Beginning of December
I’m a few days late on my blog post and I’ve been quite busy in the studio! Last weekend, I had a holiday makers market in Oakland and I had a really good time at the event and meeting makers in the Oakland community. I think I’m starting to get the hang of the fairs and I think I am prepared for my upcoming events. I will be in SF at the Harvey Milk Center of the Arts this Sunday. Then I’ll be outside on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley on the 16th-18th and 23rd-24th. This week’s update will also be brief.
What I’m working on
I’m painting a foggy landscape of cliffs and the Pacific Ocean from a spot along Highway One that I photographed. Over the past year plus since I’ve moved to California, I’ve been taking trips to the coast and taking pictures of the ocean and the cliffs. I’ve selected a few photos from all that I’ve taken and am trying to shape them into a collection of paintings to commemorate my time living on the West Coast.
I started embroidering again because I wanted something mindless to work on while I listened to podcasts or audiobooks. I think that I’ll always like to do different types of activities, so I thought it’d be good to pick this up again.
Inputs
I’m reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I have listened to on audiobook but haven’t read. I’ve owned this book for a while and it sits on a shelf in my studio where I keep my other art/self-improvement/pop psychology books. It’s been a helpful read because I do feel like I’m in the throes of figuring out my art business while trying to maintain the joy of creating and creating work that speaks to me.
I started listening to Upstream by Dan Heath on audiobook. The whole premise is to encourage people to solve problems upstream before they happen vs. solving problems in a reactive way after they happen. I just started the book and I am reminded that I like to listen/read about psychology terms/definitions and studies.
Outputs
All my outputs have been these holiday fairs, which do take a lot of energy. I spend my time during the week mostly at home painting or reading. I did pick up volunteering at my local food bank again and hope to make this part of my regular schedule.
That’s all for now. I’m hoping to get back on track to my Tuesday update!
Something I realized that I forgot to mention once I published this page is that I made a Trello board to track my projects for my art business. I realized that I am very task oriented and I feel more motivated when I break my work out into discrete tasks. I also know that I enjoy using a ticketing workflow/task management system from my previous job and moving tickets into different stages of progress gives me a little serotonin boost. I think I would have preferred a Jira board because it’s what I’m used to from my previous job and I like the functionalities of linking tickets and creating sprints, but Trello is free so here we are. I’ve created five lanes on my board, starting from right to left: “Done”, “In Progress”, “To Do”, “Backlog”, “Ideas”. I put a reminder card at the top of the “Done” column to remind myself that I should be doing these things for my art business because I want to be doing them and I am enjoying the process and not to just “get things done”. Tickets “In Progress” are tasks I’m currently working on. I’m trying to stick to the five project rule with the “In Progress” lane to make sure I am making time for my tasks and not feeling overwhelmed. The remaining three lanes are a little bit trickier to explain but they make sense to me. Tickets in the “To Do” lane are what’s upcoming and should be moved into the “In Progress” lane first. Tickets in the “Backlog” lane are prioritized after the tickets in the “To Do” lane in that they should get done, but they will get done after the “To Do” list is cleared. Tickets in the “Ideas” lane are not really ideas, but are the tasks that should get done once the “To Do” and “Backlog” tickets have been cleared out. And tickets always move left to right and ideally at one lane at a time. Even though I named the board “December 2022”, most of these things are for quarter one of 2023. The board is a nice way to visualize the planning I’ve drafted in my journal and planner into discrete tasks on tickets that are easily movable, editable to include details or checklists or resources, and added or removed. I’m super excited about it 😃
