Work work working

Some updates on the piece I have been working on for a couple of weeks ... I think maybe the major portion of it is done, and now I have to clean up the threads.

School and a new piece

The kids have started school!  This means I am alone for three hours a day, twice a week.  CRAZY.  I have decided to use this time to focus on art making for the first time since undergrad.

It's actually pretty amazing to work on my own art and not feel guilty about it.  In school, I was like, I'm paying for this studio time!  I better get some work done!  And my teachers were always hanging around, and the other students.  After school I felt like ... it was maybe self-indulgent to do my own art.  My first job out of school was in a completely different field, and that job took many hours of my day outside of time in the office, so it was hard to really work on art.  

Then I went to grad school for art therapy, spending a short amount of time on my work but mostly focusing on other people and their needs.  And then I really didn't make my own art, when maybe I should have...  I remember spending a few days on my first crochet piece and thought, wow, this is amazing, I could be doing this all the time (but never made another piece).

Now that I don't have the time to work as an art therapist, and I spend most of my day focused on the kids and their needs, it still does feel self-indulgent to work on my own work.  But at the same time, being a productive artist makes me feel more like a whole person, and feeling like a whole person is important when you spend so much of your energy on others.

So here is what I have been working on this week.  I made the frame over the last several weeks but the crochet was yesterday and today.  Today I worked for almost an hour and a half, with my music blasting - IN MY OWN HOME.  It felt amazing.

Now it's time to go pick up the kids. :)

Submitted work to a show AHH!

The kids will be going to school starting next week and I have decided to use the time they are in school to work on art.  To I guess make a real commitment to working for the first time since undergrad.

All summer I have been actually doing some work with the crochet mixed media stuff and I am really enjoying it.  I now have two new pieces plus an old piece all in the style of my new work and I submitted to a show this afternoon.

AHHH!

I have only ever one other time submitted work to a show and I was rejected.  I have never shown my work anywhere except for the senior show in undergrad and the final show in grad school, shows where everyone gets to put in a piece.  I am so afraid of judgement I just have never submitted my work anywhere else.  I also don't feel like I ever really had finished work before except for the odd painting or maybe a print here and there.

I don't even have real equipment to take pictures of my work.  I borrowed a camera from a friend and I used free software that came with my computer in order to edit it.  And my computer doesn't have wifi (the air port is broken) so I had to make my phone a personal hotspot, connect via bluetooth, email the images to myself, and fill out the submission form on my ipad (the personal hotspot also wasn't super reliable).

Anyway, without further ado, here are 3 untitlted pieces :P

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