NEW PROJECTS

I've had some interesting commissions recently, the most recent of which was my first logo.

It's for "Hello, Baby!" doula service, so I was thinking about cute babies right away, and rabbits just sort of seemed to fit the theme. Also, Google image search confirmed that nursing baby bunnies are truly adorable.

I played around with a few different sketches, though, and in the end we     decided to work both of these ideas up.

LOVE OCTANGLE

Behold, my first foray into designing fabric!

This is actually a remake of a drawing I did a million years ago. Octopi really do have three hearts, apparently. I think it must make things complicated.

Anyway, now it's an infinitely repeating pattern. Available for purchase at Spoonflower, on lots of amazing types of fabric. I got my swatch in the mail today, and it is lovely.

I Would Like to Sell Some Art

I like making art. I would like to sell more of it. I do sell prints, sometimes.*

I would like to do more illustrating. I have a portolio website, and I submit it to publishers and agents. I have a few published pieces. I need more.

The art-for-pay that I really love doing is personal commissions. I will do promotional materials, holiday cards, portraits, tattoos, or pretty much anything you can come up with.

I especially love making art as a visualization, meditation or magical aid. I would love to to help create a vision of your dream home, spirit guides, personal yantra, healing visualization, or visual spell for any goal you can imagine.

My standard rate for a commission of the quality of most work in my portfolio is $100, but simpler or more complex pieces are negotiable. I need to pay my bills, but I am also open to barter, time permitting.

Interested? Comment here or send me an email at lauragyre@gmail.com. I am actively looking for new projects right now.


 
*occasionally silk-screen editions, but mostly digital prints right now. Let me know if you are interested in the latter; most of my work is available and prices are reasonable)

The Best Thing I Learned in my Twenties

There have been times during the past decade when I could look back over the past week, or even month, and wonder what constructive thing I had done (if any). I'm not particularly proud of this, and I realize it's an incredible privilege to have had - but there it is. Intermittently I did some fun things, some stupid things, and a few amazing things. Looking back, I realize that I also did a lot of learning.

I learned some great things, definitely - like when you notice synchronicity in your life you should jump on it, and when you're taking the bus in Nepal you should triple-check to make sure you're on the right one lest you find yourself carrying your luggage several miles down a mountain you never should have been up in the first place. But since no one is actually sitting around asking me what the best things I've learned are, I won't bore you further with a comprehensive list. There is one thing, though, that I really wish someone would have told me earlier, and that is this:

YOU DON'T HAVE TO FIGURE IT ALL OUT

You don't have to figure out the meaning of life, or why the world is the way it is. You can ponder these things if you like, but you'll never really, truly figure it out (at least not by over-thinking it). In particular, not figuring it all out certainly shouldn't stop you from doing what you want to do, or what you feel you should do. To put that another way, YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE.

You probably don't have to worry too much about choosing a career. Sure, some jobs take lots of forethought and preparation, but if you might really become a pro ballet dancer or a neurosurgeon, you probably already have some inkling that you might be on that path.

Misspent youth notwithstanding, it's not that I'm opposed to hard work or dedication - far from it. I've just come to think it's more important to consider what you want right now. For example, if you want to go to college or grad school, if you think that would be interesting and fulfilling and you're willing to take on the financial obligations, then sure, go for it! Or if you have another goal, like working to buy a house or save up for something you're excited about, then great. Otherwise, why not get up and ask yourself WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TODAY? On any given day you could apply for an interesting job, make some art, research an interesting topic, check out a place you've never been before, or hang out with a friend. For the most part, you can do this stuff even if you're already or employed, or in school...

Over time, these choices add up. People learn new things and encounter new directions. Our past experience is rarely as irrelevant as we might imagine, since some of the fundamental skills we acquire - to learn, to grow, to use our intuition, to work hard, to be happy - are pretty much always relevant. Just do something incredible, okay? Like, today.


ETA: I did end up adding this post on a similar topic: Other Best Things I Have Learned!

Dreams, Visions, Art and Words

I'm thinking about getting some business cards printed for my illustration venture, and it's suggested that you put a few memorable words on them - an evocative business name or slogan, for example.

Also, I need a niche. My niche, as I regard it myself, could be loosely described as visionary or shamanic illustration. It's unclear whether this is most suitable for children's books, sci-fi, clip art, or what, but hey, a niche is a niche. I just need something to say about it. What I want is to describe this niche catchily without using the words above, since calling yourself a visionary artist can sound pretty pompous if you're not Alex Grey, and calling yourself a shamanic anything can fall somewhere on the goofy/offensive continuum if you don't work within a Siberian tradition (or, especially, any indigenous tradition at all). There are lots of people who do what I do, in a general sort of way, but there aren't any good words for it that I know (and of course, The Ink Witch is taken).

This tarot card is not my illustration; it's from the Druidcraft Tarot, which I love. I pulled this card today, and it seemed very apropos, from the seasonal holly and ivy (I'm still feeling fairly solsticey, especially in the throes of the current snow-fest) to the various interpretations. From the book:

Finding this card in your reading might suggest that you have heard the call of your vocation, your mission in life, the spiritual path you are seeking, or simply a new direction you need to take. It is a call to change and renewal - to rebirth into a life that is more fully your own and more fully at one with existence. Finding this card usually indicates that the process of change has already begun...

 I'll take that. There are a few major events in my life that this could apply to, and with any luck the changes will also involve thinking of a clever slogan.

Mama-Centric

A few months ago, when I was still writing a lot, I stumbled onto some interesting marketing exercises on the web. (Really, since I've been writing professionally, I've learned that content writing and online marketing are far more closely intertwined than I ever realized in my previous life, and at this point I know an amount about marketing that might shock some of my more delicate readers.)

Anyway, there's this major concept in online marketing in particular that it's very important for your "brand" to have a personality. If possible, this personality should appear to be warm, interesting, competent, hip, and extremely approachable, but most importantly it should strike people as "real". Of course, the easiest way around this challenge for most people is to use their own personality, brush it up a little for the internet spotlight, and use it to popularize and put a face on whatever they are selling (or, in some cases, "selling".)

More specifically, this personality-based brand forms the core of your business plan, and eventually gets surrounded by diverse products or services. So, if you're into ecology, you start a blog and develop a web presence about how much you love nature, complete with endearing personal quirks, multi-media and lots of interactive elements, and then once you get lots of fans you can write an e-book, sell advertising on your blog, host nature walks in your area, or whatever. You want to simplify your core message, then diversify your product line.

Which all sounds horribly cynical, but might or might not be depending on how you approach it. Yes, sure, if your goal is just to fool people into giving you as much money as possible, it's not that great. Interestingly, though, it's such a high-level meta-process that it overlaps with real life in several interesting ways. For example, you don't have to pretend that you're perfect. On the contrary, readers tend to identify best with people who seem open and honest about their personal peccadilloes. Also interestingly, the writer of the blog I was reading suggested that anyone could benefit from considering and refining their "brand" image, regardless of whether they were trying to sell anything, as a way to consider how they might be perceived by others.

It's got its strengths and weaknesses as a self-help technique, but a few months ago James and I decided to try it, with interesting results. We spent most of a day in the park, sketching on big paper and talking about how our different life goals fit together and where they connected. On this particular day, James decided that his goals connected through the concept of "art," and I felt that mine came together around the idea of "magic".

Which of course are big, loaded words, especially "magic". I'll admit to a fair bit of dabbling in the occult, an interest that seems to wax and wane mysteriously over time, and that's definitely related to my interest. But really, centrally, what I meant is much simpler than that. I didn't get around to writing a concise mission statement, but if I had there would have been something in there about reminding people that there are almost always more options than we see, that experts don't have all the answers, that positive or negative expectations often amount to self-fulfilling prophecies, and that there are so many possible sources of wonder in the world that no one person could ever exhaust them all. Magic.

So that made a lot of sense a few months ago, and I was going with that for a while. It was an interesting way to think about life, and it got me out of a slightly dreary rut. But then one day it struck me -- what about parenting? It's not that I ever forget about being a mom, but sometimes I forget, somehow, how fundamentally the experience has transformed my life. On a day to day basis, mama-centric considerations certainly take up a great deal of my time. And then, there are the bigger things. Very little in my life has been as fundamentally perspective changing, joyful, and yes, magical, as my experience of parenting so far. In fact, the only things that really compare at all have been falling in love and to some extent, other experiences of relationship.

It hurts parts of my brain to realize that parenting has, just possibly, become so central to my personal identity. Especially in recent months, while James has been working more and I've been working less, I've had to rethink a lot. I'm certainly not complaining. James seems to be enjoying his current success as a DJ and even the things he is learning in his construction work (which will come in handy if we get around to building a house some day) while I've struggled more and more with the realities of writing a lot of stuff that basically amounts to ad copy, while simultaneously wishing that people would stop consuming so much. On the other hand, I've been having a great time with River (so far two isn't terrible at all), and as James pointed out it will certainly be hard for me to work for a while after the baby is born, since if it takes after River at all I'll be spending most of my time nursing. So, I'm mostly a SAHM again.

I guess I'm lucky in that I don't feel this is an anti-feminist position to be in, and so far I haven't gotten much criticism for it (I've certainly heard about plenty of women who do). I feel that raising children is a great use of one's time, energy and talents, and that it is certainly hard work. I also feel that it's incredibly rewarding and fun, and for the most part, way more interesting than going to most types of work I can imagine. I actually know a lot of feminist moms who are in similar situations and agree with me, and while I'm glad that we didn't wait to have River until we could afford to work less, I'm glad that we can afford to now.

What surprises me a little, though, is that I don't know many families with stay at home dads. I wonder, do men just tend to like their careers more than women do? Or do they still feel more pressure to support their families? If educated women can feel lucky to stay home with their kids, why don't more men want to do it? If both parents want to stay home, why is it almost always the woman who ends up doing so? This is a real conundrum for me. If our baby is a girl, I certainly want her to grow up realizing that she has many possible adult roles other than becoming a SAHM. But on the other hand, I certainly don't want River to learn that if he wants to be a father some day, it will have to mean leaving his kids for someone else to care for while he works long hours to support them.

Of course, in our case, our employment situation is as fluid as ever. I'm still really interested in becoming an illustrator or possibly going into holistic health care eventually, but both of those projects would require a lot of initial investment in time and money that we just don't have right now. And James is doing the work that he does in part because it pays well and allows us all to spend plenty of time together too.

(I guess that was a little disjointed and inconclusive, but these things have been bumping around in my head recently.)

One Week Later: On Ambition

When I've thought about blogging this week, I've mostly wanted to expand on my claim that I'm going to become an illustrator. It's still true, but I wanted to give a bit of back-story. The problem is, I'm not sure where to start.

I'm not a very ambitious person by nature. Or, to put that another way, I'm pretty much a lazy slacker. I have my good qualities, but for most of my life they have not been in the hard work department. This is somewhat deliberate, in that for the most part the things that are really valuable to me - family, friends, interesting experiences - don't necessarily cost money, and in fact the more time and energy one puts towards professional goals, the less time one has for enjoying these other things. This is actually a very important belief of mine.

HOWEVER

It has come to my attention over the past few years that:

A) you probably need some money, and the harder and smarter you work the faster you can usually get it,

and,

B) doing interesting, useful stuff and making money from it isn't necessarily impossible. Or, at least, some work is more interesting, useful, and probably less of a waste of life than, say, working in a convenience store.

I started having stunning revelations on this subject when I was pregnant with River, and I realized that I really really didn't want a full-time career, a really incredibly shitty low-paying part-time job, or an expectation that James would support me while I stayed home with the baby. The remaining option was to get paid for doing something reasonable and flexible, and for the first time in my life I really put effort towards this goal. Specifically, instead of just sitting around reading magazines and secretly believing that I could be writing for them, which I had plenty of experience with already, I spent quite a lot of time writing sample articles and searching for places to submit them online.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I've basically pulled my weight financially by writing and editing web content, while only spending a day or so per week on this work. This was a second revelation. I'd felt a bit like a fraud when I started applying for writing work, and even more so when I started describing myself as a writer. But the fact is, I can apparently do it, and the only thing that had to change to make it happen was my perception of the possibility.

EXCELLENT!

And yet, I've recently started to realize that I've hit another sort of dead-end. The assignments that I get regularly pay very little for professional writing, and besides I depend far too much on two major contracts. Together James and I make enough to live reasonably, but just barely. I have a lot of hang-ups about financial success, probably enough for at least one more whole post, but in short the fact is that it really would be nice if we could make some more money. There are a lot of nice and useful things that we could do if we had a little more slip in our budget, and James has certainly been doing his part to work on this situation.

For me, I've been really starting to feel that I needed to make another leap professionally - probably either working up lots of high-quality samples and putting more effort into getting better writing jobs, or else learning more about internet business, design and marketing (I've been working on it) and starting my own for-profit sites where I could collect all the profit from my articles instead of just a tiny percentage. And then, the more I thought about it, the more I thought, "hey, if I can become a professional writer, there are probably other interesting things I could do for money. And if I'm going to have to put a lot more time and effort into this career thing, anyway, isn't there anything I'd rather be doing than web/magazine writing?" And of course, the answer that immediately came to me is I'd rather be illustrating. So.

I'm going to become an illustrator. I've been working on samples and submitting them online, just like I did when I started writing. And, I'm still thinking about making some monetized websites of my own in the meantime, since the writing thing seems to be working out for now. I just have to figure out exactly how that's all going to work, but that's a whole other post for another day.

Violetaxis (Mammoth Update)

Art/Work: I am going to become an illustrator!

Background: it has become clear to me that I need to focus my efforts more, and more recently it has become clear that this is how I'm going to do it.

Realistically, my career goals haven't changed much since I was about ten, except that instead of fantasizing about being a bard, I mostly want to be a village witch. Good work if you can get it, but I thought I could use even a little more focus than that.

So, illustration. I like it better than copy writing, and think I have more talent for it. In the meantime, more copy writing, sure... And in the future, who knows? Maybe witching.

Blogging: I've recently been struck by my second-worst blogging block (after worrying that I can't think of any ideas that will interest all my readers): too many ideas. I'll go on for weeks sometimes, unable to pick just one. Thus, the sampler. The bonus is that hopefully there's something for everyone.

Blogging part 2: I read some interesting advice relevant to problem number one, which was to imagine one ideal reader of your content and write for them only. Supposedly it helps you avoid the trap of pleasing no one by trying to please everyone. Seems reasonable.

Blogging part 3: Look, colors!

Florida: We spent last week at a beach in Florida with James' mom, step-dad, sister and grandmother. It was awesome to just lie around, relax, and drink milkshakes. Thanks, guys!

State of Nature: It's violet season here, which is one of my favorite times of year. As you can see, I was out sketching them. I miss the huge patch that was in our old backyard, though.

I also got a new guidebook and managed to identify several of the things I've seen. The little blue flowers were a type of grass flower! And the birds, I think, were cowbirds, which are an invasive, nest-stealing species. It's too bad because they're really pretty, in an understated sort of way.

Also, when I was out identifying and sketching I saw a red-tailed hawk sitting in a tree about twenty feet away! It was pretty awesome. On the not-so awesome hand, the whole graveyard is pretty much covered with these weird little chemical pellets. Thanks a lot, landscapers.

Recursive Internet: Remember when I was writing about people writing on the internet about how to make money writing on the internet about making money writing on the internet? There's more. I recently stumbled on a whole new blogiverse of people coaching you about how to have an awesome life and freelance business, which often seems to involve become a life/small business coach which apparently is a pretty sweet job. They have some really interesting products, though. I'm definitely tempted.

Dance of Shiva: Actually, one of the products they were advertising I just couldn't resist, which was a video class on a type of yoga/dancing that supposedly rewires your brain in interesting ways. I've been practicing it for a few days, and it certainly is hard and weird. Here's a video of Havi Brooks demonstrating.

Life: Stuff is good. James is about to start a month of so of serious construction work, so I'm gonna be a housewife for a while. River and I will have to have all sorts of adventures. This should be fun since he is being cute as always and finally starting to talk (well, say words at least) a lot, which I am super excited about. It's a very busy time, but nice, especially since the sun is finally out.

Passions, Obvious and Secret

I'm not a huge follower of The Huffington Post, but it's definitely a popular enough site that blogging tips from its founder, Ariana Huffington, are tough to ignore. According to her, anybody unemployed should have plenty of time to blog, so I'm two thirds of the way there already, I guess. She also gave two more specific tips recently on the Daily Show:

"The first trick, the most important, is to write about your passions. Blog your passions. Blog your obvious passions. Blog your secret passions…" The second tip is to not overthink things.

So, my obvious passions. The top ten that come to mind quickly, in no particular order, are:

my family
the arts
lefty politics (environmentalism, feminism, anti-racism, GLBT issues, peace and justice, etc.)
freelance writing and other interesting work opportunities
healthy living stuff like whole food cooking and yoga
nature
world travel
amazing spectacles, like burning man or anything that explodes
goofy fun stuff like hula hooping
crafts and other DIY projects

That's a pretty good list, I think. If I could even blog consistently about those things, I'd have an interesting blog, and also one that would be fairly inoffensive to at least half the people on the internet.

Then there are my "secret" passions. These aren't really secrets that no one knows about, by a long stretch. But they are things that, for one reason or another, I tend to reserve in real life for conversations with people with similar interests. The top ten in this category would probably include:

really horrible junk food like pop tarts
wonky new-age spirituality, comparative religion and occult stuff
anarcha-feminist hellraising
sexuality
radical DIY and alternative health care
radical (unconditional or consensual) parenting and unschooling
altered states of consciousness, trance, and so on
fashion, the odder the better
survivalism, primitivism, and apocalyptic speculation
obsessive, martha-stewart style domesticity (hey, I didn't say I actually do these things!)

I would say that makes for a more interesting list, especially if you use the two together. It's also a list that leads to speculation about whether anyone else in the world is interested in even half these things (with the likely exception of my wonderful mate), and concerns about alienating the few readers I seem to have.

But I've thought and blogged these issues to death, and that brings us back to Ariana's second suggestion. She's famous, so she must know what she's talking about. Perhaps for a while I'll try to stop overthinking things, and make at least one post related to my "secret" passions for every obvious passion post. Or something like that.

Two Exciting Introductions

First of all, The Green Connoisseur has launched. This is a green luxury project that I've been writing for for a while, so it's great to see it deployed. So far I have written about pet-friendly hotels, Nudo olive oil, and Hanna Andersson clothing. I will also be blogging for the site soon.

Second, you may have noticed the addition of capital letters to this post. It is with regret that I bid goodbye to my 100% miniscule standard, but I'm not sure that exhibiting it in such a public forum has been great for my writing career. So, onward to bigger, and hopefully better, things.

on being canned

about a month ago I had three major income streams: editing for edit avenue, and writing for demand studios and the green connoisseur.

demand studios was the most reliable and highest volume of work. a few weeks ago, they changed their pay scale for all writers suddenly and without warning. i could keep writing for them, but i would make a third of what i used to for the same work, and the pay wasn't all that great to start out with.

i'd had a few minor problems with edit avenue, but i was hoping to develop my presence there after the demand studios fiasco. until today, when i was unceremoniously canned for, according to them, filing a fraudulent complaint in order to cancel an assignment. i did file the complaint, which, as far as i'm concerned was accurate and according to due process. i've sent a request to have the decision reviewed, but i'm not feeling incredibly hopeful.

so, the green connoisseur. it's a fun project, and i'm about to start blogging for them as well as contributing articles. still, the work is intermittent, and i originally thought of it as only one of the three major assignments that made up my part-time job.

it's funny, when the financial meltdown started, i wasn't really concerned at all. a few weeks later, i'm down to less than a third of my former workload. i wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something. ok, something besides "you should have invested in euros."

where the hell is my parachute?

am i too old to be trying to choose a career? maybe i'm just getting my midlife crisis over with early. anyway, i'm proud of the way i've really worked hard at writing this year to actually support myself and get paid a decent wage for doing skilled work, but i have to admit that the writing itself, while totally professional, has hardly been anything to write home about. here are eight jobs i think i would actually like to do:

family counselor
free school teacher
alternative health practitioner like an herbalist or some such
real visual and performance artist with shamanic (wholistic health and spirituality) overtones
illustrator with shamanic overtones
art professor at a school with a liberal definition of art
author of books on related topics
life coach

to me these things are all really related. basically i want to help people feel free to do whatever they want in a healthy and responsible way. however, they're pretty different in practical terms. if i actually want to do any of these things professionally i probably need to decide which and make a real effort to get more training and/or experience. hmmm. i am really afraid of commitment when it comes to work.

news

wow, it has been so long i almost don't feel like a blogger anymore.

1. we have been in oregon, which is lush, beautiful and friendly (at least the parts we were in). we stayed in a couple of very bizarre rental houses (the koi pond in the picture is from one of them), saw some enormous trees, ate lots of fresh fruits, checked out eugene and portland and just hung out.

2. i sort of have a job. i am a contributing writer for a luxury green website that is getting started. it remains to be seen how regular this will be, but it is great work. today i wrote an article about a luxury olive oil that lets you adopt your own tree in their orchard. what is really luxurious, though, is not feeling like i have to finish ten articles per day.

3. we're going to a "hip mamas" meetup at the children's museum this friday. i'm not very hip, but i'm not really the other thing either (whatever other unhip mamas are, i mean, not a mama, which i obviously am). i really need to make some friends with kids, so hopefully this will work out. also, we are hoping that river will love the children's museum, so we can take him there to get out of the house once the weather gets colder.

4. i love my shamanic herbalism correspondence course.

5. i have been reading interesting parenting books like "unconditional parenting". lots to think about...

6. hopefully blogging will resume, maybe more on these subjects later.

rerecursive

there is a lot of baffling writing on the internet. since i've started pursuing content writing more seriously, i've many times searched for or come across sites called things like "how to make money writing for the internet." this is all very well, and not too surprising, since one of the ground rules of said industry seems to be "teaching sells." people on the internet really like to read content about how to do things, and everyone like money, right?

the bizarre thing about these sites is that they often have little other content. i was looking recently at the site of an author who claimed that she had gone from quitting her job to supporting herself as an internet writer in under a year. that sounded promising, as it's best to learn from people who are experienced, so i looked further into her archives, wondering what she writes about. the answer, surprisingly, seems to be "how to make money writing for the internet." what?

things like this are actually very common. many of the blogging jobs that you see ads for are for topics like "business" or "productivity," which is all very well, except that these things are generally code words for, you guessed it, how to make money writing about how to make money on the internet. what it generally seems to boil down to is people publishing ebooks and blogs on this topic, and other people spamming the universe with links to these "resources." it's actually very similar to the pyramid scheme where you "make money stuffing envelopes" by getting people to send you a few dollars in exchange for a pamphlet about how they can make money stuffing envelopes.

an unfortunate side effect of this phenomenon is that it's almost impossible to use search engines to find information about real internet writing jobs. i've decided that if i ever have much success making money by writing for the internet, i should publish an ebook called "how to make money by writing for the internet about topics other than making money by writing for the internet." it's certainly an underexploited niche.

when i write for ehow, i spend a lot of time being amused by the bizarre titles that they request. i don't know how they come up with these titles, but they are on a real list that ehow writers can pick from, write articles about, and be paid for. here are some of my favorites from last week:

how to tame a praying mantis
how to train a hamster to come when you call
how to extract wisdom teeth
how to give yourself accupuncture
how to use nuts
how to train to be a ninja easily
how to train to be a ninja with a low budget
how to train to be a ninja using stuff you find at home
how to walk on the ceiling
how to wear legwarmers
how to tell your parents you're becoming a satanist
how to get crunk

needless to say, i did not write any of these articles.

so, i guess i can keep writing for ehow for now. it's pretty inglamorous to pick through the list of articles they want and try to decide whether i can write 400 words about "how to an introduction to yoga for menstruating women" [sic] and so on, but it actually doesn't pay too much worse than about.com would have, and with their new setup i can pick as many assignments as i want. of course there's zero job security, but what's new. i probably won't even be bitter about that anymore after a few days.

because that's so dull, here are ten of my more exciting major work goals:

1. writing and illustrating an awesome vegan cookbook. i have a niche idea, but unfortunately i had better not share it because this is the internet.

2. making and submitting an illustration portfolio. i think i could do well with this, but it would take a megaton of initial time investment. i should do it, though.

3. doing health work. we're going to advertise our massage business some more soon, which is good, solid, well-paying work (albeit with an obnoxious constant sales component, and pretty tough in pittsburgh because we don't have a good client base) but honestly that's not really what i have in mind. i think it would be an awesome job to provide wholistic health care, but unfortunately this is probably the longest shot on the whole list because of the extensive training required.

4. making a big acrylic painting on circular masonite. i can see it in my head; it has rainbow colored trees and geometric patterns.

5. making a giant, complicated version of one of my favorite drawings (the quetzalcoatl one), with goache and gold leaf.

6. writing a book about witchcraft that hopefully isn't stupid.

7. making a tarot deck. again i have a secret gimmick, although if i get started on this one soon i might go ahead and show some of it.

8. teaching art. we are thinking about going to grad school and getting mfas, but if so, that's at least a few years in the future. also, the jobs are not surprisingly really competitive.

9. having another baby, probably.

10. selling gourmet popsicles. i think it could be big.

last week, in a burst of optimism, i decided to learn to crochet. i had a chance to go to joann's, and while i was browsing i saw a cool pattern and thought "i might as well learn to crochet, surely there's a diy fashion project in there somewhere that my readers would like to learn about." so i got some cheap yarn and a hook, and after some struggle and consultation i am on my way to making a shawl.

then i found out today that i didn't get the job. i'm bummed. i put a lot of work into my trial project, and i thought it turned out well, but apparently someone else demonstrated a "greater depth and breadth of expertise". damn it. so today i'm drowning my sorrows in soy ice cream and crochet, and tomorrow i guess i'll be trying to think of more jobs i could do. and, hopefully, blogging again. i guess i will have to post my crochet updates here.

river made his first site-specific installation recently. here you can see the work in progress. it was quite ambitious, and of course we are very proud, but i think he needs to develop his concept a little more. hopefully he can get a grant and keep working on it (and anyway i put the cheerios back in the bag and saved them, so he should be ok for materials.)

i've been pretty busy recently. i started working on some stuff for the about.com trial period, and it's tax season, which means i spend a lot of time wondering why i ever allowed myself to be convinced that we need two legal companies for our home businesses. yeargh! at least working on the fashion stuff is pretty fun.

happy spring!

this is what could be called my first successful naturally leavened bread! it is a challah recipe leavened with sourdough starter and eggs (sorry vegans), which rose extremely successfully, maybe even too successfully. we always used to have a bread like this for easter when i was a kid, and i am happy to be making it again, albeit with naturally dyed "equinox" eggs. unfortunately, the eggs didn't all survive the baking process, possibly because the oven was too hot, so i don't have the glorious aerial photo i would prefer. nonetheless, i'm contributing it to the bread baking day blog event.

on a completely unrelated side note and in a somewhat bizarre twist of fate, i learned today that i am one of five or less finalists competing for the job of making a diy fashion blog on about.com! i am really excited about this possible opportunity, so please keep your fingers crossed for me. also in the next few weeks i will be doing a trial run for the job, so i may be somewhat scarce around here, but i'll see what i can do.

on a second even less related note, obama supporters may enjoy the funnyish video on james' blog.

the anarchists' cookbook

sometimes james and i wonder about making a cookbook. we made that veganisn't cooking zine, -- which was fun and actually seems to be pretty popular -- in the first month that we were dating. much more recently we kind of had an actual book deal with ak press, but they wanted what they described as a vegan "joy of cooking", and frankly we just don't have the time or resources for that kind of thing right now. we do have some ideas (as well as a lot more recipes) for a cookbook that i think could be pretty innovative and cool. however, the more i learn about it, the more writing a whole cookbook seems kind of crazy, at least as a money making venture.

ak press was going to give us %10 of sales as royalties, which seems to be pretty much the going rate. even if the cookbook cost $20, which is a lot, %10 would only be $2 per book sold. i've looked a little into self-publishing, print on demand options like lulu, which also seem fine but would still make it pretty hard to earn more than a couple of dollars per book sold. this is strange because veganisn't currently sells for about $3 and costs about 50 cents to print, so it's actually about as profitable as selling a whole book, and a lot less work. on the other hand, we have to sell it ourselves. i wonder if being able to sell a book on, say, amazon would make enough of a difference to be financially worthwhile.

of course, money isn't the only reason to write a cookbook. but we are kind of unemployed at the moment, and need some income producing projects, and for a while this seemed like a good one. maybe we should just make veganisn't 2 instead, or print our entire cookbook at kinkos.