Preparing to be Captured

A long LONG time ago I was brave, apparently

I follow him on social media and I read his posts, but last weekend was the first time I've spoken at length to Larry Edwards, one of our photographer regulars at Fest.

He visited primarily to offer his concern for something negative that happened in my shop the previous weekend (I suffered the downside of my Pay What You Wish idea.... it happens....) and had planned to purchase some art, and I suggested we trade: my work for his work.

And this weekend that might happen....

Rarely do I ever take a good photo. I think I'm allergic to camera lenses! I'll admit that it's not so bad now when all folks are pointing at me is a cellphone, but when someone who knows what they're doing points a badass lens at me, I immediately turn into Awkward Woman.

One of my Eldest's photos

My Eldest once took pics of me at Fest at the end of a cloudy day, while crowds were sparse and both of us were bored. Maybe I was tired. Maybe my sales were under par. In any event, I couldn't seem to smile much. I didn't care that the lens was staring me down. I didn't even care what I looked like....

But those PHOTOS! When I saw them afterward they took my breath away! Maybe it was because I trusted her and was comfortable with her? (Could it possibly be because she's female? Hmm....) Anyway, I swear I'd use them now for everything if I wasn't 20 years older than I was then....

Not so long ago, I participated in a photoshoot with a dear Fest friend who was having pics taken for a future book. I'd never done anything like that before, and the experience was surreal. Someone actually 'styled' me! But it was all fun and games (just acting natural with others in a group setting) until I was singled out and asked to pose.

I'll admit I have zero interest in The Spotlight. Even coached gently by my friend (who has TONS of experience with this!) I felt awkward and uncomfortable. Maybe vulnerable is a better word? All I know is that I'd rather have been enduring a root canal at that moment, and all I could think of was how I was disappointing my friend....

Twig the Fairy -- THIS is that friend!

I never once asked that photographer to show me what he'd taken. And when the book was published, I anxiously looked for myself in it. There I was, in a group photo, hiding behind my hand. No one would ever know it was me! (*whew!*)

This week, Mr. Edwards sent me a message: "Wear makeup this weekend if need be; let's shoot."

And I panicked.

The first thing I did was order a frippin' overdress in my post-menopausal granny-body size. Then I practiced making myself up to look 'glamorous.' Then I haunted the mailbox until the dress arrived, tried it on, saw that it FIT, breathed a sigh of relief!

But now today I'm taking a step back....

The hell am I doing!?

Mr. Edwards is a professional; his photos are incredible! And I'm a human bean; I look the way I look. And sometimes I even like the way I look.

James took this; it's not about my face maybe...

What would that future photo look like if I was just me? No makeup? (except eyebrows; I refuse to look like a sugar cookie in photos of myself....) Would I like it? Would it sadden me? Would I have to accept that THAT is the Real Me? Could I learn to be friends with that person? Come to terms with her? Embrace her?

Who knows if this will even happen. Fest is in its next-to-last weekend, things are brutal and busy now, and I'm the only one in my shop for most of the show day. I'd feel foolish if I glammed myself up and we weren't able to make the shoot happen. So how would it be if I just threw on my boy clothes and didn't care?

Hmmmm.

...to be continued...

Funko Pop ME Needs to Happen!

I have lots of Funko Pop characters around the house and in my studio because they're CUTE and I can't help myself. (James can't either.) And one morning at the studio I drew myself as one as a warm-up exercise:

I love that my figurine comes with lots of STUFF!

Of course, the 'extras' would be AMAZING. Not only would I come with all the above bits, but they could be changed out for other stuff!:

• an additional assortment of pets: a starling(!), a pair of lovebirds, a colorful little rooster with a bowtie, a fuzzy 'Lucas'-like spider, a shiny cornsnake, a stickbug, a mantid, a toad, a housemouse, and MORE,
• towers of books!,
• a musical instrument that can be swapped for the sketchbook and pencils under the arm,
• colorful hairchalks for that I-can't-decide-what-color-I-want-to-feel-like-today look!,
• black Chuck Taylors to replace the boots,
• a cloud of monarch butterflies and/or a herd of monarch caterpillars,
• an assortment of necklaces, leather bracelets, and silver rings,
• a backpack full of buttons: 'MN Nice,' 'Watch Less, Read More,' 'Sorry, I'm Awkward, Sorry,'
• a Hufflepuff house scarf,
• and a Cloak of Invisibility!

Seriously, my Funko Pop self would be expensive as hell to produce but would still be a big old HIT.

Well, at least to me!

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Veronica Shafer -- Superhero!

Veronica 'n me!

As I stood behind my counter last Sunday at the Renaissance Festival, sharing a handful of my chrysalises and caterpillars with a few interested customers, a young lady in her teens entered my shop, accompanied by her mom and her two younger siblings. Veronica Shafer was there specifically to tell me about her achievements.

At the urging of her mother, Veronica shyly admitted to me that she'd successfully raised over 150 monarch butterflies!

And as if this incredible achievement wasn't enough, she then proudly told me about how she presented her project at this year's State Fair and won the Grand Champion award!

Of course, all of this made me do the happydance, as you can imagine. Ever since the summer I raised so many caterpillars that I was forced to take them all with me to Fest (just so my poor housesitter wouldn't have to deal with them in my absence) and people were curious about them and why I was raising them, folks stop in my shop all the time now to tell me about the milkweed they've planted and the caterpillars they're feeding.

(And I don't care who you are, one little kid telling you about how he raised a caterpillar until it became a butterfly will warm your heart and make your socks go up and down. I celebrate ALL the achievements!)

You can almost see her wings and halo in this picture!

But Veronica wasn't done yet.

She went on to tell me that she also approached her City Council, proposed that it take the Mayor's Monarch Pledge through the National Wildlife Federation, and suggested it create a pollinator garden at a local park, plant milkweed and native flowers in a nearby watershed area, and have an information booth at the local Fun Fest to educate the public about monarch butterflies!

And GUESS WHAT? -- her proposal was accepted! (Read about it on page 4 of Loretto's city newsletter!)

Veronica Shafer is a superhero. All the kiddos out there planting milkweed and learning about monarchs in school, all the kiddos looking for caterpillars and trying to raise them at home, all the kiddos who stop by now and share with me their monarch stories are superheroes. Knowing that they're doing this good work fills me with HOPE.

But here's the part that kills me with kindness.

Here's the part that breaks my heart and still gives me tears.

Veronica said she was inspired to do all this

because

of me.

The butterflies thank you, Veronica!

Once upon a time she came into my shop with her family and I showed her my brood of hungry, hungry hippos, and she became inspired. And I was completely unaware that all the while I was sharing silly stories about my monarch experiences I was actually making a memory for this incredible young person who is now going on to make a difference in the world as a result.

Wow.

I'm still... I don't know what... flabbergasted!

*big breath*

Anyway....

For the rest of that day after speaking with Veronica, I told EVERYONE about our meeting. Absolutely EVERYONE. And I'd end the story by saying, "Isn't this awesome!?"

And a dear friend whispered, "Do you know what's even more awesome, Delayne?.... That's only ONE that you know about."

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Not Enough Heads For All My Hats!

Feeling chaotic....

Some of my artist heroes are/were reclusive people who lived long into the modern age with hardly a TV or telephone (or, in some cases, even an automobile) in sight. They wrote stories by hand and illustrated them at their kitchen windows and were left alone to draw and dream and not be disturbed by technology. And their examples were everything I ever wanted to be when I grew up.

I've finally gotten to the point where I'm living that dream. Sort of. Because as much as I'd like to be spending my days happily writing stories by hand and illustrating them at my kitchen window, I can't if I expect to pay any bills. A self-employed artist these days (in my opinion) has to be a big old multi-tasker. First and foremost: they must have an online presence. And it can't be just a little one, either.

So this old dog has been trying to learn new tricks of the eCommerce variety. But good grief! Creating a virtual storefront? Adding shopping carts and checkout plug-ins? Following traffic feeds? And just what the heck is HTML and Search Engine Optimization, anyway? As far as I'm concerned, anything more complicated than sending an email might as well have a sign around its neck saying, "Here Be Dragons." And by the time this slow learner has figured out how to do something as (apparently) simple as posting a photo to Facebook, all those hours in the day that could've been spent sitting at my kitchen window drawing are gone....

Many of my artist heroes were still creating when the Internet came along, and it was their adoring fans who brought them into the Social Media age by designing their websites and maintaining their fanpages. I'm sure those artists would've lived just fine without them. As far as I can tell, every last one of them had little use for an Etsy account.

Plus, I suspect another reason why my heroes were left alone to draw and dream was because they had a host of others who did the rest for them -- the printing, the selling, the advertising, packaging, shipping, copy writing, website designing, public-relations-ing, fill-in-the-blank-ing. People like me have to do all that ourselves in addition now to blogging and tweeting, posting and linking, and being the ear-to-the-ground individual who is simply there to monitor online feed related to our happy little businesses. Not much time in a day anymore to draw and dream let alone anything else.

Of course people can be hired to do all of the above, but that would take money I don't have and employer skills I don't possess. So it boils down to just me -- the person who can hardly figure out how to add an attachment to an email. And let's not forget that some days it's hard to just be let alone be me (or, in this case, be everything); when Life suddenly adds a big dose of crazy to the mix, growing a business doesn't just become an afterthought, it goes right out the window....

At the moment I'm trying to create a new website in addition to my original one (created for me by my James and I love it, but it definitely looks its age; plus, I wouldn't know how to correct a typo on it to save my life!). And supposedly websites are so easy to make now that a person should be able to create one in their sleep. Not me....

And, of course, it's pre-Fest 'crunch time' now and printing is happening (or trying to happen). This means reminding myself why Photoshop is not always my friend.

Let's not forget my Etsy store either. Wait; it appears I have forgotten it! (Should I forget it? Things have changed there since I visited last; should I move to a different platform?)

So here's where I'd love to sum up my defense and justification of everything that I'm currently not doing (or not doing well) as it relates to Mayfaire, but I won't. Instead, I'll hand the keyboard over to my inner Beater-Upper and allow her to do the talking, as she's been trying to wrestle the dang thing away from me all this time anyway. And she says, "No one said being a self-employed artist would be easy. You know this, so suck it up already. Gah!"

She's right, of course. Guess I've been told.

...
(Note: The awesome hat in the picture is actually a Cthulhu tea cozy created for me by my friend Becca Leathers, owner of KnitNax.)

For YOU from ME

This little post
Has 'you' written all over
It. Because
Not a day goes by that I don't
Keep you in my heart, hold you
In my thoughts, and wish only
Nice things for you. Please
Give yourself the gentlest and warmest

Of hugs and be extra kind to yourself, OK?
For

You are one
Of my cherished readers! And for you I am
Unbelievably grateful.

...delayne.

Good Question

Last week I stayed with my parents at their house Up North, and at the end of my visit my dad drove me home again. Too late I realized that we'd passed the turn-off to the Rum River Art Center and my little studio, and I said so aloud, adding, "If I'd thought about it sooner, I would've had us go there so I could show it to you." I knew he was in a hurry, so I didn't expect him to turn around and really go there! But it was an enormous pleasure for me to unlock the door to the Art Center and invite him in, the guy whose opinion matters more to me than I can begin to express.

I showed him the large classroom space as we approached my studio door, and I heard him chuckle when he saw my busy window full of my drawings and comics and doodles. And he chuckled again when I opened the door and turned on my light. "So this is it! Well, you sure have a lot of stuff...." I do. And I expected a comment like that. My little room is cluttered with art supplies, show materials, product displays, and art on the walls that I find comforting and inspirational. It's somewhat of an 'organized' mess....

Inside the door on a little table were some leaflings that I'd recently created, spread out on craft paper and awaiting more of my attention. Dad said, "So you work on your leaves here...." And then after a pause he said, "Do people really buy these?"

I get that question a lot, usually from well-meaning family members (and my tax guy, who I suspect is surprised that anyone buys anything from me at all). The first time I heard it I was a bit offended, but now I understand.

With his question, Dad was trying to wrap his head around why someone would buy a leafling because THEN what do they do with it? I've been asking myself this question ever since the first customer picked one up and asked me how much it was. But I've since gotten lots of answers. And I would've shared them with Dad that day if I thought there was time. So instead I just laughed and said, "They do. And no one's more surprised by that than I am."

I've had people purchase leaflings for all sorts of reasons. Many have gone on to frame one or display it in a shadowbox or tuck it behind a picture on the wall. A friend of a friend bought five and hand-carried them to Glastonbury Tor as gifts for the other attendees at a spiritual get-together. Three siblings who lost a nature-loving sister to cancer bought one to leave at her gravesite. A young woman toted one on a hike to the Grand Canyon and then made a wish before sending it over the edge. Another left her purchased leafling on the Gun Flint Trail in memory of her father, who enjoyed hiking it. And these are just a few of the stories I've collected over the short period of time that I've offered these creations....

I wonder just how satisfying these explanations are, really, to anyone but myself. Do they really address my dad's query?

People who follow me online respond to my leafling images in a way that both pleases me and surprises me. And when they hold one in person, the reaction it gets is too heartwarming for words. What IS it about them?? I have no idea....

But I'm just the messenger, the middleman, the conduit. What do I know?

...

Would This Be Missed?

Oh dear. I'm not sure how to proceed....!

I'm just learning bits about the General Data Protection Regulation, which is a new data privacy law being introduced by the European Union.

It affects businesses and bloggers everywhere (not just the EU), and it comes into full force tomorrow, May 25.

Because of this deadline I've been hearing more and more about it over the last week, but I know little except that it applies to anyone online who processes 'personal data,' like names and email addresses. And non-compliance can amount to some staggeringly butt-biting fines. Like gabillion-dollar fines.

Some well-meaning sites offer 'easy' ways to make sure one's biz and blogsite are compliant, but I swear those ways are written in Klingon. Seriously, I am so stumped it's not funny. I want to do what's necessary and I want to do it immediately, but I'm so confused by it!

I can't imagine I've amassed any 'personal data' outside of the names and e-addresses of the handful of followers I have who get these occasional posts emailed to them. But I'd hate to be wrong and then get busted.... In the grand scheme of things, I may be a tiny blogger with a tiny business and a tiny online footprint, but I still have to comply....

I enjoy blogging, but you wouldn't know it to look at my 2018 posts. The year is half over and I think I've written once if I've written at all.... But it's not because I have nothing to say. You're in my thoughts every dang day, and I have dozens of draft posts to prove it. Rather than send you something all rambling and mind-numbing, I prefer to have a topic. With an appropriate title. And some photos to break up all the type and give you something to look at. Something that looks professional. Something that looks like it's been proofread and spellchecked. And that takes time (and I'm a perfectionist as well as a procrastinator)....

Still.

I wonder....

Am I worried about making a blog GDPR compliant that is doing nothing but taking up space, shouting into the void, spinning its wheels? Is it worthy of keeping around? Or is it time to dispense with it?

This is one time I really need you to comment. Please. So what do you think?

Would this be missed?
...

It's a Whole New Year!

Happy New Year, my friend! I hope great things for you in 2018.

How was your holiday season? It was a rollercoaster for me, as always, what with some traveling and last minute art sales. The seasonal flu hit my little circle hard (not me personally, thankfully), and this year's strain is the pits. My holiday gatherings were minus a number of dear faces as family members hunkered down to recover. I used to be rather ambivalent about getting a flu shot until the season I went down hard with it, thinking it was just a bad cold at the time. And in the midst of a serious fever I can recall being fearful for my life, and I never want to experience that kind of a 'cold' again. I know flu season hasn't peaked yet. If you experience it at all, I hope its visit is brief and gentle.

Tax Season has arrived here. (Ick...) But because I did some additional art shows in 2017 and vowed at each one to let customers Pay What They Wish, my annual sales were up for a change, and I never get an opportunity to show my Tax Guy that I can make more than 50-cents a year. (I hope he's proud of me. I'm proud of me.) Because my year-long experiment was interesting and fortunately worked out in my favor, I want to try it again for another year -- just to see if the surprising results I experienced were just a fluke. Fingers crossed! I would LOVE to make this Pay What You Wish platform a forever thing.

As I write this post, I'm busy gearing up for the North Artists Studio Crawl (Studio G on the map again!; last year's experience was wonder-filled) and the St. Paul Art Crawl (Carleton Lofts location). And I'm creating Leaflings as fast as I can. Sharing them this past year with the public has warmed my heart and given me hope for the future.

So there! A bit of news to begin this year's blogging. I look forward to keeping you updated! And I hope that 2018 is grand for us all.
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