There is No Such Thing as Tomorrow
Morning musings and the Real State of the Studio
I woke in the wee hours this morning, a new round of insomnia has taken hold the past few weeks. Bleary eyed in those still dark hours, even with glasses, the tiny words on the screen are impossible to see. But words are pressing and I write them out in a note to self, hoping I've at least captured the essence of them,
It feels redundant to say this has been a busy season. There is that never ending task list in shifting from wrapping up classes, marketing, sample making, planning, writing, and trying to tend to my own art making and life.
Last week I invited members of my Facebook community into my studio for a virtual tour, hoping to revive my semi, sort-of, monthly live conversations humorously dubbed the State of the Studio series. Many of you reading this are here as a result of that conversation, welcome and thank you to you all!
State of the Studio was named so, for the bit in the conversation where I give a short tour of what I call the real state of a working artist’s studio. I’ve included that portion of the conversation below for those who are morbidly curious.
There are many projects in progress on my worktables and floors at any given moment, between those that come from filming and planning upcoming classes, and those that come from work for an upcoming show, and those that are where my curiosity is leading me to explore.
Having to choose just one thing in art, asking what is my medium, is like asking me what I wanted to be when I grow up as child. Sooooo many things.
But none of that precludes the fact that unlike our imaginations, time is not limitless. We have lives to tend to, children, health, families, careers.
No one knows the number of years we have left on the calendar. But looking back to those that lay behind, give a clue to how many may still be ahead.
Looking in either direction brings a flood of emotions. We live with regrets and losses, or we fear for what’s to come. It’s all mixed in with the joys and highlights, the quiet ordinary moments that can feel like losses when they’re gone.
All we can do is acknowledge that all we ever really had to begin with is today, and today, and today.
And maybe that is enough.
In other news, I shared two announcements during that conversation, I want to share with my readers here.
Canary Rising the website, was born two years ago this month. The fact that it exists is a direct result of the close community that developed in Canary Rising the group on Facebook at the start of the pandemic.
I’m celebrating with a flash sale of 50% off all currently listed courses on the platform, including the newest Construct series, when you enter the code BIRTHDAY50 at checkout. Visit the website at this link to see all the courses listed. The sale runs through midnight Thursday August 31st—tomorrow, if you’re reading this the day I posted it. Be sure to use that code. (Not valid on multi-payment options)
Canary Rising on Facebook came to be the community that it is today when I hosted a free live workshop there in March 2020. That live workshop was called Discovering Your Intuitive Voice and hundreds of people gathered live online with me to partake there.
September marks the 3-year anniversary of another series of live conversations and art exercises held in the group, which became a good portion of the outline for the book I’m writing today.
This is your official invitation to subscribe to my new companion blog where the newly edited version of Discovering Your Intuitive Voice workshop is already waiting for you in shorter, easy to follow along video recordings.
September 1st, you’ll receive edited daily recordings for 36 days from the Sweet September Mornings series via email, rotating every other day between the conversation and the art exercise that went with it.
The blog is set up so that you can share images of your work in the comments section or start chat threads. We'll continue the conversations from those videos on the blog and in the group Canary Rising on Facebook as well.
The Discovering workshop and the upcoming series are free to all subscribers.
If you weren’t able to tune in live with us on Facebook, here’s a ten minute portion of the event where I shamelessly share “The Real State of the Studio". The full video of the conversation is 2-hours, if you’re not scared off by this mess, you’re welcome to join the group at this link to see the recording and hear me share some of the upcoming plans for the group.