6 years.

I've been at my job for six years today. SIX. YEARS. Say whaaaaaaaaaaa...?

It's not a total shock. I think. Maybe it is. I've been expecting this day to come for awhile... but not really expecting. Confused yet? I am. To commemorate this lackluster momentous day, I posted a little blurb on FB stating: "I made it to 6 years at this same job. Exciting, yet very depressing at the same time." My cousin replied: "either way you look at it, it's an accomplishment in and of itself. now, go buy yourself a present. xo" (Believe me, I'll be buying myself a present in the form of an ice cream sandwich after the gym tonight. Again, exiting and yet very depressing.)

And a former teacher-slash-wise woman-slash-mentor of the ages said this: "Try going to the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore the end of February. Talk to some of the artists. They are making a living doing what you love. Tick tock!! Life is short. Start to show your work in a gallery. Isaac would be proud."

Touché, touché, touché. Kick in the pants received, and greatly appreciated. I immediately booked a hotel room, purchased a three day pass to the event, and requested a 1/2 day of work that Friday. I'll have my business cards by then, my Etsy site up and running, and plenty of samples to bring with me. I think it's high-time I start taking bigger risks to achieve my goals.  Let's do this.

dinoflagellates and the orchestra

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of accompanying my dear friend Brian to see the Enigma Variations by Elgar, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra.  I had to borrow a quote from www.philorch.org so I could properly describe the performance. "... Edward Elgar brought forth a strange orchestral piece--a set of variations on an unknown theme in which each movement was a portrait of one of his friends--it was a matter for astonishment, an enigma indeed. "Here," declared one critic, "is a man who knows what he wants to say and knows how to say it!"

Imagine for a second that you have a theme song stuck in your head.  And you varied that theme song to fit the personalities of your friends and loved ones.  Some friends are small and delicate, while others are loud and bold.  That theme would have to be varied to fit their personalities, and that's exactly what Elgar did.  The first half of the performance was really interesting.  Narrators, actors, images and music brought Elgar (just a name on the playbill at the time) to life. Snippets of journal entries and stories where extracted from their pages and presented to the audience, making it seem like Elgar was right there in auditorium, describing his life and his work.  The second half of the performance was purely on the shoulders of the orchestra, and they presented the themes uninterrupted.  It was quite beautiful.

The rest of the night was spent at Parc on Rittenhouse, discussing life, art, food and zombies.  That's right.

Also, I did this drawing of happy dinoflagellates for Kara's thesis.  It's going to be published, and I'm excited that I could make this important contribution to the scientific community.  Who knew that dinoflagellates were so happy and rambunctious?  I did.  I think I'd like to do fun drawings of the bacteria and viruses behind STD's. ... I probably won't finish my actual work now that I've made this decision.

just for giggles.

Here's what I do at work some days.  I draw and make comics.
These boobies are real.  I swear.

inspriation lacks, but thou shalt craft on.

Today was hard to get inspired.  Work was dull and bitterly boring, but I managed to strike up a couple interesting conversations about our tanking economy which was nice.  (I'm going to try not to talk about work on the blog.  It's hard not to say anything about it, since it tries so hard to kill all of my productivity.)

Onward!  I'm on day #2 of finding the little things in life that inspire, and hopefully by the end of the day I'll have the fronts of the tie purses completed.  Aw hell, I hope to have the backs completed, too.  Here's a shot of the fabric I bought yesterday, and one of a jumble of ties... which will eventually be purses.