Pisces Moon Studio

Carol Logan Newbill.com

Pisces Moon Web Design

Two new websites, just finished. (Links open in new windows). :)
Now you can see how I used that purple logo monstrosity on the web design site. And yes, I also did the trapunto background for the Carol Logan Newbill site.

Thank you very much to everyone who commented yesterday. Jeannie, you probably didn’t know it, but you hit on exactly the right point to encourage me to keep on writing: “…you are actually providing a service for those of us who have doubts about our own creativity, talent, etc.” (You can always get me with the guilt. Heh.)

Debra, I like your thinking. Put the unfinished things on the To Do List and then get ‘em done and get ‘em out of here. Yes’m, you may now consider them in the queue with deadlines.

Sadiebelle, my friend, I love you. :) (in a very sista girlfriend kinda way.)

On to the news that SueU was waiting for me to announce.

Just over a week ago, I entered the two Orange Guy quilts (here and here) into the “Quilts of Today” show at the Galeria Aynex. The official calendar called for artist notifications to be made on June 9th, which is today. I’ve been holding off until now to tell you about it, but now I feel that I can.

My entry made it to the gallery on June 1. On the morning of June 2, I had an email from Aynex telling me that Color Theory had been accepted… and that she wanted to use the detail shot (right) on the invitations! Orange Guy is going to be famous!

I called my husband and told him about it right away. We talked about driving up to Paducah for the opening on July 9, but he is so swamped at work right now that he’s working weekends and didn’t feel that he could get away. Even so, I’m really pleased; this is the first time I’ve entered a gallery show in quite a few years and I’d have been happy just to be accepted.

So… onward! And here’s to crossing off a few more things from the To Do list today.

Ever feel that you’ve been running at full speed for an awfully long time and don’t have much to show for it?

That’s me.

I’m also having some trouble lately writing for the blog. I have five or six posts started in draft form. I get a little way into them and hit the same wall every time: How self-indulgent can you get. Nobody will be interested in reading this about me me me.

I’m tired, I am not sleeping well, and today is not going to be a good day physically. My list is full of Things to Do that don’t have a defined point of closure, like “dye fabric for quilt show” and “work on website for _______.com.” I need to recharge the batteries, but I have no idea of the right way to go about that today. It’s much easier to just keep slogging away at the To-Do List from Hell, head down, instead of trying to write something witty and interesting when I haven’t done anything witty or interesting in quite some time.

Do you ever feel that way? What works for you, if you do?

All right, enough with the self-pity. Time to get up and Get Something Done so I can write an upbeat post tomorrow. :)

[Update] Perception is everything. I wrote out a list of all the things I did do yesterday — it’s after the flip if you are interested; skip if you aren’t.
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Galeria Aynex, a relatively new space in Paducah, Kentucky, is holding several juried exhibition/sales this summer. This is a great place to get back into the entering shows routine, because she accepts digital images in lieu of slides. This step alone cuts a couple of days out of the entering process!

The first entry deadline is June 1 for materials to be received in Paducah, so I will plan to mail on Friday, May 27. I have ZERO new work (except postcards) since January, so this means I have to come up with at least one new quilt in two weeks. I’m planning on two. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess, even though I already have planned out the ones I want to do.

Achievable goal #1: Finish Playing with Color by May 19, next Thursday. Finish Santa Monica Triangle by May 25, the following Wednesday. Photograph both quilts on May 26; mail off the entry on May 27.

Fallback position: If only one quilt gets finished by May 25, I’ll consider it a victory.

I’ll post updates as conditions warrant.

I’m currently involved with a small email group that is doing some work on the subject “The Artist as Entrepreneur.” The leader (or instigator, depending on her mood of the day) is exhorting us to set firm, measurable goals for ourselves as artists. It’s not enough to say “I want my work to be well-known;” a measurable goal would be “I intend to enter my work in five art or quilt shows in 2005.”

I can do that; and I know that I have to break down the goal into do-able steps and schedule those steps so that they are completed in a timely manner. I was an engineer. I did project management and drew many beautiful Gantt charts to accomplish precisely this sort of thing.

This is a generic example of a Gantt chart. Each step in the process goes on a separate line, with the dates across the top of the chart. You can see at a glance how long each step will take, whether there’s overlap — i.e., whether you’ll have to start on Step 3 before you finish Step 2 — and your deadline for finishing each part in order to make the final deadline.

Gantt charts are a great tool. They are also a major, time-consuming pain in the posterior to produce, even with software to draw the pretty lines.

I keep “To-Do” lists. I have one list for Things to Be Done Today (updated every morning); a separate list for groceries and other supplies; lists of Important Things to Remember; and lists that consist of other lists.

I buy green steno books in dozen packs at Costco and dot them around the house and car, so I am never more than an arm’s length from one of my To-Do List books. Unfortunately, this gets unwieldy after a while, as notes to buy Tylenol PM get scribbled on the list that tells me to make a dental appointment for my husband, and the due date for the Fine Art Quilts entry is written in the notebook that is supposed to be dedicated to getting ready for the quilt guild show in June. (I missed that entry deadline — May 10 — because my mind had “June” associated with the guild show book.)

So I decided that the reasonable thing to do was to take all the green steno books, compile everything into one Giant To-Do List, and throw away all the individual pages.

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• Hand-quilting a tiny doll quilt that I sold on eBay and now must finish and ship to the new owner;

• The Art2Mail Title Challenge, in which I am “untitled;”

• The Art2Mail Artist’s Progressive Project (I currently have Jackie’s piece in hand to do something with);

• Postcards for the 2005 Art2Mail exchange (nine done and four more ready to stitch of 39 total):

• Finding a local place to teach surface design. It needs access to a sink for cleanup and preferably a floor that is either easily cleaned or doesn’t matter if it gets color on it. I can put down drop cloths, but I am always terrified that someone will slip on a plastic cloth and fall.

It never works right the first time, does it? No pictures of new work today. Soon, I promise.

This morning we went to see the Tax Guy. We have a great tax guy, a CPA who is efficient, helpful with suggestions, and relatively inexpensive as CPAs go. He’s also extremely impressed with my organizational skills, so what more can you ask?

At any rate, going to see Barry means that I have to complete the inventory of What I Did and How Much I Sold last year. Although I actually made a profit for 2004, I was rather disappointed in myself when I realized that most of that had come from two fairly large sales early in the year. And there was very little new work late in the year to provide sales for 2005.

So I need to get busy again. I need to set up some classes and workshops; get some new pieces in the pipeline; update my website; and in general get off my butt and get some things done.

I noticed that several members of the Art Quilters Webring have made similar commitments to Get On With the Work No Matter What, so perhaps we can keep each other going. Help hold my feet to the fire, will you? I’ll promise to do the same for you.