an another installment for the long list of sh*t that can and does go wrong.

mostly i have fun telling the tales of all the stuff that goes wrong. but sometimes it bugs me. like the other day. a clear example of the scramble my brain took from the chemo and never fully recovered! I had these wonderful brochures to go out about the open studios coming up. they were specifically for artists in the Sunset district of California - calling attention to how easy we are to see. I personalized them by circling my house on the neighborhood map, circling my contact info and securing a little insert about my new work. I spent hours putting this together and then dug up some stamps i had. They were lovely, each with a different building famous for it's unique architecture. I stopped and wondered, was the postage correct? I couldn't remember when i'd bought them, or when the last time postage was raised or what the postage is nowadays. So i had a brainstorm, i rifled through the mail that had come the day before. most of the mail had stamps that said "First Class" and not the amount. then i found one stamped with a meter that said 37 cents. Great! my stamps are 37 cents! So i stuck them on until i ran out and skipped down to the corner (OK I don't skip anymore what with one thing and another!) and happily deposited my first bundle of advertisement for the Open Studios. Whew glad to have that done it think - clueless as usual. well it came out the next day when i was sending my daughter to the post office to get more and i said to her - get a hundred 37 cent stamps - No my husband says 39 cents. 39? your kidding right??
well of course he wasn't and there was nothing i could do about tossing all that time and effort and money in the trash - cuz you know i won't get them back til after the open house and they will have ugly stamps all over them about how i have melting butter for brains.

But i noticed that i have a really different attitude about these things than i did when i was young. I used to have such a hard time with my art because i would visualize it and then things went wrong and it never came out like it was in my head, which meant i had failed to express myself and i likely tossed it out. Now i see that it's part of being in the material world that manifesting your vision is full of twists and turns and unexpected bends in the road. it's from these challenges that the art really gets made: in solving the problems, trying a different way or actually liking the way the materials took on a life of their own and created something maybe even better than your original vision.

I figure most of those people in that first mailing didn't really want to get the mailing so it all turned out for the best! Today i sent out over 100 more - with 39 cent on each one!