Goodman Simon Clappyclapclap

Scary Costume of the Day

Warn your kids in advance if this is your choice, no kid likes to be kidnapped by these guys, even if cheeseburgers are promised. If you don't have horned helmets available the same feeling can be obtained with an old pair of pantyhose.  Each of you get a cut off leg- insert head into thigh hole.  This can be really cool if you use textured stockings, and it cleans out that too-full lingerie drawer while it flattens your nose.  Ski gloves so you don't leave any prints, and a few handfuls of roadside weeds complete the costume.  If you don't have a real kid available, you could try this with neighborhood pets too, as long as they are terrorized, the species doesn't much matter.

In Other Areas:

Specifically MY area-  and I will simply make room for this chair from Anthropologie with the old patterns and dressmaking ads all over it. It's me I tell ya, it's me!  Of course it costs more than my first car.

On Facebook the other day I found this quote by Ira Glass that pretty much sums up an issue I rant about continually.  I think I am somewhere in the middle of my work for it to ever get somewhere, but it gets scary when another birthday flips by and I realize my ambition is waning as time eats me up.  Take this as a lesson from both Ira and me-  GET AT IT NOW!  He isn't talking about Fiber, but this speaks for all art!  By the way, I adore Ira Glass and have never missed a program, in far am on a second go-round listening to them all.   With my Swiss Cheese memory, it's all new every time!  (Podcasts.  Insomnia.  Sigh.)

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone had told me.  All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap.  For the first couple years you make stuff, it's just not that good.  It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into this game is still killer.  And your taste is why your work disappoints you.  A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit.  Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know that our work doesn't have this special thing we want it to have.  We all go through this.  And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know that this is normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece. It's only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to gigure out how to do that than anyone I've ever met.  It's gonna take a while. It's normal to take awhile.  You just gotta fight your way through.