Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving week! Since I have no new art to show you (see my previous post about moving), I thought I'd take some time to list all the things I have to be thankful for this year instead. I know for many 2020 has been a really rough year, in many ways - and I feel very fortunate to have so have so much to be thankful for in such a bleak time.

The year started with the birth of my daughter on January 1st. What a way to start the year! It has been amazing these last ten and a half months watching her grow. From nursing to pureed foods and sippy cups, and now to eating the food off our plates; from barely being able to lift up her head to learning how to roll and sit and crawl and stand; from sleeping constantly to never wanting to sleep at all (why sleep when there's so many things to learn, so many rooms to explore, so many ways to play!) - she has been a constant source of wonder and joy throughout 2020.

On a similar note, I am also so thankful for my husband, who is the best dad to our daughter. The pandemic meant all of his classes for his master's program went fully online in the spring; once he found a job and started working full-time again, that was also remote. I love having him home so much, especially while our daughter is so young; even if he's working, he's still close enough that he can join us for walks around the neighborhood or a bit of playtime during his lunch break. He has gotten to watch her grow just as intimately as I have, and they have a wonderful bond. It's also been amazing for me, to have someone around to help get her down for naps and bedtimes when she just refuses to sleep, and to share in some of the daily stresses of parenting a baby.

I am thankful to have spent the majority of this year in Rochester Hills, which has so many great outdoor spaces. Over the summer, when we were bored staying inside our house but didn't feel comfortable taking our daughter to all of the places I'd once imagined taking her during her first year (to the library, and to stores, and to the zoo, and to anywhere else fun I could think of), we still had plenty of opportunities of places to go. We visited several nearby parks and took her on walks (in her stroller or in a baby carrier) along the Clinton River Trail, which was a lot of fun for her and our dog, and great fresh air and exercise for all of us.

I'm grateful that my husband was able to find a job he's really excited about, working for a non-profit he's really excited about, and that his new employers value his health and are taking this pandemic seriously. I'm also grateful that we were able to find a house we love in a neighborhood we love in Ann Arbor, and that we have the time to move there more gradually than we otherwise probably would if my husband wasn't working remotely and was already in the Ann Arbor office.

I'm thankful for our families - those who have been able to visit (once the stay-home order was lifted), entertain the baby, and help us move; and those who live farther away but still made time for countless Skype and Zoom calls to visit with our daughter safely (and virtually). They say it takes a village to raise a child, and this pandemic has isolated many from their villages; I'm so appreciative of the efforts made to make sure that wasn't our fate.

Transitions and Marketing

This week marked my husband's last week working as a high school math teacher. He's been pretty unhappy lately - with the content he was teaching, the students who didn't put in any effort to learn, and the increasingly frustrating policies (from his district specifically and the state of Michigan in general) stunting teacher growth, experimentation, respect, and yes, even pay.

Thankfully, he was able to find new employment. Though he is sad to leave his current students in the middle of a school year, everyone has been pretty great and understanding toward him - from his students and their parents, to his fellow teachers, and the administration. They all know it's been tough for teachers lately, and don't blame him for finding something new.

Starting on Monday, then, he will begin a new career as an actuarial analyst at AAA. I'm excited for him for many reasons. First, the obvious - it seems like it will be a less-stressful work environment for him, and comes with a significant salary increase. The hours are more reasonable, too - which means no more waking up at 5 AM. It is unlikely he'll have to bring much work home with him outside of working hours. Of course, it is also a slightly longer commute (especially since now he'll be driving with the traffic), and he'll be giving up school breaks and summer vacations - but nothing new comes without some sacrifice.

The biggest reason I'm excited for him though is because he took concrete steps to change something about his life that he wasn't happy with. So many people get stuck in jobs they dislike and just stay there, for years upon years, without even looking for other opportunities. Change is scary, and it's hard to take a risk.

I know that I personally struggle with "avoidance." If something makes me anxious, I try to ignore it, or not think about it. Instead of acknowledging it and dealing with it and seeing if there is anything I can do to change my situation for the better, I often actively repress it and go about doing what I've always done - even if it means I'm hurting myself in the long run. Of course, being aware of this tendency of mine helps; I try to be cognizant of when I'm avoiding and curb it. I try to push myself to do things outside of my comfort zone. But it's not something that comes easily to me - or to a lot of people.

Self-marketing my artwork is one of the things I struggle with most. It feels comfortable for me to put my art up on Etsy, or post it on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, so I do all of these things. But those things are not enough on their own. Instead of putting my art out there and waiting for people to find it, I have to work more at encouraging people to find it, at leading them to it.

One of my goals for this year is to submit my work to more exhibitions, to look at call to entries and see if any of my artwork fits what local galleries or art groups are looking for. I also want to start getting my art onto more websites - websites that do print-on-demand art prints, or other items with art printed on them - like notecards, fabric, etc.

I have been focusing a lot lately on my story because I am almost done with editing it. Once it's finished (again), I will be submitting query letters to agents and trying to get my manuscript out there. I hope to then also have more time to work on getting my artwork in more places, as well.

As far as transitions go, however, I have another big job transition to mention - my own. I met with the communications department of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield this week to discuss working for them part-time on a temporary basis (the next eight weeks or so) while they catch up on a lot of design projects that need immediate attention. Someone I used to work with at EMU's Campus Life works there now and thought of me when they started realizing how swamped they were and how nice it would be to bring in another designer. It's always so rewarding to be remembered! I will forever be appreciative of the people who have contacted me about opportunities - especially since I'm so often neglectful of seeking any out.

It'll be nice to have regular projects to work on (and a regular paycheck) for a while. I think this will be good for me, and still provide me with enough time to work on wrapping up my manuscript edits and doing what I want to with my personal artwork.

What a coincidence that my husband and I both will be starting new opportunities next week!

Creative Legacy

I often feel like I'm part of (or trying to be a part of) a long-standing creative legacy. This isn't always a good or easy legacy; there are stereotypes of the "starving artist" and well-known connections between artists and mental health problems, which I'm definitely aware of, often fascinated by, and occasionally worry about (with regards to how such traditions might impact me, how others label me, or the work I create).

But besides the broad legacy of all creative people throughout time and the Western tradition of art and writing, there's also a more personal creative legacy - that of my family.

Like many things, it's hard to tell if it's nature or nurture that might encourage traits like creativity to run in families. Do we like art and writing because of some genetic programing passed down through our families? Or do we like such things because these activities were modeled for us (consciously or not), or because our families encouraged us to read or explore art?

In the case of my family, there isn't a clear person I looked to. None of my relatives have made a living off creating art or writing stories; those who are creative pursued such interests as hobbies rather than their professions. Still, I feel like there are enough people in my family who have such interests that it's worth noting.

My dad currently works as a manager at a print center for DTE Energy in Detroit, but has also held jobs in computer networking. He likes computer hardware and has been known to build computers from scratch. Growing up, he loved photography (this was before the age of digital photography, so we're talking film and darkroom techniques), and did some drawing in his spare time. My grandma tells stories of him holed up in his bedroom listening to The Beatles and practicing drawing portraits. And he also enjoys making videos - photography slide shows and training videos conveying information, both for work and at home.

My mom also had some creative hobbies growing up. She did a lot of sewing and embroidering and has shown me samples of some of the things she made as a teenager.

Perhaps the most obvious example is my grandma (on my dad's side), who over the years has found hobbies in writing poetry, coloring books, sewing, and painting. She has also kept handwritten journals for years (as I do), writing daily.

I also have crafty aunts - one who learned guitar and sings songs and puts on puppet shows for the kids at her church (and who did many craft projects with me and my cousins over the years, including a memorable "Egyptian pharaoh" costume that we created with metallic fabric and painted pistachio shells), and another who is into stamping and paper work, designing and stamping her own Christmas cards every year. These are not blood relatives, but are further examples of how I was encouraged to be creative when I was growing up.

Continuing to look toward relatives not related to me by blood, my husband's family also has some artists. His late great-uncle was a painter (we have a few of his paintings hanging in our house). Even my husband himself is creative - in college, we often spent time writing song parodies, funny Harry Potter-inspired rap lyrics, and exchanging short stories we'd written.

Looking at these examples often does two things for me -

First, it makes me pretty proud that I get to be a part of this creative tradition in my family - and also validates my experience. Theoretically I would be happy acknowledging my artistic or writing inclinations even if no one in my family ever shared similar interests, but because they do I feel like it's okay that I do, too - that indeed I'm meant to like such things, or perhaps have a natural talent for them.

Secondly, it makes me wonder if I'm putting too much significance on my creativity. If it's so common that several of my family members have pursued creative projects as hobbies, then why do I think I'm special? None of them have felt compelled to make their creative interests into a viable career. Am I only kidding myself in thinking that I could actually make money as an artist or a writer? Am I better off keeping my art and writing to myself, as most of my other relatives have done? Or do I just have such doubts because none of my relatives have tried to cultivate their hobbies into careers - and thus have no example to follow, no person to model myself after or pick her or his brain for advice?

I feel like I am often torn between such seemingly contradictory feelings. High self-esteem and low self-esteem. Which one is truer to my real feelings? Am I not so deep or despairing as I think, and only "activate" my low self-esteem so that I feel like I belong with all the artists and writers before me who have suffered with issues in confidence - or because, as a woman, I've been conditioned to downplay success, put others first, and think of certain aspirations as outside of my talents or outside of my reach? Or am I actually more inclined to my anxieties and doubts, and only developed what little (or well-hidden) belief in myself that I do have as a way to compensate for the not-so-great feelings of constantly questioning if I'm "good enough"?

Does it matter which came first? I suspect everyone goes through such fluctuations at different times in their lives - thinking, for example, that they're good enough at art or writing that they might make a career out of it and that such a goal is worth pursuing while also wondering if they're insane for even trying. Perhaps creative people have such fluctuations more often - or anyone else who works in a professional field where so much rides on what critics say and who you can convince to like and purchase your work. Actors. Writers. Musicians. Chefs. Entrepreneurs. There are a lot of unstable jobs out there where you don't always know when your next paycheck is coming - and without that immediate, predictable, and stable monetary validation, it can be hard to balance confidence levels. You have to believe in yourself and your projects - so that you work on them and make it to the next paycheck - but such continual efforts to prove yourself and the worth of your work is also bound to take its toll on self-esteem.

In any case, I am very lucky that I have a family who supports me while I try to figure this creativity thing out. I don't take their support lightly, and am immensely grateful. :)