Two Question asked of me yesterday

First one is...it seems that your are in Doubt again  how are things going?  

Second one is how does it feel to be published?  


The First Question about being in doubt or seeming that I'm in doubt is scary that people notice it...or is it that I'm doing my blogging/therapy about it and that people read...which is OKey-Doky with me... we all need a save place to vent... I just seem to need a few more...or by being an artist most of my time is tending to making the art and marketing it and that means I'm by myself more and use the blog besides my morning journaling to vent...

I do doubt often and from what I've read and what I've experienced it's natural...but it's not always easy to do and go through.The un-natural part is to show it all the time, it is uncomfortable for people to see and sometimes I agree. So to understand this and the best way is this...it's scary to know whats ahead and what would be the right choices to make...so there's hesitation, questioning, vulnerability and Doubt....it's a time for me to pull back not rush in and take a real look at what would be the best choice for Me..yes Me and not what others are doing. Call it checking in on myself, my home life and my family and the Kind of work I do and teach I have to be aware of how this can work and still with grace, balance and manageability.

I'm glad I was asked this question yesterday...I heard once that it never goes away...it's actually grows bigger as one advances into there life's work...especial work that is not steady or predictable.  The ups and downs of life and the unsure parts...hanging by the last things that happened...it's like swing on the monkey bars when you were a kid...not sure if you would be able to hang on long enough while swinging and then to keep up the motion to swing to the next bar and grab on....then could you hang on long enough and make it across the whole length without being made fun of.  (issue from my pass...? not just real life stuff )

Well I've taken that risk often and swung and reached... I've fallen twice in this act on the monkey bars and knocked the wind out of myself...each time not a good feeling...you keep sucking in air and it never wants to release...it's frightening...just before you thinking your going to die....it happens and you are able to let out the tons of air that you sucked in and you lye in gratitude that it didn't really happen...you didn't die.   Pretty dramatic ah?

 But doubt is real thing in you/me a train wreck of thinking that happens...a sucking in of air and not letting it out...of course its not as real as the wind getting knocked out of you but it's an attitude of perspective that needs some times....the chance to exhale...to stop and take it in small steps....and to know that you are not alone and that their will be guidance along the way that give new direction and insight....kind of weird to say it now but it's a chain of events...some of us call it other things but I've accepted it as part of the process. Lets say embraced that part..not that I like it...I just know it's part of.  And if I'm visible in my behavior while I go through it...I'm not sorry...I'm human and working through the stuff that comes up in my life. I have come to a peace with it.

Second Question...how does it feel to be published?
When I work so hard...and passionate with my art...and all that I had wanted to express comes out and through me...that is so rewarding...it's a partnership between my god-good orderly direction and myself...and then to have people ask me to be part of their article or the book...or I enter a juried event and my work gets accepted and published that is a blessing...  at that point I do want to share with the whole world..."look everyone, look what happened, I'm in awe..."  That's my real first feelings...and then the ego steps in...now ego to me is Easy God Out...and that's not what I do through this whole process...so why does it even enter...kind of like doubt...and the monkey bars... if your not aware of it the ugly ego thinking can wreck havoc on the vulnerable part of you that are innocent, true and real.   I do hear the words..."We see you out there all over the place...your something now aren't you?  And then you hear...Congratulations...and it seems to calm the beast of ego....

Then the other side of things is this...like the first artists of our time they put there hand print out on a wall...now we continue to repeat that and put our art on the wall...(well us visual 2-D artists) and then in some cases the blessing is that image of that work get published and then it is able to be viewed by more people across the world...yes that's true it's not the real thing but more people get to experience your view of a moment in your life that document a part of a bigger whole.....We are documenting life...as we see it...we are responding to it, Life in the most purest form...to create with our being.

I do publicize this in my emails, my blog and my website....a part of the business of this all and a part, with out sounding ugly...but a part that seems more like an honor then any thing else.
All done with the embrasement of grace in me and at my side...