't hear what they're REALLY saying (or NOT saying), they simply cannot hear all that wonderful advice I have for them.
We are all desperate to be listened to, to have our deepest fears addressed and our highest hopes propped up just a little.
We need to know we are not alone, that others have faced the same obstacles and the same confusion. The road to success does not come with Google maps and AAA directions, especially in the art world, and contrary to popular perception.
And we also need to recognize that no one else can make this journey, nor make these decisions for us. Because it is your very own journey, your very individual path you are choosing.
Each member of the faculty has made a very different journey, in different times, with different destinations. Some of us are still traveling, in fact.
And of course, the journey never ends. What looks like success in my life to YOU, is simply one step along the way for me. I have many more steps to take, more places to go. There is no "there" there.
It's filled with mistakes and failures, with brilliant decisions that are revealed as awful with hindsight. As Milon Townsend said, "If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard enough." And as Nancy Markoe said, "A life in craft is HARD. It's ALWAYS hard. Because any passion pursued fully means challenging yourself constantly." Short story--if it were easy, EVERYONE would be doing it.
And so, though mountains of information was exchanged at this ABI conference, though people left with binders filled with resources and their head stuffed to bursting with new ideas, I'd like to think they also left with a heart filled with new insight.
I know I did.
I am home, totally on fire with the idea of making my work again. In love with the concept behind my new series of wall hangings. Determined more than ever to clear out the distractions and the commitments I've made that do not move MY core vision farther along.
It's time to get down to work.
After I unpack, of course.
But the dirty dishes can wait.
