I have been making lots of art, which has made me feel more like an artist. A novel idea right? Austin Kleon likes to say, “if you want to be the noun, first do the verb...Doing the verb will take you someplace further and far more interesting than just wanting the noun.” I love these wise words.
First I painted these Peace Pigeons for a fundraiser for our local elementary school. Keith Greiman puts together this fun event every year by organizing the local artsy folks. There is a wall full of small but mighty 5x5 paintings for sale, everyone gets in line and picks out their piece to buy, so you want to get there early if you want first dibs. They usually have it at Minnow Lane, and it will be on 2/23 this year, but I’m not sure the time. I’ll keep you posted.
Next up is the 4’x5’ beauty. My friend Karen is very smart and won a grant for her public health research study. Congratulations Karen! She has a new office that needed some art, so she graciously commissioned me to make some paintings for her. This piece was so much fun to make. The scale! The physicality of making something this big was new to me. I think it’s one of my favorite things that I’ve ever made.
Doing this work hasn’t happened in a super self confident vacuum, it has happened with the generous support of friends asking me and paying me to make things. I never would have made a 4’x5’ painting on my own. Never. Three people stopped me on the way to the register at Michael’s while I was carrying this beast of a canvas with questions that made me know how strange it is for someone to think they can paint something this big. We are living in this weird world where you can declare yourself an artist and it will be so. Hooray, no more gatekeepers! But picking yourself requires a wild amount of confidence that I just do not have on my own yet. So big thanks to the folks cheering me on and supporting me on this journey. You’re genuinely changing my life.
Dragon Update
My last newsletter was about this dragon. Finally Elliott and I finished our dragon. This was sort of how it felt. I ended up doing 90% of it just because the fuzz was so finicky and the pieces were too small. It is very wonky, but Elliott loves it and he even made him a tiny pillow all by himself.
Valentines, a failure?
I’m finalizing the valentines this week. If you haven’t signed up yet please do. And feel free to share this reel with your friends. I wanted to do this as a thank you for folks following along and as a little marketing event for my newsletter. So far it’s gotten me six new subscribers. LOL. Mostly because I didn’t realize google forms wasn’t automatically collecting e-mails for me at first and that I had to update the form after a bunch of folks signed up. And I thought my reel for the valentines would be a hit! Instead it lost me 1 subscriber on instagram. LOL again. I’m learning though! I thought you might be interested in hearing how this was going, because sharing failures makes us all feel less alone. It’s so hard and so vulnerable to try things! But we have to keep trying things! Let’s all be really fun interesting failures together. If you’ve got marketing ideas for me I’m here for it.
Things Worth Sharing
Big thanks to Charis and my aunt Barb for signing up for a paid subscription to my newsletter this week! Your support means so much to me!
Here’s a reminder from Seth Godin to pick yourself. Again this is way easier if you have a group of supportive folks helping you believe you can do this.
I finally got around to getting When Breath Becomes Air from the library and it is just so wildly sad and beautiful. Here’s an interview with Lucy, the writer Paul’s wife that will also make you feel human.
I made our favorite everyday meatballs last week and they were just so cozy.
I’m middle aged-ish and got way too much joy from fabric stripping our sheets. We have an old top loading washing machine, so I do it in there, not in our bathtub.
A bunch of my indoor plants were getting leggy, so I pruned them and got a bunch of cuttings.
I’ve been reading Elliott the Harry Potter series at bed time for what feels like a year and we finished the whole series ON HIS BIRTHDAY! We couldn’t have timed it better if we tried. It made me want to celebrate the accomplishment, but I’m not sure how. Any recommendations?
We celebrated Elliott turning 9 with a Roller skating party which felt very 90’s. There was pizza, limbo and glow sticks. I made a boxed chocolate cake with this killer chocolate buttercream frosting and lots and lots of sprinkles. I could eat it everyday. Here’s the recipe from America’s Test kitchen:
Ingredients:
10 T softened butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 t vanilla
4oz melted and cooled bittersweet chocolate
In a stand mixer with a whisk attachment beat butter on medium for 20 seconds
Add confectioners sugar and vanilla and beat on low for 1 minute
Scrape down the bowl and turn speed back to low. Slowly mix in chocolate.
Scrape down the bowl and beat on medium high until light and fluffy.
My Shop: phillycornerstore.bigcartel.com
E-mail: halestormenator@gmail.com
Love it, Haley! You are an artist because you make art! That’s it.
So cool you have great friends supporting you.