Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Commitments to Yourself Versus Others

"Zoar Calendar," Fritz Boehmer, c. 1937
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program



Hello friends,

I've noticed something about myself.  I'm great at keeping commitments to other people.  I have a calendar that I treat like it's sacred, and if something is in there, it's set in stone.  I'm punctual.  I clean up the common areas in my apartment that I know my roommates need to use or that other people will use when they come over.  I edit things when people ask me to, make visits to feed friends' cats when they ask me to, try to make a point of being there when a friend is having a party or wants to grab drinks, finding little slivers of time in my already busy schedule for them.

But I've also noticed something else.  I don't do this for myself.  I willingly sacrifice what little personal time I have between my obligations that I can't shirk (my two jobs, for instance), often giving up sleep to be able to get some time to myself after packing in several different obligations in one day.

And that time that I sacrifice is my creative time.  If I want to eventually turn my creative hobbies into a workable business, then shouldn't I be treating my crafting with the same commitment and seriousness that I treat my other jobs?  And my obligations to friends?


"Allegory of Magnanimity," Luca Giordano, c. 1670
Digital Image Courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program


I remember reading an article some time ago - and I wish I could remember exactly what article so I could credit it - advising that "highly productive people" (I use quotes to represent my skepticism of the entire concept of these angelic highly productive people who have somehow figured everything out) actually block out time in their calendars for the personal projects they want to get done, and treat them like any other set-in-stone commitment.

Likewise, I've read articles stating that "highly productive people" go to work early and then wait at least a few hours to check e-mails, preserving that early morning time for longer-term or more intensive projects that require undivided attention. This way they don't find themselves spending literally the entire day responding to other people's needs and questions via e-mail, or getting distracted and pulled away at every moment.

I have to admit, I haven't tried either tip, at least not yet.  I find myself psychologically resistant.  It makes perfect sense and I bet these tips are probably very effective for at least a portion of the population.  Maybe I need to force myself.  But that's just the problem. Tricks like that are great if you have the will to follow through on them.

While on the one-hand there's a certain self-sacrificial impulse to place commitments to others over my own long-term obligations, there's also a countervailing selfish impulse to say yes to myself when I want something right now, placing short term gratification ahead of long term priorities. For instance, when it comes to finances, my dad has always lectured me to "pay myself first," by which he means that the first thing I should do with every paycheck is put a certain amount into savings. Instead, I find myself much more inclined to go shopping.

Sometimes I know I should stay home and work on a particular craft.  I tell myself ahead of time that's what I'm going to do.  But then I get invited to go to drinks with a friend, or out to dinner, or to an area event.  And then I think to myself, it can't hurt right?  It's just one more night!  What's waiting one more night in the grand scheme of things?


German Easter Calendar Beginning with the Year 1466
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program

Given the fact that I know I have this habit, am I really likely to uphold my commitments to myself just because I have written them into my calendar?  Maybe it's worth at least trying.

In any case, my goal in 2017 is to really hunker down and commit real time and energy - and even a small commitment is OK if it's a meaningful one - into my creative pursuits.  This blog is a large part of that, for sure.  I also plan to put more energy into my Etsy store and a number of other creative projects I've always talked about doing (more on these later).  I'm also going to seriously pursue teaching crafting classes as a serious means of monetizing my amassed creative knowledge.

How about you, friends?  Do you use a calendar and internal deadlines to keep yourself on track?  If not, how do you go about ensuring you uphold your commitments to yourself?

Emily
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Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Love Learning at the Lemon Bowl

"Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Pomegranate," Jacob van Hulsdonck, c. 1620-1640
Digital Image Courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program

Hello friends,

I want to discuss for a moment the importance of having access to an artistic community.  For those who seek to be creative - whether as a full-time career, a part-time job, a fulfilling side hobby, or more as an appreciator than as a maker - being surrounded by likeminded others is the emotional equivalent of flopping down on a fluffy pillow.  They support you, get you excited, provide inspiration while also acting as a much needed critical sounding board.  Lately I've been making more of a concerted effort to meet other artistic types, and through them I have learned about opportunities in my area for developing new creative skills and gaining exposure to others' work.

That said, the Washington, D.C. area is tricky.  D.C. is a great place for those of us with careers in law, government, non-profit work, policy, advocacy, etc. There's nowhere like it in terms of having access to regulators and legislators and people who can make change at the highest levels of government.  But what D.C. lacks in comparison to other places like New York, the Bay Area, Austin, Nashville, Portland, Denver, you name it, is a large, overt, and thriving arts scene.

This, of course, is changing, thanks to a number of artists who find their way here for whatever reason (a spouse's career, for example, or a job working at one of D.C.'s amazing museums).  But frequently Washington area artists find that they have to start from scratch in terms of a broader community, and if they are looking for a creative support network or other creative resource, they're going to have to build it themselves.

So you can imagine how excited I became when a friend told me about the Lemon Bowl.


The Lemon Bowl is a cute little shared workspace founded by three woman artists in an up-and-coming area of D.C.  These creative ladies realized they needed a dedicated space in which they could get down and dirty with art (see my earlier blog post, The Fantasy of a Beautiful Work Space for more thoughts on the difficulties of finding crafting space in a cramped city environment). So they teamed up and founded the Lemon Bowl.


Brilliantly, the Lemon Bowl's founders have realized the space's potential as a work and learning space for others.  The founders teach a wide variety of classes at the Lemon Bowl and have opened the space up to other artists who can either rent the space at an hourly rate or sign on as members - with perks such as a key to the joint and unlimited use of the workspace for teaching classes.


So far I have taken three classes covering block printing (more on this in a later post!) with surface artist (read: designer of world's most adorable wallpaper) Kate Zeremba, vision boards with the lovely Kim of DC's own Beauty School, and winter foliage flower crowns with Holley from Sill Life, who also provides epic terrarium classes and floral services (also, see my in-depth prior post on crafting with living materials for much more discussion of this class).





A photo posted by Emily S (@bostoniensis) on


While the workshops themselves were fun and the skills I learned were valuable, I think perhaps my favorite thing about attending classes at the Lemon Bowl is getting to be around other women who have pursued creative careers and are making it work.  It's incredibly encouraging to be in the presence of others who are actually making it happen.



A photo posted by The Lemon Bowl (@thelemonbowldc) on


How about you readers?  Have you discovered creative places/people/communities in your area that have encouraged you to focus in on your creative pursuits?  Discuss in the comments.

Emily

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Tuesday, January 17, 2017

The Fallacy of Taking the Safe Route

"A Landscape with Figures Walking Along a Path," Henri-Joseph Harpignies
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program

Hello friends,

I've been pondering quite a bit lately about how much I lament taking the safe route out of college, rather than pursuing a less safe, more creative, and less mold-fitting career path.  I'm not positive, today, that I'm in any better a financial position than I would have been had I pursued something much more creative and much more myself.  I spent a lot of my education and early career focused on what I'm supposed to be doing to be successful rather than doing what makes me happy.

In my defense, I'm not sure that back then I knew what I wanted, other than to be big and powerful and wealthy and super successful so I could satisfy my own ego and impress others.  Today, I still don't know what I want, but my values have changed.  As a more mature, more experienced person, I simply know that I want to love what I do, to be financially secure, to have a decent work-life balance, and to work in an environment where my ability to do my job well isn't hindered by the actions of others, whether that means being my own boss or simply working with the right people.

This video really hits it on the head for me.  I know that Jim Carrey may seem like a strange choice, but just listen to the first minute and fifteen seconds:



Carrey offers us two cuttingly poignant lessons in that minute and fifteen seconds:

1) We make too many decisions based on fear masked as practicality

2) You can fail at something you don't want so you may as well take a chance on something you love


I wish this had been my college commencement speech.  Would my overly type A 22 year old self have taken it to heart?  I don't know, probably not.  But what I do know is that the people I went to college with who really dedicated themselves to pursuing creative passions actually made it.  They're now supporting themselves doing the creative things that they love.  One of them recently won an Emmy.  And several now have successful businesses making and selling jewelry.  And I'm sure there are others I don't know about, and that probably includes some people who failed, but this shows that it's very, very possible to succeed at a creative endeavor that you love.

I, on the other hand, went to grad school because I didn't know what I wanted out of college and other people were talking about how important grad school was and it seemed like a safe opportunity to figure it out and increase my earning capacity.  And now I have what looks like, on paper, a high-powered, prestigious job.

Tarocchi (Tarot) Card Featuring Prudence, c. 1465
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program


But the reality is that the economy tanked when I was in grad school and all of a sudden people in my field simply couldn't find entry level jobs.  I temped for two years before I landed at my current employer in an entry level position from which I worked my way up and, though I enjoy a relatively decent work-life balance for my field and pretty good benefits, I am making way less money than I was told I could expect when I made the decision to take on massive debt to finance my fancy grad school education.  I would probably be making just as much by now had I taken a job straight out of college, but with way less debt.

And more than that, while there are a lot of amazing things about my job and the people at my job, I have issues with the way that my organization is managed, and often feel like there are constraints external to myself that prevent me from doing my best work.  As a consequence, I get frustrated, and then I'm definitely not motivated to do my best work, so it creates a kind of resentful downspiral.

Every moment of my serious work experience since emerging from my education - from temping to working somewhere where I feel my time and talents are not best used -  has done something to my career confidence, ego, and drive that feels irreparable.  I am nothing like the Type A college student I used to be. Some of that's the humility that comes with maturity, sure, but some of that is shell shock and what seems like a permanent cloud of self-doubt.  I probably have impostor syndrome. And I don't know how much of my seeming passionlessness for what I'm doing is just the imprint of past experience and how much of it is a reflection of current reality, nor do I know whether it's just the organization that I work for that's the problem, or the entire field that I have chosen for myself.


"An Allegory of Wisdom and the Arts," Franz Karl Palko, 1750/1755
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program


The problem I'm currently struggling with is how to take to heart Carrey's advice now that I am not a bright-eyed college student just entering into the world, but a (relatively) established professional.  I have a lot of career-related baggage.  I have struggled a lot and invested a lot of emotion, time, energy, social capital, and money into getting where I am.  I am forced also to remember some of my own advice from my earlier blog post on how being good at what you do doesn't mean that you'd be good at running a business doing what you do: it's important to know when to cut your losses.  My prior investments shouldn't prevent me from moving on if it's not working for me.

But when and how do I know for sure that this isn't working, and that my unhappiness isn't temporary, or that it doesn't just need some small changes (like switching to a different employer) rather than massive, overarching career change?  Am I really ready to scrap everything and start over from scratch?

How about you, friends?  Have you found yourself in this boat before?  How did you handle it?  Did you make the switch?  Did it resolve itself in time?  Or are you still struggling?  If so how do you cope?  Are side pursuits enough?

Emily
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Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Being Good at What You Do Doesn't Mean You're Good at Running a Business Doing What You Do

"Portrait of a Merchant," Jan Gossaert, c. 1530
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program

Hello friends,

If there's any single lesson I have learned from my non-creative life that can easily be imported into the world of my creative business aspirations, it's that being good at what you do doesn't mean you're qualified to run a business doing what you do.

One of my first jobs when I was still a teenager was as a receptionist for a local office of a company that recruited people to sell products door to door.  The guy who ran my office was barely older than I was, never received any kind of education or training in business management, never worked as an assistant manager or in another managerial capacity before, but had been the top seller in the state at a very young age, so they put him in charge of a regional office.  The office failed and was shut down within only a few months.

He didn't know how to lead, voicing platitudes in attempts to motivate those under him rather than actively making changes that would address our concerns.  He worked hard, but his time, energy and resources were often wasted because they weren't channeled correctly.  A few times he violated state labor law, not out of malice I don't think, but because he'd never been taught to take things like that seriously (and maybe didn't know what they were).

Looking back on it I feel bad for the guy, but at the time he was an awful person to work for.

Since then, in a variety of work and extra-curricular environments, I've encountered a number of common management mistakes that have led to serious consequences.  I have actively sought to remember and learn from these mistakes so that I don't repeat them as a management level professional at my current job or as a future creative business owner.

This is what I have learned:


 You must delegate.  A business owner (or other top level management) must oversee all aspects of the business and does not have time to get into the weeds.  If your business or other endeavor is a labor of love it can be very difficult to let go of control, but it is necessary to avoid becoming overextended.  And an overextended manager becomes a bottleneck.  Things awaiting approval don't get approved and don't move forward. Meetings with staff, where staff was counting on your guidance, get pushed back or canceled, and then your staff can't do their jobs.

But what, you may ask, if my creative business is a one person show and I don't have employees to whom I can delegate?  The same principle still applies.  Can you hire someone else to do your photography?  Maybe a friend or someone from Craigslist willing to cut you a deal? Can you get someone online to design your logo and other marketing materials?  Can you hire your niece who is in high school or college to do your social media and Instagramming?

You may also want to consider farming out some of your components if you can do it without compromising the quality of your product or completely eliminating its crafty charm.  As an example, I recently discovered Ponoko, a website where you can order laser cut components in a variety of materials.  Imagine that instead of hand-forming every single component of whatever it is you're making you streamlined the process by having the components laser cut for you and then you assembled and added the finishing touches yourself.  Ponoko isn't the only service that does this or something similar - look around.  And Etsy now offers a whole slew of partnership resources that link sellers up with outside manufacturers.

In a similar vein, don't micromanage; trust your employees (or outside contractors or services) to be able to do their jobs until they give you reason not to, and don't spend your time in the weeds.


"Monkey Business in Old Holland," Coryn Boel After David Teniers the Younger, 17th Century


You must adapt.  I have noticed a tendency among owners, directors and CEOs who have been in their positions for a long time to fall into the mistaken belief that what has worked in the past will continue to work in the future.  But the world changes, and so businesses and other organizations need to regularly take a fresh look at their focus, their product offerings, their marketing, their branding, their target audience, their internal processes and their overall business model and make continuous updates.  Online shopping and other Internet businesses have completely changed the landscape in only a few years and are continuing to shift and adapt.  To survive businesses must keep up with consumers' changing expectations in an age of dramatically increased options, convenience and customization, and must offer something special that consumers can't find anywhere else. Simply offering a good product isn't enough anymore.

Furthermore, business owners and managers who fail to adapt often become dismissive of other people's new ideas or, perhaps more importantly, their legitimate concerns about real problems. Not only is it a terrible waste of resources not to consider good ideas from other people, it also breeds resentment among the people you work with.
Being an Executive Means Executive Decision Making
Indecision is death.  If you want anything to get done you have to make a plan and stick to it, even if you're not 100% sure it's the right plan or there were many different ways you could have gone (this is some advice I could definitely learn to follow better myself).

Certainly, do your due diligence.  Don't be reckless.  But eventually there needs to be a reasonable cutoff point.  And when you do have a plan, make sure it's a detailed, chronological plan.  Outline your steps before moving forward to ensure you don't get ahead of yourself, and set internal deadlines, even if it's just you.  Build in time for setbacks and for trial and error.  Your plan should also account for the resources (time, money, social capital) that will be sucked into each and every step.  You don't want to get halfway down the road and realize that all of a sudden you don't have any more resources to dedicate. You can always revisit the plan and make adjustments if something isn't working, which brings us to...


French 18th Century Ground Plan for an Academy of the Fine Arts
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program



 Know When to Cut Your Losses
This is a big one.  Sometimes projects turn out to be nothing but an endless pit.  Kill them swiftly and ruthlessly, even if you have a lot invested in them (you'll often find, after the fact, the largest part of that investment was emotional and that this was the source of your resistance).

In game theory there's a concept called buying a dollar.  In this game, someone comes to you and one other person and says I have a dollar that I will sell to the highest bidder.  However, I will keep both your highest bids but only one of you gets the dollar.  The other person immediately bids 25 cents. You bid 26 cents, standing to make 74 cents.  He bids 50 cents.  You bid 51.  He bids 75.  You bid 80. He bids 90.  Now you're starting to sweat.  If he bids higher than you, you're out 80 cents because the person selling the dollar gets to keep both your bids.  So you bid a dollar, hoping to break even.

Well, the other guy is now out 90 cents so what does he do?  He bids a $1.01, hoping to only lose one cent in order to protect his 90 cent investment.  You bid $1.02.  And now you're both bidding more than a dollar to keep a dollar, hoping to protect what you have already invested.  And it keeps going. You probably shouldn't have bid to begin with, but once that damage was done you should have set an upper limit at which you were willing to cut your losses and walk away.

The shorthand phrase for this behavior is "throwing good money after bad."  It applies equally to time.  For instance, you may find yourself continuing to wait in a line you've already been in for a long time because you've already spent so much time, even though the amount of time you still have left may end up eclipsing the amount of time you've already spent.  This prevents you from leaving and doing other things (which implicates a related business concept: opportunity cost). Another real world example?  Gambling addiction.  If you're trying to turn your creative hobbies into a business rather than just something you do for fun, don't become addicted to your failing creative projects.


"Card Players," Josse van Craesbeeck, c.1645
Digital Image Courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program



So how about you, readers?  Have you learned any lessons in your non-creative pursuits that you think can be applied to creative entrepreneurship?  Share in the comments!

Emily
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Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Of Eggnog and New Years Eve Table Spreads

"Still Life with Grapes and Game," Frans Snyders, c. 1630
Image Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art Open Access Program
*This post contains affiliate links, which may allow me to earn a small commission if you click through to purchase a product.


Hello friends,

One of my favorite ways to incorporate a little bit of extra creativity into my life is by using it to increase the aesthetic appeal of the intimate gatherings I've hosted.

I give you my New Years Eve table spread in all its glory:




I don't know why, but for some reason I just get giddy over the thought of a creative or opulent table spread.  Maybe because it's more to do with curation than with crafting, the perfect selection and balance of thematic trinkets, foliage and/or colors.  Or maybe it's to do with the art of collecting.  The table spread gives me an opportunity to show off to others the sundry lovelies I have amassed over time, all operating in concert.  I love table spreads so much I've created this ongoing table spread Pinterest board for inspiration.



I'm sure many of us have all seen the "expectations vs. reality" memes about New Years floating around; You go in expecting glamorously dressed people having an amazing time, a classy affair with classy cocktails, a confetti drop and champagne at midnight with everyone all excited, maybe even a big smackeroo...and what you actually get is showing up to a bar with only 3 other people in jeans and a sad party hat and a sad noisemaker and several hours of boredom waiting for midnight to come and when it does it's super anticlimactic. I decided to head this whole fiasco off, having lived it too many times to count.




I invited a few close friends - whose company I would enjoy even if we were sitting together staring at the wall - over to my house at 9PM for drinks and desert and some Cards Against Humanity (we played just with cards from the new green box expansion which is HILARIOUS, before I added them to my bigger blacker box).  But I wanted to do something in keeping with the fancy, opulent expectations we all have for New Years.  A friend of mine who has a 3-month old baby was particularly excited about getting out of the house and informed me that the baby would be wearing a dapper little baby tie.  I couldn't not make the event a little fancy.  This table spread was my opportunity.

I wanted something opulent and inspired by old school still life paintings (though with considerably fewer dead animals).  I went with flowers in a wintry color scheme (white mums, hydrangeas and daisies and pale blush roses) along with winter flora, like berries and wax flower.  I also decorated with a few candles and meyer lemons, feeling that the yellow would really pop against the blush roses and create that concept of ample bounty that I love about so many traditional still life works.  I tried to incorporate as much metallic gold and silver as I could, with three different kinds of fancy glass wear (booze and wine not pictured as they were stashed elsewhere with their own little floral vignettes). Trays in silver and gold made for added interest and texture, and broke up the vast white plane of the table cloth (aka the cheap sateen sheet I pretended was a table cloth).



My table featured the following treats:

-My signature butter cookie jam sammiches (of course) made with strawberry jam this time.

-Candied orange slices (you can buy them packaged at Trader Joe's) dipped in a spiced chocolate ganache I made by mixing melted chocolate chips and heavy cream in a double boiler with some sugar and this magnificent pumpkin spice moonshine I discovered at a distillery I visited on a trip to West Virginia (I'm told this moonshine is available for purchase at the liquor store on P St. by Dupont Circle, if you live in DC).  I also did some almonds, in the bowl on the right.  The least photogenic of my offerings.

-The easiest and most delicious peppermint oreo bark using this recipe, though I subbed Lindt white chocolate bars for white chocolate chips not because I am classy but because that's what they had at CVS.  I probably don't need to say it, but it worked just fine.

-A standard cheese plate with brie, toscano and a cranberry goat cheese and grapes, with assorted crackers and cut up baguette.


And, of course, the crowning glory of the evening was my homemade eggnog.


A photo posted by Bring The Art In (@bringingart) on


I adapted my recipe from this near-encyclopedic egg nog article.  Except that I didn't whip in the egg whites because egg whites are gross, and I didn't need them anyway because instead of using 2 cups of milk and 1 cup of heavy cream I just straight up used 3 cups of heavy cream what of it don't judge me.  And of course 1.5 cups of Bulleit Bourbon (recipe says anywhere from 1 to 1.5 so, obviously 1.5).  Also, while the recipe calls for nutmeg I added nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger (the same spice combo I use for banana bread).

In the process of adapting this beverage I ended up accidentally doing research, and I never knew that eggnog was so fascinating.  It's like a little microcosm for things like biology and US trade history.

The booze, it turns out, isn't just there because we like booze and it makes us happy, and I didn't just use the maximum amount because I'm a lush.  The booze is there because back in the day, when people couldn't refrigerate, they needed a way to preserve their dairy products through the winter. Alcohol acts both as a sterilizer and a preservative, so nog with a sufficient amount of alcohol in it can keep for weeks, and apparently gets better with age. 1.5 was the lucky number.

Traditionally, back in Europe, people used wine or sherry.  In the American colonies wine and sherry were extremely expensive because they were taxed as imports, so colonial Americans used rum imported from the Caribbean.  During the revolution, however, rum became hard to find.  That's when our forefathers turned to domestic spirits, and bourbon eggnog was born.  George Washington's egg nog was apparently the jungle juice of its time, combining whiskey, rum and sherry all together (ew). Also, in 1826, West Point was home to an eggnog riot.  Not making this up.

I also made a point of using local, organic, farm fresh eggs and cream from my gorgeous CSA, and mixed the nog together the same day they were delivered to ensure the alcohol was in there preserving and sterilizing as soon as possible.  Consequently, between the booze and the freshness of the ingredients, the likelihood of getting sick from the raw eggs in my nog is very slim.

And lemme tell you, it is a world apart from the nasty, fake, non-alcoholic stuff you can buy in the store.  My egg nog basically tastes like bourbon ice cream.  Which means it basically tastes like the greatest thing that ever happened ever.  Cept maybe that oreo peppermint bark.

How about you, readers?  What do you do to make your gatherings at home into something special?  Have you ever done something truly creative with a table spread before?  What homemade treats add a sense of luxury and panache to the events that you host?  Have you ever tried your hand at home made eggnog or other treats using raw egg?  How did it work out?  Discuss in the comments.


Emily



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