Taking Direction

After my last post, I think it was pretty clear that I was working on formulating a plan for myself. I need to correct my 75-25% balance, and I need to tighten my businesses up... fast! Because I was simply all over the place!

This got me to look at a few things closer (like my business finances), and then I promptly ate myself into oblivion for the rest of the week. I should probably mention that getting my art-life together isn't the only life I need to fix up. I have about 50 lbs to lose (I'm tall.) 25 lbs to not be considered "over weight" by all those annoying charts, and 25 more to get to where I know I feel decent. I'm not thin-thin at that point, but I'm healthy. No one will ever call me a willowy or slender person. *wistful sigh* I always wanted to be willowy.

Once I pulled myself out of my pity-food-coma, I started making decisions. Somewhere around that time I started making a list, because I was having trouble keeping track of all the things I had to do. It's a long, scary list right now.

Anyway, here are some of the things I figured out:

• First thing? Change my website provider because it was bleeding me dry (I was using Big Cartel, to have both a site and a store.) That's caused a huge surge of work for me to create a new site (and I'm still working), but I also decided to make Etsy my main store, and just have a basic site up otherwise. 
• On that front, I am dividing my work into THREE Etsy stores (cue the migraine) and I'm working on fixing those up...
• I'm dropping my random fantasy artwork, and focusing back specifically on fairy tales. That was my original intent, and I just got lost. 
• I'm also revisiting my surreal and abstract work, because I never should have dropped it to begin with, and Thrice Magazine shouldn't be the only reason I'm doing it. I got lazy and waited for the magazine art editor to give me a shove to do something. (I'm still doing stuff for Thrice, but now I'll be creating other pieces too.)
• I'm keeping my Whimsical Misfits, because I really like where I was going with that, they're fun, and by my normal long-painting standards, they're fast. They still take at least a day, but that's fast for me!
• I'm killing a side business I spent a lot of time setting up. A LOT. It's an LLC and everything, so it's going to take time to dissolve the LLC and shut bank accounts down, and so on. It was a really super idea, but it would mean I'd be all business and I don't think I could be successful and still paint. I'd rather be a successful artist than a successful business person (that only sells art, rather than making it.) So, I guess I figured out what my definition of success is.

I think part of figuring out a person's direction in life - anyone's life - IS in deciding what success means to you. If I was just after money or my name on a fancy plaque, well, there are a lot of paths to that. I have my degree in Business Administration as well as fine art. I could have stayed in the corporate world and worked that path and been successful... but it's not MY path, or at least it's not the one that would make me happy.

Even though some of these decisions have been hard, or even a little bit humiliating (shutting down the LLC is hard because I told so many people about it, and it was going to be great. Now, I'm killing it before it even launched so I can go back and paint again. Some people think I'm absolutely brain damaged at this point because of my choice) I realize that when stuff is all muddled up and wrong, EVERYTHING is wrong. It all gets messed up. 

Seriously, my moving life has been driving me insane, but I realized I messed things up for myself long before that. It started in my studio, I went off the path I had set for myself that I knew made me happy... and I made myself unhappy. That threw me into a ditch with my health (or you could say I jumped into the ditch), and that helped make me pretty miserable over all.

I'm trying not to be miserable. I'm trying really, really hard.  That's why I made these decisions, and why it was time to take a really hard and clear look. Make corrections where they are needed, shore up the good things that are there, and make room for the future. 

I'm still taking on a lot, and it's still overwhelming. But, I'm trying to make things better for myself. When you are trying to do something good, it's a little less overwhelming because the steps you are taking do start making you feel a little better. Even if they are hard.

And that includes getting my health back on track. I have a goal to be back at a normal weight by Christmas (my goal weight, actually - which I haven't seen since 2008. *sigh* But I haven't been over my weight range until this last year or so. I want back to goal, or close to it by the end of the year.) I know how to do it too, because side note here: I used to be obese, lost all the weight, even got certified as a personal trainer and did that for a while too. I have the knowledge, I have the skills, it just literally comes down to follow through. And that is the same for everything going on right now, art and not!

Follow through, that's my next step!

I have no art to show for this past week. It was a little wonky in general, but it feels just as productive as a painting considering where I am at now!