The Journey

My thanks to Chris Guillebeau for sharing this poem in his blog. I am sharing it here, though it seems I am copying his blog entry this week, because its message so totally speaks to what I am thinking about these days that it seems heaven sent. It is by Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets:
The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late enough,
and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

I have been going over the lines in the poem quite a bit. The fact that I can completely see myself in each of these lines gives me comfort, tells me I am on the right track. Though the path is parlous, the risks are the price that must be paid if you want to have any chance at your own life.

The Whole Catastrophe

You must know the adage," Be Careful What You Wish for, You Just Might Get It." Last week, I admitted that in stepping back from my current situation, I could see that significant changes were in order if I wanted to remain true to my words and myself for that matter. Apparently the Universe agreed with me and now those changes are now unmistakeably underway.I have had my Dog or Landlord moment. To be honest, those changes were a long time coming and if I look back to their genesis, the exact moment keeps retreating to another moment before that ad infinitum. These changes bring to mind another of my shibboleths, The Whole Catastrophe.
This phrase comes from Zorba the Greek, one of my favorite characters of all time. For those of you unfamiliar with Zorba, let me introduce him. We meet Zorba in a harbor waiting for our ship to sail to the small Greek island where our relative has bequeathed a small inheritance. We, at this point, are a rather inhibited teacher from the British Isles who spends way too much of his time with his nose in a book, watching and judging from the sidelines rather than living his own life. Zorba erupts into our life and proceeds to turn everything upside down, spilling all sorts of madness and delight on us. He is everything we are not- supremely confident,a lover of life, a con man, a boozer, a ladies man, a feast or famine sort of fellow. Zorba lives on the edge. He lives from risk to risk, sucking all the marrow out of life. Carpe Diem and all that noise. The Whole Catastrophe is his characterization of life, his recognition that real living means being able to surrender to not only the beatific, ecstatic joys but also the shattering pains and losses. Before we met Zorba, we are a play if safe, always in the middle sort. Life is never too high nor too low. After we meet Zorba, we find ecstasy , agony and all the fine gradations between.
So I find myself disentangling myself from the dire miresome middle, veering,cheering and careering back toward the edge of things where I know the center of all things exists. You can trust that I will keep you apprised of the situation.

An Interview with Myself

To begin with, I want to thank those of you who reached out to me after my rant last week. The notes I received touched me and to those who help me have my first sales through Red Bubble, a big thanks. It was a real treat to get notice of those sales. Oddly, Red Bubble did not give me information about who exactly to thank so I don't know who you are, which seems to be an odd quirk of Red Bubble. I receive a blog from Chris Guillebeau, whose Art of Nonconformity has been a source of inspiration for me. His latest blog is about interviewing yourself in order to take stock. Last week I touched on the need to reassess what I have been doing and since Chris's blog addresses this, I am going to proceed with the interview that he suggests.

Dear Tony,
You are 39 years old. What do you have to show for it?

My family here in Turkey, meaning my wife Pinar and son Sinan as well as our relatives here is something that I have to show for my time so far. These relationships as well as the many relationships I have developed and maintained throughout my years are certainly a large part of the bounty of my life. Moving to a new country and starting a new chapter in my life over the last seven years has been full of laughter and tears, hellos and goodbyes. I lament that creating this new story has also meant the conclusion of other tales. When I look at all the people I send this blog to, I always wish I could sit down with each of those people and visit for awhile.

I have lots of memories and experiences to show for my time so far. I have tried to think about my life in terms of what I would want to recollect as a man taking his last breaths. I am have had some success in that regard, but I can do better. I think I have held onto some things in my life longer than I should have and let go of other things much too soon. I guess in the living of things, one hopefully develops the wisdom of discernment for such things. I still need to keep going out on those limbs, cause that's where the fruit is. Now that I am a father, I think about the legacy I want to leave for my son, I want him to see taking risks as a vital part of living fully.


Are you living the dream?

I am really fixated on the dream being living as an artist. I am living as a teacher right now. I love teaching, but I love art more. So, I am not satisfied. Because right now it seems easier to take care of my responsibilities through being a teacher, I am at risk of becoming complacent, of letting Ease take charge.

As you look back on your life, what are you most proud of, what do you regret, and how do you feel about each of those things?

I am most proud of what I have done to maintain my individuality. I have always felt it important to find my own way. As a child, when my parents would tell me how to complete some task, I always insisted on finding my own way to complete the task. Though my parents would often have been correct in suggesting an efficient way, I think that my insistence in making my own way has helped me to navigate the multifarious traps of conformity that this life holds out to us. I am proud of my ability to self-reflect and admit to my follies and course-correct. I am not afraid to be the fool nor am I too proud to admit when I have been. I regret those who have been hurt by my foolishness. Though I think I was generally acting on what I thought was true at the time, on my own best judgment, hindsight shows me that I have made mistakes in judgment and those mistakes have touched the lives of others. I have a range of feelings about those things, ranging from bemusement and delight to anger and shame.

* What's next, self?

Art. I wont be satisfied until I am fully living my dream of being a full time professional artist.



* If you had one year left to live, how would you spend it?

I would leave my current job IMMEDIATELY. I would set up an art studio and divide my time between making art, visiting with the people I love and traveling to the places I have always wanted to see.

Since I don't know that I even have that year, none of us does, I think I should give more credence to my answer to this question. This has been a really useful process. Here are some other questions to consider:



# Why do you do the things you do?

# What do you really believe in? (What do you know to be true?)

# Where do you find your security?

# What bothers you, and what are you doing about it?

# What worries you?

Is My Art Career In the Toilet?

I must admit that being naive has continued to be one of my character flaws. While I will allow that it also represents an ability to trust others, life and my experiences, I must confess that it also seems to mean that I can be a complete fool. Perhaps some of you who are reading this, the few that do seem to be reading this, will be readying your "I told you so" or " I knew it" at the very least. So, to get right to it, I must recognise my own naive hopes when I started this blog and my online art efforts. I thought I would find a few people who would want to have some of my art for their very own and pay for it. So far, I have not found them. I have found plenty of people who praise my work, who tell me how much they enjoy it, but none of that has been converted into cash. I have certainly enjoyed the wonderful feedback, but so far I haven't been able to convince my local art supply store to accept that praise for my art supplies.
It is not so much the originals, I can see how that may be a tougher sell online. To be honest, the bee in my bonnet is the lack of print on demand sales. I had thought that between the people I know who like my stuff and the people who visit my print on demand site and look at my art, and there have been over 2700 views of my work on Red Bubble.com to date, that I would have seen some sales happen. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Big Goose eggs. I really don't get it. I mean, the high quality prints and such I have on offer, with greeting cards at $5, I really did think that somebody would pony up. I recognize I am a neophyte when I comes to sales and self-promotion, but come on now. My sales are beyond pathetic. They are embarrassing. I don't think its because my art is crap, I mean I have seen much worse stuff sell for quite a bit. I have had people comment on my art that some piece or another was one of the most amazing that they have ever seen but couldn't be bothered to buy a copy of that amazing piece. What is that about? Is it just poverty? Am I being intolerant here? I have heard it said that art is something that everybody loves but doesn't want to pay for. I think part of the reality of the internet is that we are all used to getting stuff for free so few are willing to pay for anything. I am guilty of this as well so perhaps its karma.
I found this article about the internet the other day that seemed quite germane : The Information Super-Sewer:Will the Internet Be Hijacked by Corporate Interests? by Chris Hedges. Read it. Its good and it makes some cogent points.
The article discusses self-promotion a bit and warns how this part of the internet seems to be pumping up the advertising aspect of internet. I can certainly see how this can turn everything into sales flogging, trying to commercialize every aspect of human interaction. I have no interest in becoming another billboard for corporate interests. I advertised some products that I used (books) and some Internet sites/products I have used to my benefit. I have thought that these endorsements were not problematic since my endorsements were honest, but I did pull the book endorsements because it felt a bit off to me. The jury is still out for me on some of this. In the end, so few people seem to care about what I am doing here that it probably doesn't matter. And no, I am not looking for sympathy here cause I know my concerns are quite high on the Maslow hierarchy; I am lucky to be able to have such concerns. That is,unless that sympathy comes in the form of Franklin, Grant, Jackson or even Lincoln. I know, I am a Cheeky Bastard.
I also know the literature says to have have patience and trust in the process, but I have to say that I have been underwhelmed by my sales. This is not to say that I am giving up, not in the least. I realise that this point represents the need to look at what I have been doing, evaluate and find some new approaches. I just haven't found my paying audience yet. So I shall look into what to do next, but since this is my blog and it is devoted to my process in all of this, I have decided that ranting is part of my process.

Art and Money Interview

Some time back, I did an interview with Zoe Westhof, part of the Unconventional Guide to Art, whose ideas I have been using as part of my personal quest. I wanted to share that interview here this week.

Before, what was stopping you from using the internet to expand your art career? (you can talk about fears, doubts, etc.)

Before I came across Chris's blog last summer, I had been busy with my teaching career here in Turkey and with parenting my young son. I had an acquaintance at my school who I knew had an website where he sold some of his drawings, but I felt pretty overwhelmed with my other responsibilities and I had some misconceptions about what would be required to put my art online such as having advanced computer skills and expensive fees, etc. Such misconceptions kept me from giving it much thought. I returned to this States last summer from my home in Turkey and in the course of this visit, I came across Chris's blog from a friend. His ideas about doing what you love, as you can see from my blog, resonated with me and coupled with some deep seated frustrations about teaching in educational institutions, re-energized my interest in putting more energy into my art that I had been. When I got the Art and Money package, I learned about how easy it was to start showing my art online and dove into those resources. Essentially, my own misconceptions were the main reason I did not start sooner. There is an old adage, when the student is ready, the teacher arrives, that seems quite relevant here.

How have you been using The Unconventional Guide to Art and Money? What were the most useful things you got out of it?

I found the whole thing to be wonderfully accessible. I enjoyed listening to the art interviews for the ideas that people had success with, particularly the photographer who seemed to add some needed counterpoint to all the successes your other interviews brought out. His evident skepticism was actually quite reassuring for me as I have seen a number of marketing systems such as multi-level marketing that always emphasis the ease of their system to gain riches. I appreciate Chris's sober approach which seems genuine. He seems to walk his talk, which I find so refreshing.The suggestions about how to market my art and how to think about one's business through the corporal metaphors( head, heart, voice, etc ) made a lot of sense and was a useful organizer. The suggested websites were extremely useful as I immediately started employing them as you can see. Chris's and your own emphasis on sharing and building community were tremendous draws for me and part of what feel so right and are the reason I want to be involved what you are doing. The whole package leaves one with a sense of "I can do that" and "here are the things I am going to do". Through Chris's blogs, I get inspiration and a model that is quite natural to emulate.

What were the first few things you did to set yourself up online?

I already knew a bit about blogging and had put some art on the web through blogspot, but reading Art and Money gave me the idea to create a blog that had written content as well as my art. I found that writing about what I was doing, following my bliss, seemed to be the most natural way to keep having something to say and since I have had that notion for the last twenty years, I think I have learned enough about that concept to have ideas and experiences worth sharing and reading. I already had some high quality pictures of my work through my earlier foray into brick and mortar galleries and access to a high quality scanner made it easy to start uploading images as I joined red bubble for its print on demand set up, fine art studio online, wix and cartfly all for my originals. I have been adding art to those sites and learning at my own pace about marketing myself. I have appreciated that sense of taking things in my own time and in my own and I appreciated one of Chris's recent blogs about doing things as he sees fit rather than blindly following experts. I found the art community on red bubble quite fun and love getting feedback from other artists there. Because it is so easy to self-publish on the internet as I have now learned, I jumped to it. Now, it seems the next part of the learning curve for me is to how to bring "my people" to the sites, both those who resonate with following their bliss and those who want to have my art. I feel gratified through having the base of these sites to work from and see that I can now tinker and fine tune, perhaps do more with designing my own web pages, use word press, etc.

What approach are you taking with your blog? Was it hard to start blogging?

I am using Chris's approach as a model. He seems to base his work on sharing what he is doing and discussing the ideas, the process and all the things that come into play on the way. I thought that writing about my experiences in following my particular bliss, creating art, would be useful and interesting. I set a goal of writing an entry every week which seems to work to keep me focused on the goals I've set and through writing, the self-reflection helps me to process and evaluate what I am doing. It has been quite easy to stick to this as I keep coming up with things to write about. I also gathered from the artists you interviewed that sharing personally about their art and their life seemed to influence their business positively, that along with a desire to keep my friends and family around the world more informed about what I am about on a regular basis, I felt that a blog would be a really good thing for me on a number of levels. That has been borne out in my own increased level of satisfaction with my life since starting the blog and from the feedback I am getting from friends and family about my blog.

What has changed since you started using these online platforms?
I had felt myself to be a rut creatively for some time and all the energy I have added to my art in the process of creating these online platforms has me feeling quite energized. I feel that this process has been the spearhead for getting me back on track with my deepest desires for my life. I am in other vital stage of transforming my life and feel that you and Chris have been a kind of silent partnership in that, companions on this journey. Even if I never sell enough of my work to live on that alone, what I am experiencing through engaging in these endeavors is invaluable. Truly, the work is its own reward and the money, though wonderful, really a side benefit.

In the meantime...

Last week I shared how gave up drawing over time as a adolescent. This week, I would like to share how my creativity was fed until the time when I determined to study art at university. Part of my family's heritage, on both sides, includes Native Americans. This was shared with me as a child and I think it influenced my interest in Native American cultures and art. When I was 4 or so, I visited my cousin who was at a summer camp and saw a fireside performance of "Indian " dancers and I swore that when I got older that I would become such a dancer as well. When I got older, at age 13, through the Boy Scouts of America in my area, a local Native American dance troupe was started and I was among its founding members. Through this group, I became immersed in creating costumes for dancing. I worked to create my own outfits over the years and wherever I went, I searched for raw materials such as glass beads, macaw feathers, deer hide and so forth to bring into reality the various designs I had in my mind over the years. I spent hundreds of hours over the years of my teens and early twenties on bead work, leather work, sewing and fabricating various elements of my powwow outfits. All of this work reached a climax for me when I finished an outfit I had been designing for years and danced in at a powwow in Portland, OR. Incidentally, I ended up with my picture in the local paper wearing that outfit. Around the time I finished that outfit, I began to get interested in drawing again and started to find some books and local resources to pursue that interest. As drawing started to take up my free time, I did less and less craft work until drawing pretty much took over all together, although from time to time I do some little bead work projects. The drawing with this week's post is from a photo that was taken by a friend as I modeled my then recently finished powwow outfit. The outfit itself is in pieces, some with me in Turkey, the rest on display with my mother's collection of wondrous trinkets and toys.

Still more early art adventures

When I was in grade school, Ms Cassida was the art teacher that would visit our school from time to time and give us art classes. These visits were my favorite part of school. Her visits represented a break in the ordinary events of the school day and I always looked forward to the time she shared with us. She would start the class with showing us a model/demonstration of the art project we were going to create and then walk around helping us individually as we got started creating our art. I was always so impressed with the work she did and she seemed like a sort of god with all the beautiful things she was able to create. I loved when she would come beside me and guide my hand when doing some drawing or commenting on my work in progress.
Ms Cassida was my art teacher through fifth grade and when I think back into my formative experiences around art, fifth grade was an important time for me.To give a bit of background, my community was a consolidated school district of a few small towns and their surrounding rural areas and for a time, all the fifth grade students were in one school, the old high school.This year was really exciting as it represented a change from being in class with the same students all year every year to mixing with dozens of new faces and moving to different classes for math, literature, art and physical education. My friend Frannie Curtis knew I loved to draw and she told me I should checkout the drawings of another student, Jonah Cagley. Jonah was what could be called a child prodigy. He could draw accurate realistic representations of people and pretty much anything he wanted as far as I could tell.He was often being invited to birthday parties and being asked to draw superheros and such for the host,which I imagine got quite tiresome for him after a time. When I saw his work I was amazed and intimidated, I saw my own as quite pitiful and I think ,having internalized all the messages around me about comparing myself to others in order to place myself along the worst to best continuum that is encouraged by most of society, I gave up the idea of being an artist on some level. I seem to have decided that since there was no way I could be the best at art after seeing Jonah's work, I lost my enthusiasm for drawing little by little. At the same time, art became divorced from my school day in junior high and high school as art became something you signed up for as an elective. That decision about drawing remained until I dropped out of university after my second year, unhappy with the path that I was on and unsure of what I really wanted for my life. Dropping out gave me the time to clean out a lot of the garbage I had taken on in my life and this cleansing left space for my love of art to come back into focus. That was over 16 years ago. I have written a bit about starting off on my journey of learning to draw through some resources such as Cameron's The Artist's Way and Edwards' Drawing on the Right side of the Brain. I also found some local art classes useful until I decided to go back to university and study full time. One thing that remains clear out of this and what I think others can glean from my experience is that it is never too late to start. What have you given up on? What seems like it is too late to start? I encourage you to revisit those dreams you gave up on , dust them off, update them for your life now and make a step toward them.