The Artist's Way

A few years back, I took the Artist’s way

Twice.

Trying to figure out how to unleash my inner creative soul again, the recovery started when I chose to move to Key West and start life over in a way that felt more like me. Whoever that was…

Bobbing and weaving as life does, I do remember the one thing I was aiming for in terms of work:

To have a job, I could take with me where ever I went.

No longer confined to a cube or windowless office where I couldn’t feel the sunlight on my face. Fast forward to today

I started teaching yoga after being offered the most perfectly aligned job for what I love to practice for myself. Outside on the beach.

Coaxed by the owner of the kayak tour company I work for, Sue Cooper kindly allowed me to try it and work under the insurance umbrella of the company until I figured out if I liked it.

Well, two years later I’m thinking… maybe I should be doing this more. And maybe I should take over the accounting/invoicing which would lead me to getting the insurance thing figured out so I can teach anywhere I want.

Right on cue, my manager who handles the deets asks if I’d like to take this over on my own. I’d have as much time as I needed to figure out how to put it into play - this started out as a trial and hey, two years later - I think you like it.

After a few internet searches, many many calls to an insurance company with all my questions/concerns, finding an appropriate waiver form to craft from, a toe dipped in quickbooks and figuring out contracting taxes and COI’s - I do believe I have a process.

The perfect tote to carry that clipboard for all those waivers was found today. When you decide to dress the part - somehow you naturally become it (thanks TJ Maxx!). I’ve happily found all the items to wear in this profession the best way I know how but with me looking like me. *Cue the unicorn leggings made out of recycled plastic bottles

Seeing all the business/administration knowledge I’ve gained over the years, easily pour into this and other creative endeavors makes me happy.

So to score up the Artist’s Way to date:

Yoga Teaching - mobile outdoor business (even found a policy to let me teach internationally)

Art - where I go - you go

Outdoor Guide - If there is a patch of water somewhere, I’m pretty sure I could find a kayak/paddle board excursion company to work for. Hell, I’m even certified to teach yoga on a paddle board too

Restaurant work - a job I could find in virtually any populated environment or wherever someone is hungry

And this lemonade stand kid has been doing cartwheels about the mobility of business today with the ownership of an iPhone.

Thanks to the Artists Way and to dad for teaching me to read contractual agreements and insurance policies at a ridiculously early age

Sagittarius Rising

Taking the cut on a slow work night to go see Bohemian Rhapsody

I throw off the standard black restaurant work clothes to decide on a cold weather bike ride outfit to the tropic.

First comes the shirt from Spain (what a great trip!)

Then comes the shoes from Sarajevo (what a great trip!)

Then comes the scarf from Greece (what a great trip!)

And finally the jacket from the best goodwill in Miami (what a great trip! Miami’s not so bad)

If you ask me what I spend my money on its travel

And some of the best damn travel momentos you can find. I may live in a small space but its packed full of all my big adventures

The only thing a Sag rising truly needs - so grateful for it… And the jobs that allow it

The power of periods

So my landlord who fiddles around with everything on the property was in my place to give a lengthy outline of upcoming work he wants to do

As he was leaving, I asked for some help popping an old outside screen back in place. He’s a decent fellow, but can make you feel like he’s doing you a favor when asking for something to be fixed. Pretty used to it by now

As he was maneuvering to put the screen back in place he said: “Man! I’d love to come back in another life as a woman!”

To which I responded: Yeah, but I don’t think you’ll like the menstrual cramps

All comments stopped

This today, is the silver lining of periods.

Dear 2019:

The art of last minute framing

Have been more eager to enter art into shows and as usual, I find out about it a week or so before its due. Promptly speed race to the framer to find out if it can and will be framed in time.

Luckily I have a great local framer who is working on a piece for me currently (not this one)

But got me thinking, how to finish off my pieces. So the framing game begins… New tools/New skills to learn which is definitely a part of creating the piece as well.

Between that and my childhood friend thinking she can fix me up with the founder of Twitter:

Dear 2019… ITS ON

Lisbon is calling

Last night in Lisbon

A walk up to my favorite evening spot

Delicate soulful music plays. The glow of that beautiful orb engulfs and I hear…

I am not broken anymore.

and in my heart I know its true

Penelope

You still have to sign this.

No.

Are you sure?? 

Yes, I like it the way it is.

Ok....?

I had a week to get my piece framed and dropped off for the show I'd been accepted to. Barb on White street was amazing at helping me select a frame and she had sent me home after we  met, instructing me sternly to sign my piece.

I had signed the back but she told me I needed to sign the front because people like to see that.

But I don't like to, I told her.

You need to get over that - she eloquantly shot back. So I took it home and promptly stared at it for three days.

You can do this I thought. And like a bull determined, I tried to figure out where and how to sign. I signed it three times; erased it three times before I decided I liked it the way it was and a signature on the front stuck out like a sore thumb. It didn't work into the piece at all.

So I dropped it off sans signature happy with my decision. I know its mine, I'm good.

Until Barb called me at the restaurant last night leaving a message that I still needed to sign it before she sealed it up. It had to be dropped off today so I called quickly to tell her it was fine as is.

Went back to a fully flat seated section and started to get aggravated. I knew she was right. I had to sign it. So I called her in between dropping off drinks and taking 5 orders.

"Hey Barb? Can I maybe stop by a little early to figure out a way to sign it??"

I haven't sealed it. I knew you needed to sign it and I want to see you do it. I can help you, I have a couple ideas of where you can put it.

Hell, gotta love a framer who knows what's best for you in oh so many ways. She's an artist too.

I go in with pencil in bag and take a first peek. It looks amazing. She points out a few places I could put it without it being intrusive to the image. As she points near the fish going up the side of the painting, I know that's the space. Sometimes you just have to look at it differently and not sign it in the old ways she sagely tells me.

She even offers to turn around so I don't freak out over the pressure to sign.

That's ok. I turn up the scripto and easily scribble out the signature in one shot and it looks right. 

Finally.

Penelope 2017

She carefully wraps it up with butchers paper like the baby I feel it is.

Swaddled and ready to drop off at the Custom house. As I wait for the curator, I see another artist I didn't recognize at first. She's got a Barb sticker on the back of her frame too.

As the artist hands over her piece, as soon as I saw her work, I finally recognized her. I think back to when I was helping her sell her work in a outdoor show I had co-created with my sister. Now, I'm showing work with hers. A nice full circle.

After she's done I start to unwrap mine and when the frame is handed over the curator gently says "Oh Penny...I love it"

And what great framing! A very big shout out to Barb and her fantabulous work gets delivered with the final product. I'm so happy.

I feel like I'm being seen for who I am. And I'm finally seeing myself too.

Lots of good things coming together these days. Been teaching more yoga and really loving it. Had a woman book two privates this week. Weeks ago, I could hardly walk. Lower back pain that felt like an energetic block which has finally moved. 

I couldn't do yoga. I could work and then it seized up. Looking for help I used my tools and asked for help from my healers to move it out.

First Reiki, then acupuncture but it didn't finally relieve completely until I taught an unexpected private yoga session with someone who does privates with my yoga teacher.

He happened to show up on the beach last Saturday for class. At first I wondered if my class could hold up to Sofia's but then I didn't even think too much about it and we just started to flow. He had injuries and since I had just experienced my own immobility it was easy to take it down and move into poses. It was probably one of the most natural, varied practices I've taught yet.

And that flowed into an unexpected private request on Monday. She liked it so much she booked one for Wednesday. Ultimately, I teach what I do for myself and lately its slow conscious movement with breath which I love.

Saw a last minute notice for a closing sale from a crystal cottage up the keys I'd been meaning to visit. I actually got a piece of quartz from this laday second hand through a store in town. As soon as I picked it up I got a weird feeling in the top of my head and promptly purchased.

Same thing happened with this little piece of pyrite that entered my world. In a bin, I saw it, held it and had a feeling of being pushed down into the earth. Grounding... Which after my reiki session I found out is lacking on an island built on pourous limestone rock. How perfect.

I've been attracted to this stuff ever since I started to do some side marketing for a psychic. She had a crystal home grid set and out of all the gems, this one I was immediately drawn to.

It was in my pocket as I signed my painting today and is currently my vibrational security blanket. 

So these days I'm learning to let go a little more. Trust in the process. Open space for all the new to flow in and old wash out. Cycles. Circles. Trying to move more freely in the flow of life. Not being afraid of the shift and embracing all that life has to offer. 

So far, so good

Wow.

Well, this just happened

Feeling incredibly blessed and honored to be selected for this show. Can't wait to see what they've curated. Love Key West history so it couldn't be more perfect. 

Wow.

Got an email while I was watching the sunset while dog sitting my friend's 16 year old chihuahua - even more perfect.

Tears. Happy tears. 

Happy (almost) New Moon!

Asked Mei for some books to read on energy not knowing what I was looking for.

As she rattled off a few, one made me go OOOOOhhhhhh.

Been reading Life-Changing Foods by Anthony Willam. I now want to grow my own food and speak to my veggies. Really interesting stuff on conscious eating and energy

Shed that skin

I always know change is coming. 

I feel restless, agitated, confused, uninspired, despair. I fall into a familiar hole with no feeling of being able to change it. 

I get sick. 

Something ending and something new beginning.  An old pattern ready to go but I have to go through it one more time to finally release it. Yup, I know the drill.

The more I try to hold it down, refuse its existence; I sink further in the quicksand. So I just have to let it be. Sit still. Let it devour me.

Listen.

Physical pains usually note the peak point. The last two weeks it started with a full blown fever, night sweats and ended with sciatic pain waking me at 4am.

The body is the final sounding call for energetic change and I finally knew I needed help moving it. The confusion was too thick and the physical pain too sharp it made me reach out.

I called my reiki friend and asked for a session.

The last time she worked on me was In August right before I left town. I felt a fear I hadn't had since before I moved here. At that time mid-August life felt like a pressure cooker (a nice precursor to Irma) Her session was illuminating and I felt so much move off me immediately, I've never been so grateful for the assistance. 

This time around she asked me what was up. She told me it was a shedding of energetic skin. Since being back post Irma,  its been happening at a much faster and frequent pace.

Afterwards we talked about the energy we've both been feeling in town. She shared her recent confusion too and how it didn't release until she met the earth in Hawaii. Key West is built on porous rock and so grounding is difficult (Probably why so many people lose their heads and sanity while on vacation here). And the energy after Irma has been darker. We're not crazy.

The question that always comes up for me is will I stay in Key West or is it time to go? When I came back post Irma I was so agitated. How can everyone act like this place is the same? Its not... and the pretending it was, was pissing me off. 

She told me she saw me living part time in Colorado and part of the time here. Do I have any friends in Colorado?? How ironic would it be to go back to the place I tried to run from...

But I have been craving that rock. That earth. I didn't share that I had been looking at apartments on and off in Boulder the past few months.

My plan for this season's work got blown out a few weeks back.

I'm quickly learning I cannot plot my future in a straight line anymore. The vision I try to stand on and hold down thinking all is good and final; cannot be the way for me. And as much as I want security and solid ground, my true nature expects flow and open space. Even if that can be scary.

I let go of one thing draining me knowing that the universe will fill whatever new space I create. Almost immediately straight to my iPhone with two offers while I'm at the beach breathing in my new morning ritual.

I guess I have to be reminded of this from time to time. Don't try to grip so tight. Let it go, let it flow and continue to follow what I love. All will be fine.

So I create a morning ritual (but remember this will need to change too) Reconnect to my breath to ground. Write, photograph, paint, teach yoga, give eco-water tours, wait tables, learn to market all kinds of goods for people online, feel out my next trip.

We all look for our life's purpose even if we don't admit it. I'm starting to find that mine is working with people and showing them light. It could be a laugh over a table, a conch I pull out of the water to show, teaching some yoga on the beach, a touch and conversation or any artistic expression.

Light. 

Shine that light. 

And shed that skin to shine some more.

The Mind Wants..

to constantly create

It doesn't discriminate on where...or how

2018: The Master Year

Once upon a time, I was an advertising executive.

It seems I've always tried to reconcile the meeting of art and commerce. My left brain, told me you can't make money doing art so try a business version of it. But all I wanted to do was draw.

And an advertising career began and ended in flames.

Once an artist always an artist, you can't shake that shit off. 

My friend Dana is in town. Old NYC buddies still laughing at how we muddled our way through the ad world in our 20's. Above is the year we randomly celebrated the Y2K new years in Colorado where everyone thought the world was going to end. We threw confetti, drank and took this picture.

As 2017 ends and 2018 begins, I AM grateful.

Grateful that art and commerce are starting to blur together without any effort. I look back at that zig and zag with love as I would never be in the place I am now without it.

In the second to last day of this year - I awoke from waiting on 64 people at a restaurant, giving a kayak tour where I pulled a conch out of the water to show everyone and subsequently waking up to teach a family of four from Boulder, Colorado yoga on the beach. 

Afterwards, I went to work on some marketing stuff for the yoga studio, but the studio was too busy with customers. A great thing to see while sipping on golden milk and shooting some instagram feed for them in order to find more even customers.

Even been talking cameras with my baby brother so I can start shooting video.

2017 was a crazy year. Whirlwind European vacation, hurricane and a decision to let go of something solid in order to open myself more for that artist self. By just opening space, its launched something I don't think has any limits.

2018 in numerology is said to be a master year because when you add up all the numbers you get eleven. Cheers to mastering a long soul life question and happiness to all!

Cannot wait to see this...

Renewed my Tropic Cinema membership just in time. Cannot wait to see this...

Welcome...

I went to see the new Star Wars movie, felt the force and created this website. More to come...