Seven Months ?

 Well -

It would appear that I've been MIA for months.  A little over seven of them if you are counting.  I have to say, I'm not in a good place and it has not been an easy year.  I've had to shed things - things I love, things that keep me sane - to keep up.  Don't get me wrong.  There has been a lot of good this year too, even if it is hard to see at times, but it definitely has not been easy.

One of the things I had to put on hold (I haven't really shed them I guess, though it certainly feels like it) is writing.   And I've come to understand that writing is something that keeps me sane.  Whether it is this blog, or things for Patreon, or just things for me - those words coming into my head and then getting let out somewhere - on a page or a keyboard - that exchange helps me stay balanced - or as close as I manage to get.  It lets things flow through me rather than being bottled inside me, fermenting.

And I know that is a part of why I'm not in a good place right now - everything has been fermenting, and it feels distinctly like it has all gone off.  There are a lot of reasons for it, and there are a lot of ingredients that have made things turn toxic, but as with any process you can always throw out the bad batch and start again.

So, here I am, briefly back at the keyboard, pulling off the lid of the bad mix, hoping to wash it all clean and start anew.  Of course, the conditions are always changing, and I'm beginning again in a world I need to squint to recognize.  It seems strange that I say that in a post-Trump, sort of post-Covid world....but somehow those years felt more manageable to me than this last one.  (Of course, Trump was only a disheartening news figure for me, not the president of the place I reside, but still.)

I hope your year has been easier than mine, and that your future looks bright.  I'm not sure where I sit, but I'm tending to myself now, and assessing where I'm at.  From the outside it doesn't look like the path has changed, but internally, as ever, everything is different.  Different isn't bad, it's just what it is.  A new perspective on the landscape.  I look forward to being back, and I'm on my way, but I'm not there yet.  Just wanted to check in and let you all know.

New Shoots

The sun has been out several days in a row, and for the most part the temperatures have actually stayed above freezing. Last night and today is a major rainstorm – but it is above freezing, and (relatively) warm. Some of the snow is beginning to melt and some of my gardens are beginning to reappear. Though there are still a lot of snow filled spots and icy patches it is much easier to walk around outside. 

 March this year was terrible...the freeze/ thaw cycle kept things so icy I actually couldn't get to work twice this year in March. In spite of the multitude of great things going on so far this year it has felt exceptionally hard and the winter has felt incredibly long. Everything is subjective, even when you know that objectively it is not so bad. 

It seems that spring might be moving back in, finally.

 As always, I have high hopes for setting a pace this year, but my moods and enthusiasm seem as fickle as the weather. I really am trying to write again – I have so many partial articles done for my Patreon page...and I know I'm not a brilliant writer, but I'm not a horrible one either. I just can't put something up that is in as rough a shape as most of them are. I am finding it difficult, especially on bad days, to make reasonable sentence structures out of bits of thoughts. I am bereft of terms and phrases – it is like part of my memory disk has been corrupted. As an example, for weeks now I cannot hold onto the phrase “freezing rain”. When I think about what has been happening outside I come up with “icy rain” or “icy bits” but the words “freezing rain” escape me entirely. 

 

I have faith that it will all come back into focus, and my brain and body will begin to reawaken as the weather warms, but the wait feels interminable. So I'm trying to tend the new shoots as they appear, do the work I can as it comes and be patient. Writing when the words come, as much as is possible, doing a lot of the “zen of chain”, waiting for the ice to melt in the slack tub and pushing to do the pressing things in fits and starts. Baby steps, like seeds swelling, but not yet ready to burst forth new shoots into the ground. Having faith that something is, in fact, better than nothing and knowing that I'm not alone in this place, this endless waiting that makes time slow to a crawl while at the same time it disappears before it has even been acknowledged. The mere fact that it is, in fact April already...the winter stayed forever, but where did it go? 

 

 So soak up the sun, the moisture, and the nutrients as they come, because I have a feeling that once those shoots begin to unfurl the pace is going to end up rivalling the speed of light.   I know I'll need every ounce of what I have to keep up.

Addendum to Building Blocks Post

Hello, it would seem that the hyperlinks in blogger are not working. I also wanted to give the image credits.... The info for the missing links is as follows: www.elfworksstudios.com www.etsy.com/nz/shop/ElfworksStudios www.instagram.com/kelly.at.elfworks/ www.facebook.com/ElfworksStudios www.digitalmainstreet.ca www.elfworksstudios.ca www.patreon.com/elfworksstudios Image credits are as follows: All photos are courtesy of Pixabay.com. I did put credits on the photos themselves, but I think I sometimes dropped the second "a" in Pixabay. All the science/atoms images are by Gerd Altmann Brick image by Michael Jarmoluk Coloured wood blocks image by ZeeShutterz Lego image by Clare Dry stone wall by Michael Nichols Gardening/hands by Delynn Talley Wooden puzzle by Hans

Building Blocks

I have been resistant to get into the digital side of business, pretty much forever. I'm not much of a digital person, in spite of all it offers. It just isn't how I work. I've had a website for a very long time, but never got further than a framework, a showcase, really. It was always on the list, but for me the learning curve was too steep and too far outside my real interest to go any further. I've had this blog since 2008, either shortly before or after the set up of the .com site, I would guess. Part of the problem with the blog is the way that blogs had “traditionally” been done – at least as far as I could tell. Everything I had read – and often what I still read – about how to make a “successful” blog is that it is basically a huge marketing thing. Give them tons of soundbites, no depth, and often. Then once in a while throw them the bone of a real article. Use gimmicks, repeat things that are everywhere else. And you are meant to talk about yourself, with enthusiasm and excitement. I never felt I had much to say, (until I hit on this format – I'm really not good at hype) and I wasn't interested in promotion if it wasn't honest. I still believe my work should sell itself. That will only happen if people see it. And that is the problem.

I resisted Facebook for, I don't know, a lot of years. I want to say a decade at least, but I never paid enough attention to when it really started. I could look it up, if I was so inclined. I got an etsy site early, but again never did anything with it until a handful of years ago. Even now I'm not good at that, but it is there at I resisted Instagram until I did the Digital Main Street Program (which I highly recommend if you are eligible and in need). That helped me to create which is my “new” e-commerce site. When I did the program I got the sense that it was useless to make the website if I wasn't going to support it with – at the very least – promotion via Facebook and Instagram. The one I was excited about, and most hopeful for perhaps, was my Patreon site, which I also started in 2021 – before I did the website. The digital is my least favourite thing to do. If I were honest, I kind of hate it. I'm getting better at it, but it really isn't how I work. I'm getting better, though, working through that resistance bit by bit to try to build on tiny increments of momentum.

The Digital Main Street course came up for me in 2021. Perhaps part of its attraction was the ability to finally move beyond the showcase without driving my guru (who set up my showcase and has been my digital angel for about 30 years now) completely insane. As any of you who have been following me for any length of time know, I work on pretty much no budget. For most of my artistic “career” one art has paid for the others. As someone who has always worked a lot of jobs and had a minute theatre career as a make-up and wig person, any of the earnings from that which were left over from living expenses have pretty much always financed Elfworks. They haven't gone far – mostly they pay for materials so that I can make things, and tools. Some has paid for things like the training I've undertaken for blacksmithing work. My guru has been amazing – still is. He has also always had a full time job doing other things, and a life, and all that goes with a life. The time and effort and work he has gifted me are more than enough for a few sainthoods if those were still a thing. So I endeavour to keep my requests and demands to a minimum, but even at that I know full well I ask too much. Not everyone is lucky enough to have friends who will chip in to try to help you succeed at what is clearly a mad endeavour. (I can never thank you enough T, or properly pay you back...) So Digital Main Street was a huge help, and it came on the heels of me getting excited about the possibilities of Patreon. I'd heard about Patreon before, several years ago. I'd toyed with the idea a few times, but I couldn't see how I could possibly make myself fit into that community. A perfect platform for creaters of visual or story arts, podcasts, music, all manner of things. How could the physical stuff that Elfworks makes possibly fit into that model? It sat in the back corner of my brain spinning for a few years, and then it began to grow into an idea.

For about a decade now, Elfworks has made a line of pewter ornaments for the Christmas/Yuletide season. Every year I come up with a new ornament design that fits the seasonal theme and add to the collection. The ornaments could be a kind of subscription. You become my patron, you invest in my making and every year you get a gift in the mail. That was something I could live with. Plus, around the same time I'd begun writing again, a lot more. Some of that was probably because I'd begun to really start to try to write this blog in a more proper fashion. Some of it was because I'd begun writing letters again to friends – something I used to do all the time.

Once upon a time, like probably a third of the population, anyway, I'd wanted to be a writer. I knew that I had neither the chops nor the work habits for it – too distracted by too many things. I'm not bad, but I'm not brilliant. While there are plenty of people out there who are also not brilliant and get published, they clearly have something I don't. I do, however, NEED to write. It is part of how I'm made. Story is such a huge part of my make-up – not just me, I know. As a species it is how we work. I've always written. Stories, plays, poetry, essays....writing a blog should have been an easy thing for me, but too much of me has wanted to stay private and hidden for it to be a comfortable endeavour. It has taken decades for me to begin to be comfortable being visible to the vast unknown of the internet. (Not the best recipe for a business these days.) Being in the public eye was fine, but the internet was too vast and too anyonymous and too random for my comfort. Clearly, I'm getting over that.

Regardless, I'd begun to write again, a LOT. I thought that Patreon would offer me a place to share that work in a safer, more controlled environment. It would encourage me to build my writing skills with writing articles and it would perhaps give me a few cents for the pain of dedicating myself to some digital work. At the very least, people would get that trinket every year for their trouble.

So Patreon had me excited, and I decided to use that as a building block and jump in to making a “proper” website. The truth is, that all the work for the website and creating work for Patreon for that first year or so, (plus the posting to Instagram and Facebook, let's not forget that!) gave me a case of digital burnout. I'm surprised I lasted as long as I did before it hit. I've been faithful to Patreon – at least in so far as posting something every month, creative writing at the very least, though I've seriously fallen down on the articles the last while, like this blog.

Like the sluggish spring, I'm trying to come back. Ever so slowly I'm beginning to work my way out of my cave and begin to re-emerge and be re-energized about this digital stuff. I've been working on getting some new work to put up on the website, as well as getting some kind of photographs of some of my long standing things. (I have taken hundreds of photographs of pewters, but still only have a handful that are good enough for the site. I needed a break, but I'm back at it now.) I'm starting to write again, things that I want to explore in words (and metal...) are re-appearing in my brain after what feels like a long absence. I'm learning about videos, and how to string them together. I've actually started to read about some of this digital stuff to try to understand how it works a little better – of course I'm a decade (or more) behind, but they are all building blocks. Tiny little pieces that are being gathered so that Elfworks can put together a large-as-life presentation with all the bells and whistles. I fully expect there will be peaks and lulls, and more burnout ahead, but I'm stubborn. I never really give up, I just retreat for a while and then come roaring out when you least expect it. One more tiny building block trying to make a better picture of the world.

It's a Lifestle

Okay, I've absolutely fallen off the “at-least-one-post-a-month” horse. But, then, if you know me – or if you follow me at all, you will have figured out (probably long before I did), that “routine” is not really my thing.

I was chatting (writing) a friend recently – an inspiring friend (it inspired this post) about that. My friend has recently become semi-retired. He calls it retired, but I know him, and he is a creative soul, so I'm calling him semi-retired. He retired from his job, but he will continue to do bits of things he loves to do, and that includes lending a hand here and there at the work he retired from (just doing it when it suits him, and not as the boss anymore.) He was talking about finding his routine. It made me think – it reminded me of that post I put up about my “new routine” of taking the mornings for myself. I seem to have been under the impression that if only I could find the “right” routine, I could stick to it. I could be more like everyone else, more normal, a better fit. I am finally beginning to understand that it isn't me. It never will be. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is a “normal”, nor do I think there should be. We are all different, we all do things in the way that best suits us. The method of doing anything will change as we change, as the world changes. Some of us have habits or methods that don't serve us well, some are even destructive, and certainly, when and if we become ready to change those ways we will (hopefully) find a way to do that. What I believe about others and the world at large rarely applies to what I believe about myself in the dark corners of my secret heart and head. Like so many others, I hold myself to a different standard. Perhaps the best and stupidest (so maybe funniest?) example of this can be summed up by my highschool self. Leggings had become a fashion. (Like I said, stupidest...) They looked comfortable, most people looked good in them. I had a couple of pairs that I'd wear around the house on occasion, but never outside. I was talking to one of my best friends of the time (though we've lost touch she is still very important to me, and this is part of the reason for that – even then she was smart and wise and caring...) and we were talking about what we would wear when we went out. She suggested an outfit for me that included leggings. I responded with something along the lines of, “I can't wear that.” She asked why on earth not...and I said something about them being great – for other people, but I couldn't wear them. She tilted her head, told me that was ridiculous, I could wear whatever I wanted. She gave me permission to be someone I secretly wanted to be. As small and ridiculous as that is, it was huge for me. It smashed down a wall, opened a hundred doors, told me the voice in my head was wrong. Someone I loved and trusted and admired and wished I could be more like told me I could be who I wanted to be. (Thanks forever Nikki.) I've tried to carry that lesson with me, but it is a hard lesson. A lot of those hundreds of doors didn't stay open as long as I'd have liked, but I got to see the vistas they held. The wall has come back into existence, but it isn't very sturdy or very high, and it has places I can get beyond it every few yards. Having this exchange with Charlie reminded me of that. It swept a dark corner clean and reminded me that for all those times that that voice tells me I should be more normal and fit in, that I should be more like I imagine the rest of the world is (and really, it is just how I imagine them to be, not how they really are necessarily), I get to be the person that I am. It is more than just okay for me to be that person, it is good for me to be that person. I realized in that exchange that the lifestyle I live is better described by the term Curated Chaos. I try to influence the direction, but I rarely know what is coming. I set routines that last for short periods to remind me that things are important, or to stabilize the turbulence to a level where I can stand steady and function, but they are just temporary measures. I don't do well in routine.

I suspect that it is part of what attracted me to theatre in the first place, and to blacksmithing and all the other pursuits I have. It is part of why I'll never be full time at any of them, as much as I want to dedicate myself and improve my skills. I do dedicate myself, in bursts, but it will never become routine for me. I always tried to explain it to my students (regarding theatre.) It isn't a job, it's a lifestyle. It is uncertain, it is always changing, you can't predict anything. The hours are long, and don't work with the rest of the world's 9-5 clock because that's who you are playing to, so you are on to their off. Pay is never certain, and rarely the same week to week, if you get any at all on a given week. Contracts get extended or end early. Cast changes and crew changes happen. Being an independent artisan is no different. There is time or money, but rarely both at once. It is a good idea if you need a guaranteed income to supplement with some little job that is flexible and doesn't kill your soul or creativity. You often have to take work on that is less interesting because you have to pay a bill. You might be doing shows or working at the times your friends and family are celebrating birthdays or holidays. You have to wear a lot of hats to keep your business afloat, and the time you spend making is rarely the largest contribution to your business. You can't predict what's coming, but you can help choose the direction it might come from, or at least the direction it moves you. Curated Chaos. It's a lifestyle, it's my lifestyle. It is the life I've chosen. It has good parts and bad, and I'm going to try to stop making myself be “normal” and celebrate what I've got, because what I've got is good. It's uncertain, it's unpredictable but it's also wonderful and creative and full of surprises.

I'll try to at least stay in the stable with the horse that has me writing more often. If I get called away, I will also try not to berate myself for being me.

New Tricks

I went down to the studio today to start work on a pewter project. As usual, I had to clear some detritus from previous projects, days of tidying where I'd tossed stuff onto the tabletop (“just for the moment”). I got the soapstone sanded, but by that time, looking at the bench top was making me a bit squirrelly. I needed to get the bench back....now. Before I did anything else. It didn't take long, and I got to throw out a few bits of junk and make better spaces for things along the way. While I was at it, though, I was thinking about why it is that I have a tendency to work in places other than my studio more often than not. I spent years, decades even, longing for studio space – space where I could just work. Dedicated space with the things I needed to hand, and room to do things without constantly having to clear things first, or reorganize, or set up from scratch or... Here I am, living what is pretty close to my dream, with more than one dedicated studio space, and still, when I think about making chain or about a third of the things I might be likely to do on a regular basis, my first thought is taking what I need upstairs to the table to work. Granted, in the winter, this puts me in close proximity to the stove, which makes for some cozy working. But it means packing things up before, and after – moving stuff from space to space, running down to the studio when I realize I've forgotten something, clearing it all away to allow for our use of the table for other things. It just doesn't make sense. Why on earth is that my first instinct? I've been here a while now, and the studio gets a better flow to it every six months to a year as I try new iterations and figure out my workflow and my real use of the space. So, what is it? I figured out that it boils down to a few things. The first is simply habit. For all the years I've been making I never had a dedicated space. My habit takes me to my familiar table to work, the places I've always worked. I always wanted a space, but I never had one, and now I frankly don't know what to do with it half the time. I suspect that is a part of my unconscious reason for keeping it in a semi-unworkable state.

Another part of it is that I am used to working in a barely controlled chaos state. Maybe a part of me thinks that such a state contributes to my creativity. In forcing myself to think outside the box to get something done I am firing up those creative juices. In clearing a space or setting up my tools I am beginning to get my head into the project. What if I can't create without the chaos? Ridiculous, of course. I will need to prep tools and spaces to a certain degree regardless of whether my space is purpose made and ready. All I'm doing is wasting some of the creative juices on the extraneous tasks. I do suspect that my brain has been playing me a bit though, based on the above idea. I am beginning to think that I have to learn how to work without the chaos. I have to stop being afraid that if I get used to the luxury of this it will disappear and I won't be able to work without it anymore, because I'll have lost the skills and know-how. Nearly every time I tried to create dedicated spaces before they got compromised away, so that is what I'm expecting, somehow. Clearly, having realized all of this, it is time for me to learn some new tricks. Learn to trust in what I have, to glory in it and to use it well while I have it. There will always be an outside chance that it will disappear on me. Things can happen, no matter how unlikely. In the meantime though, I should be making the most of what I've got...I certainly know how lucky I am to have it! Even if it did disappear, I know I could find a way to work – I always have. If I waste what I have now, that is what would make me regretful. So that is one of the many things that I am going to be focusing on in the next while, creating new habits, getting comfortable in the spaces I am so blessed to have at my disposal and learning how to get out of my own way and just make the things that fill my brain and my dreams, all those things my hands ache to do. I'm getting to be an old dog, but I think I've got a little room yet for some new tricks.

Looking Back

I woke up this morning, and was thinking back to some of the things I've written in the last year. I had to shake my head at some of them. Perspective. I'm thinking, in particular of the post I wrote in which I declared the mornings to be mine. I wanted 3 hours, at least, if I remember correctly. That was back in April, and it was right for the time...I managed to keep up that routine for about 5 months, and it was good to establish it. At the time, maybe I even knew it wasn't permanent – but remembering my headspace when I wrote that makes me think of that line in Joni Mitchell's Come In From The Cold. “...I made some value judgements/In a self-important voice” I'm not sure who I was declaring this righteous new routine to, other than myself. Or why I felt the need to be so adamant about it. I was trying to justify it to myself. Sometimes it is hardest to convince ourselves that it is okay to need what we need – particularly in the moment. All the fears and insecurities we (I) have about not being enough, not doing enough. Permission to just do what you need to do, for yourself, for your sanity, for your health...it can be hard not to feel that that has to be justified, or explained, even to yourself. There was a lot of good that came out of it. It created some patterns for me. I got my body back, at least to some extent. When I need to stretch in the morning, I do. There are still days I'm pretty sore, but not the way I was, for months on end. I'm okay to be on the computer in the mornings when I need to – like this morning. I've been pretty terrible about the computer – I'm way behind on my social media stuff, and my website. I have kept up the writing. I have kept up the reading. I'm determined to pick up my fiddle again before the end of the month. These things are all easier because I gave myself that permission – even if I had to stomp my foot and have a tantrum inside myself to do it.

It's funny, sometimes, the paths we take to get to where we are. There are days I look back and think “why on earth did I choose that route? It would have been so much simpler to go the other way.” Not unlike when I was climbing (which I miss terribly.) It's the need to challenge myself, to see if I can figure it out, and regardless of how much more complicated I make it, I generally find I've learned something valuable.