SELF-LESS

In general I want happiness in life, but I found the path to unhappiness often is more obvious and easier to take; jealousy, suspicion, self-righteousness, etc. I'll make an effort to exam my "feelings" when I am not happy, and most of the time, it was me who need to detour.


Joy, my daughter misbehaved last night. She talked back at me and her auntie, i.e. my sister. Joy thought the comment we made at dinner was unfair, so she was arguing with me first and later my sister in the restaurant. The dinner ended up abruptly as we all felt miserable.  So, instead of hang out in the night market as we planned, I walked out of the group feeling really bad. I saw Joy left the group shortly after me heading back. I could see why she wouldn't stay... That's when I decided to walk back to the group and continue exploring the night market with my sister and her daughter without Joy.

We had fun. But the mixed of anger and humiliation and sadness about Joy's behavior bothered me all night and this morning.

I worry this 26 old daughter will suffer in her personal relationships as well as at work if her temper is so short and strong. As a single mom, I also felt I spoilt her - I didn't do my job bring her up "properly" in her manner,  And now, like my sister commented after Joy left, that it's a little "too late" to "discipline" her as a child. I will just have to let her go, make her own mistakes, and live her own life. It's difficult for me as her mother, but it is the only way that she can grown up, just like I did.  

Pike Place

Market has been kind to me this summer. (Or was it me that's been smarter? Smarter in how I set up my booth, mat my prints, etc.?) I feel blessed that I could safely say I have a viable job now. (Which is important to me as I love to be financially independent at least to some extend.)

Unfortunately in my Chinese friends' eye, this gig is not about art or talent, it's about survival, and they praised me being "brave" for making a living with this low-life job, a market vendor! One of them showed up with her husband, going through my work (while the husband standing afar looking over his nose), picked up a print, and decided to "go for the smaller size" - as a favor. Yes, as a favor to me!

I kept my smile on, thanked her for coming. Yes, at least she showed up and showed me her graciousness.  

Illustration Day One

Slow in the market as expected. I decided to start on the illustration project for my story books instead of sitting there moaning. It's really COLD.
Pencil first - as I didn't know what I'll do eventually - acrylic? oil? water color? Or even collage? I thought I leave that decision to a later date. I should find out first what this woman (me, of course) could do first before I assign her more specific task. So, yes, the harmless pencil first.

Drawing seemed not overly difficult to her - of course with a lot of eraser work, two images came out before too long. One is the swirl before the mirror - I like to know if she could do the swirl. One is flying high up - the perspective was a little challenge.

My design is to make the main object(s) - where the eye should go - with stronger and more realistic and to leave the rest in kind of sketchy and cartoon style. Still, this is only in an experiment stage.

Let's see what tomorrow will bring.

Skyline WA

I went online and searched under "paper painting" - an artist came up. Elizabeth Nelson. I was amazed by the way she uses acrylics first before putting paper pieces on. I was very very tempted to follow suit and planned to do my next piece her way. But then, when I started this piece, my "task mode" kicked in again (logically, I still think it's harder to use paper to deliver the shades in the background, although my painting skill is not as good as my collage making), so I chose the long way this time again. After I made the background, I thought it would be much easiers if I painted the thin branches, I was this close to start painting.... Now I have done it, I'm glad I did it with paper only. 

Painting? Next time. I promised.

Puzzle D'Arte

How fun now I have a kindergarden sign in the market. I think this will bring fun to my booth. My neighbor Sue is so excited about this business, she constantly calls me and shares more puzzle ideas with me. I hope my business will take off and one day I can hire her to work for me.

I can see my hand was kind of shaking when writing the sign, but I tried many times to "improve" it, failed. Still the first time writing is the best. So I decided to leave the shaking hand as is. Just so it is more "real" and "personal" - I think.

I also will give my magnets a cute name "Magnettos" - and besides art images, I will try to print some "fun mottos" - (but where to find fun mottos??? Hmmmm... maybe I could find some Chinese words??? Ideas, ideas, ideas.

This is such a hard business - I made between $0 to $45 in the last 6 days in the market. Plus it's freezing cold. But I somehow can start seeing the light, and start enjoying the fun of building my little booth in this little corner of the universe.

Do it well

I stopped my work tonight to watch a movie with ML. Tomorrow I'm going to the market with what I have and although it's close to Valentine's Day and I still have tons to do to get enough stuff done for the market, I decided not to rush into anything any more. I just want to take one step a time and create something really nice for the market, not just whip things up (like I used to, I have to confess), it has to be something nice even in the "touristy" product line.

I "feel" the idea Message in a Puzzle will fly.

Too bad I don't have a puzzle machine to make curvy puzzles. I think sooner or later I will need to buy one. But I need to wait until I'm ready - i.e. enough good arts to support the business. Here are what I have so far, but I'm not sure if they are good enough... I need to think. Calm down and think.

One step a time, Carol. There is always tomorrow.    

Message in a Puzzle

This will be one of my product lines - puzzle with a message in it. It can be used as a love gift for holiday greetings. I will print something generic for sale off the shelf. Or people can write up their own messages and we mail out the package for them (to remain anonymous until the puzzle is put together).

I feel this will be a good idea for the market. We will see.

Puzzles and New Year Wishes

Just two weeks ago I had an idea. If I use magnet, I don't have to have puzzle machine to cut curvy puzzles. I could just cut into various triangles - yes! So I give it a try. And even my picky daughter Joy agreed it looked fun to play. So I cut some with my collage prints (laminated with a vinyl surface then onto a mat board + magnet sheet) and gave them away to neighbors, friends to test out. It took me 30 minute to finish putting one together and I also found out triangles are harder to push around on magnet. So I changed it to irregular square shape. I also gave up lamination with vinyl on top. Vinyl was to protect the surface from dirty fingers, but it turned out it could be sharp at the edge on the fingers too. So I checked on other puzzle making website, nobody used lamination, so I decided to cut short one step.
Then I cut short one more step. I apply the image directly to a thicker magnet instead of a layer of mat board. Mat board is too hard on the knife.
I started the business in the market, the first day I only sold 7 magnets. Second day, three magnets and one puzzle. Tomorrow will be the third day.
Name is also something I work on right now.
Puzzle D'arte, pack-a-puzzle, message-in-a-puzzle, puzzle-me-this, Magnettos. I love them all for different reasons.
In the market, everything has to be "right on" - people are busy and there are hundreds of little stands. If you don't catch their attention in the first second, they are gone. So what will be the name that catch the eye and the mind?
My new year wish is to make my Pike Place Market gig a viable one by selling both touristy puzzles & magnets as well as my art, and I could  paint and do the art I love while waiting on the booth.
Angels, please bless me and help me get there.