The Salmon (The Struggle) Totem Art Print by Kerrie CarbaryI

I was teasing you a while back about a new collage I was working on, The Salmon. Well, would you like to see?

There are actually two salmon collages. This one is The Salmon (The Struggle). I'll save the other one for later. :)



The Salmon is big for me, sizewise. I've been working small lately, but have been reminded that I love to work larger as well. So, there's no medium right now! Only miniature and XL. XL is 22 x 30 inches for me, I know that's tiny for some artists, but I'm still recovering from having a tiny space to create tiny art in.

For me, The Salmon relates to the tarot card, The Chariot. The Salmon will be one of the cards in The Totem Tarot. This is a good card for my life right now. I'm in the middle of a ton of transitions and changes and decisions. The Salmon is a fighter, creative, a creature of the cycle. What goes around comes around. The Salmon is also a symbol of creation and birth, death and rebirth. The Salmon finds home upstream to spawn, then dies giving life so the cycle may continue.

While you're (surely!) anxiously awaiting The Totem Tarot, I'm offering prints of The Salmon: Etsy :: kerrie :: The Salmon (The Struggle) Totem Art Print by Kerrie Carbary

The Salmon (almost a work in progress)

I've been reinspired lately to work on my Totem Tarot again, after putting it aside for a while. I have a lot of card designs finished, but realized that I haven't done much in the way of organizing them or relating them to actual tarot cards. So, I pulled out my copy of The Tarot According to You (a book I love) and my favorite tarot deck and shuffled them up, asked what I was supposed to focus on, and pulled a random card. It was The Chariot.

The Chariot is a good card for my life right now. I'm in the middle of a ton of transitions and changes and decisions. I rededicated myself to talking to people in person about art (my monthly open studio) which can be tough for me. I am shy, believe it or not. Then, my Americorps job is coming to an end. Changes. Will there be a similar job for me in the future, in non profit, helping others, etc, etc? Maybe and maybe not. The nonprofit in which I served my indentured servitude Americorps term is not hiring right now due to budget concerns.

Money is an issue, of course. So I'm applying for jobs. But also wondering if a) it's a choice between more indentured servitude Work and Art, b) if I get a Big Job, a Career Style Job, if it means stepping back from the art just as I was starting to be able to make art again and c) will I die homeless and penniless, and no one will love me, Stuart Smalley Style? and finally, d) don't Real Artists have more ego? Maybe by worrying about this in a public place I'm cursing my rights to be an artist...?

See how appropriate The Chariot is?

I think Salmon when I started to think about what The Chariot means to me, so my next totem card will be The Salmon. The Salmon is a fighter, creative, a creature of the cycle. What goes around comes around.

environmental art

A coworker and I were talking about art that is meant to be ephemeral, transient, temporary. The idea appeals to me, and always has. I started making books because I wanted to make miniature photocopy books to set free into the world, and I left them at bus stops, on busses, in parks, on literature racks...I even created some book dispensers that looked a little like tea bag dispensers.

At some point, art became more precious, and I stopped setting my art free.

Our conversation reminded me about the HIGH I used to get from creating ephemeral art. I love to see it too, from sand paintings to graffitti to the knitted sign cozies that appeared in Seattle last year to web sites like this: WWW.RiverArt.Net- Environmental Works by A. Nadalian هنر رودخانه: آثار دكتر احمد نادعليان.

So, I'm going to try to bring this game back to my art, too.

Tonight I had a Big Idea, a Major Idea, which I don't want to talk about yet. But I'm so excited about it that I wish I hadn't given up caffeine. If only I could stay up all night working on it. Hmm. Maybe I don't NEED caffeine to do that.

What I've been working on

I'm throwing myself into working on The Totem Tarot again. I'm obsessed.
Here's one of my latest:



A Crow Alone
5 x 7 inches, watercolor, ink, collage, pencil

crows travel in pairs.
one watches over
the other explores



Should I put prints up on etsy?
Yes, I suppose that if I was a good art marketer, I should. :)
(I am trying to be a good art marketer...)

Cleaning Closets

Thank you everyone who wrote to me about my post regarding dog eared magazine and filling the well and feeling quite overwhelmed with life. And thank you for those of you who read and thought kind thoughts rather than angry thoughts. It means so much to me to know that there are friends like you out there.

Unfortunately, a lot of times when you're trying to simplify, you might find that life gets messier before it improves. Like cleaning out your closet. The best way to clean your closet is to pull everything out of it, sprawl it all over your bedroom floor, bed, chair (if you have one), your living room, your dining room table, actually just put all that clutter everywhere except the closet. Then get tired and give up. Then, start sorting, tossing, boxing, changing your mind about the stuff you were tossing, changing your mind about the stuff you thought you'd keep but then realize you'll never use again, get distracted and start to work on that rag rug that you abandonned 3 years ago...

So, my confession of the day is that I have a lot of crap in boxes, bags, and piles all around me. My intentions are good, though, and look- there's this urge to abandon the junk, throw it all in a dumptster somewhere, and start over with what really matters.

That rag rug.

(Just kidding!)

Actually, I've been transferring my organizing urge to the web site, and have been doing a lot of work on that. We're switching to a new, better shopping cart, and that will all go live sometime this week, I hope. It's a lot of seemingly thankless work, especially when more interesting things are lurking just outside my field of vision, but once it get it all fixed up it'll be great. It'll have cool stuff like inventory counts, so people can't order things that we're out of stock on, and we can sell more one of a kind things without worrying about hurt feelings. It's a lot of work now, but it'll save me a lot of work in the long term... PLUS, upkeep can be done by two people or more, instead of just me! So Mr. can work on the web site when he wants something changed, instead of having to wait for me. Which overall means more time for metaphorical closet organizing and art and magazine creation and roasting vegetables and surfing etsy. If I can manage to step over all that junk from the closet that's all over the place. We'll see.

Anyone want a green suede jacket that is still just as hip as it was in 1985? Maybe I'll just cut it up for the rag rug.

A Thread

One of my most unfavorite things in the universe is dealing with people who don't live up to what they say they'll live up to. A salesperson tells you one price, but when you check out it's a totally different price. Your neighbor tells you that she'll bring your mail in during your vacation, but you find letters from that week scattered all over your yard for the next year. The landlord tells you that he won't raise the rent for a year, your boss tells you that she'll give you a raise, your room mate says she'll do the dishes in the morning. Don't they realize that it would be better for everyone if they just would stick to what they know they can do?

Everyone has a time in their lives when they don't follow the marketing wisdom from the experts: under promise and over deliver. As human creatures, we want to be liked. So we want to tell people around us that we can reach our highest goals when it comes to making them happy. Yes, dear husband, I'll make you cookies tonight. Yes, mom, I'll remember to leave my muddy clothes outside. Yes, of course I'll remember the anniversary, birthday, national holiday. Yes, yes, yes. Of course I'll do all of those things. I want to do all of those things! I'll call you at exactly 10:00. I'll take good care of this book while I borrow it. I'll pay the cable bill. I will.

By having all of these things that we want to do, that we long to do with the highest, greatest, most dramatic intentions, we might occasionally be over promising and end up under delivering. We might be able to take care of everything we want to do and need to do, by dancing along a tightrope of commitment. One slightly slippery moment, though, and the tightrope becomes a time bomb. One minute lost while we recover from the fact that our toe landed slightly offcenter becomes an hour, a week, a year.

And we realize what it means to not live up to what we said we'd do.

This is what happened to me. But, like a typical human being, I still haven't realized it. I still think I can get my feet planted under me, bake those cookies and start overdelivering again.

Maybe I can.

Yeah, it really sucks to expect something from someone, and then worry that they're not going to do what you want them to do. I hate it, hate it, hate it.

So, you can imagine how much I super-hate the idea that I've become the neighbor who wanted to help, wanted to pick up your mail, but somehow your entire vacation slipped by, and I didn't have a chance to do everything I'd hoped. Not only did I want to pick up your mail, but I wanted to leave you flowers on the table and fresh muffins on the counter. I wanted to make sure that you had enough coffee for a fresh pot. I even wanted to check your refrigerator and make sure that there wasn't anything too frightening in there, reveling in your absence. Nothing is worse than coming home from your vacation to find sour milk in the refrigerator, right?

I've always felt bewildered about people who make any kind of a commitment, then complain about some life crisis, and use that life crisis as a get out of jail free card. I admit, I've ordered products that never arrived, subscribed to a postcard series that never was produced, sponsored a marathon runner who never ran. In an alternative universe, swaps that I participated in are actually distributed, items I loaned out are returned, and my mailbox is stuffed with zines that suddenly start publishing again.

Because of this bewilderment, I knew that I didn't want to be one of those kinds of people. When my own magazine fell behind schedule, I didn't want to make excuses. I didn't want to act unprofessional about it. I didn't want to tell you about the crap going on in my life that dragged me away from my other commitments. Then, as more and more crap kept testing the limits of my own personal crisis-magnet, it started to become a little ridiculous to see me trying to stay up on that tightrope. I didn't want you to see me underdelivering. I didn't want to sound like I was whining about my life. I didn't feel like it mattered, really. All that mattered was that I wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing, what you wanted me to be doing, what I feel like I'm meant to be doing.

I'm sorry about that. There's nothing I want more than to publish dog eared magazine. I'm sorry it's late. I'm sorry if you wanted more personal information about why it is late, if it would have been better to be more open about all of the crisises going on in my life. I'm also sorry if this is too much information for you, and if you really just want to know when I'm going to get an issue out.

Here's the deal. I think about you every day, many times a day. I think about you while I'm taking care of my mom. I think about you while I'm working at my other job. I think about you when I'm trying to fall asleep. And I think about how I want to make it all better. I'm going to do my best to make it all better. I can tell you right now that we're still publishing. We still will be publishing. If you have a subscription, you'll be getting as many issues as are left on your subscription. We're going to come out with an issue before the end of the year. Maybe issue(s) before the end of the year.

Here's the rest of the deal.

I'm going to allow myself to start blogging again. And I'm going to allow myself to not like the people who post or comment or email me that I have no right to be blogging when I should be spending time on the magazine. Instead of sending such emails, commenting such comments, or posting such posts, I'm going to suggest that these people go read The Artist's Way, and remember that the art stuff is all interconnected. Dudes, if I don't fill the well a little, there's not going to be the spark that I need to create the magazine. Being in touch with you guys is so important to me, that having avoid blogs and online forums has been tough. I want to be able to write without earning the wrath of those who think that I need to be punished. Folks, I punish myself way more than you can, anyway, so please just bear with me here.

The same goes for art. I'm going to make some art, so there! I am beyond "making time to make art," since really there is no time around here to make. But, I'm going to dabble at it a little. And give myself permission. If someone mean has the nerve to say something like, "Well! It's nice that you have time to make ART! Instead of working on your MAGAZINE!" then I'm going to, well... tell their neighbors to not collect their mail when they go on vacation. Again: interconnected. Art's gotta happen or else nothing will happen.

One more thing—yes, we are a small business, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much we appreciate your patronage. You, truly, have kept us getting out of bed in the morning. THANK YOU for your friendship and for being so good to us.

I'm sorry if you feel like I left sour milk in your refrigerator. I'll try to do better.