We took some time this week to go to the Monet exhibit at the Philbrook art museum in Tulsa.
It is a lovely museum with lovely grounds and gardens. It was a bit too warm to wander around the grounds on this visit. We  did get to see the Monet exhibit.
We were not allowed to take photos in the exhibit so the only photo I have of any Monet work is this one from the front entrance. His artwork is lovely and I really enjoyed how he worked with light. We also saw some Native American Pottery.
The pots on the bottom are easily 3-4 feet tall.
I hope that if you live in the are you will take the opportunity and go see the beautiful paintings by Monet. FYI kids 17 and under are free!
I have been working on this for several weeks now. The blues were relaxing and fun to work with. Here are some of the teaser photos that I have shared with you via Instagram and Facebook.
This is a photo of the lovely fringe! So textural and fun!I see this poncho with black skinny jeans and boots or a fun flirty skirt! This is the latest installment in my new line of ponchos/shawls. I love crocheting these wearable boho works of art! Each one is unique and you can be sure that there won’t be another just like it! It takes about two weeks of off and on work to reach the point where I can add the fringe.
I personally picked the yarn for this poncho. At the end of every row I ask myself which color or texture does it need next. It will be available in the http://www.chocolatedogstudio.etsy.com shop on Friday at 6 pm. I will never make another just like this one, when it is gone, it is truly gone.
I found the coolest hemp bracelets on Etsy today. There are so many different colors and styles to choose from.
This shop is owned and run by Ashley Jackson. She lives in Milwaukee WI. She makes beautiful bracelets and there are so many different colors and styles to choose from.
Passion is quite frankly over-rated. I am really down on passion these days. Passion is a flash in the pan, a moment in time never to be attained again in precisely the same way.
Now that I have your attention I will say that following your passion in business is over-rated. So  are the statements “create what you love and you will do great in your artistic life”, “be true to yourself”,”be who you are”. All of those statements are truthful to a point but the real truth is that  unless you put old fashioned HARD WORK you aren’t going to make it. Hard work is what keeps you making that one item the hundredth time. Hard work will keep you creating when you are tired and worn out. Hard work and not passion is what keeps musicians practicing in tiny rooms for hours at a time. Passion might put them in the room but hard work is what keeps them improving and practicing for long hours with no audience.
“Create what you love and you will do great in your artistic life”. Hmmm, where do you think the term starving artist came from? Â If you are doing your art or craft to pay bills, you might have to compromise your vision with what the people will buy. It is a terribly tiny line that you walk between earning money and following your dream. Somewhere between your dream and reality lies the middle line. Your job as an artist is to find a middle point that fulfills you as an artist and provides a living. At least until you have made a name for yourself. I know that there are people that will disagree with this, but if you are going to spend time and money creating, then you need people to buy your items to finance more creating. What do you think?
The great thing about having facebook is the links that people post are often interesting. This one really spoke to me, in fact it spoke so much that I have asked for the book for Christmas. It talks about the opposite of being fragile or Antifragile. The book is Antifragile:Things that Gain from Disorder is written Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I am taking my understanding of Taleb’s book from this website; http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/12/03/beyond-sissy-resilience-on-becoming-antifragile/
The article discusses the opposite of fragile. They discuss the fact that the opposite of fragile isn’t robust or resilient. As being Anti-fragile should put you ahead of where you started before the bad time happened. Instead of breaking during stressful personal or business times we should become stronger.
I have come through a time recently when I felt very fragile and I am continuing to feel fragile. So this concept is very attractive to me from a personal standpoint and as a small business owner.
The article touches on how large often equals fragile due to red tape, an inability to swiftly react to market changes, or icebergs in the case of the Titanic. Â It talks about being optimized to make use of every resource. In my case it would be a calendar with no extra time for the daily life occurrences that happen ie a flat tire, a sick child, medical emergencies that all play havoc with our calendar, budget and life. Â People try to reduce this randomness in life by planning it out. An example of this in real life are parents that try to keep their children from experiencing small hurts like Johnny doesn’t want to play with Jimmy. The author states that stress strengthens us and removing stresses from our children’s lives weakens them.
Resilience or the ability to bounce back while a great ability to have is useless if you do not grow from your experience. Growing means that you have moved beyond randomness or become anti fragile.
The great news is that Taleb feels that being small is great for being antifragile! Small business are more able to change direction.
You really should read the rest of it and gather some great insight but here are some insights that I gathered from this article.
1. What doesn’t kill your small business should make it stronger. Will you learn from your mistakes? Change your focus if it is needed!
2. Have a back up plan! Having more than one critical piece of equipment isn’t a bad thing, for my business this would be to have more than one sewing machine that works well.
3. Add some stress to your life! Â You can do this by changing your work schedule, or how you do things. See if there is a new way to do what you have always done. Stress strengthens you as it forces you to change.
4. Play it safe and also take risks. In a small retail business this might be continuing to sell your best selling items while you learn a new skill or sell something else just to see how it goes.
5. Don’t take advice from someone that doesn’t also do what you do.Why would you take advice from someone that doesn’t also run a small business?
6. Reduce the negatives. Remove things that are detracting from your business or life. Do you have bad habits or debt? Get rid of the debt and work on the bad habits.
7. Keep your options open. So,keep some money in the bank for the slow times. If your best selling item stops selling then stop making it and move on.
I am excited to get to read this book as it reinforces what I have always known; What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! We just have to decide that we are going to grow from what has happened and move forward or in a completely different direction.
I have had a busy six weeks. It is incredibly boring to sit around doing nothing for six weeks while you recuperate from surgery.  I can say that I am working on my list of boring hard things to do; finish the AARP defensive driving course, finish up the sequin stocking kit that I started in 1999. Yes, I did finally finish it, minus the instruction sheet and cover sheet. I found a photo of the complete kit on E-bay. Printed that picture out and went to town on it yesterday. It is now just waiting on me to put the embroidered name on it for my sweet new daughter in law. She and our son will now have matching Christmas stockings. I am now on to the dreaded 1994 cross stitch project. I have finally found all of the parts, pattern, cross stitch, missing threads but I am missing a cross stitch needle. It will turn up quickly and I will get this done and marked off my list. I am  sorry about the size of this photo but I took it with my phone and it is just not working quite right I can’t figure out how to resize it today. Tomorrow I will have more brain power I am sure. I do know that if you click on it, it will take you to another window and show the a bigger photo if you are really want to see it.
So we will see if I get to show you the finished project. I will have to say in my self defense that having four children under nine is not the time to be doing counted cross stitch anything. So now that they are older (23,20,18, and 15) and we have moved four times. I think I can get it finished.
During that post holiday creative slump, I started several crochet projects knowing full well, that they would be abandoned when the yarn shipments would arrive!
Here is what I started during that time and since the yarn shipment came in.
a bright and cheery granny square blanket
a black and melon granny ripple…
a beautiful big granny square blanket of brilliant colored wool with cream borders
and then this beautiful granny square blanket also out of deliciously warm wool.
I know it seems as though I should finish one before I start the next. My Mom and Grandma’s would agree but, I work best this way. I have two totes with several projects in them that are traveling size. I take these with me to places where I have to sit and wait and work on my projects while waiting. When they reach a point where they are too big to travel, I work on them at night while watching movies. If I reach a point where I have lost inspiration or run out of supplies then I simply put it aside and continue working on the other projects at hand. This system is working as it keeps the shop on a cash basis and I am not buying supplies on credit.
