The Old Church Gallery…

Once in awhile I get to have the pleasure of working at the Old Church Gallery in Cedar River, Michigan.  I love this gallery!  Last weekend was one of those rare occasions and I had an awesome, inspiring day there. The ladies who own it – Carlyn Lynch and Cindy Schmidt – are two of the sweetest ladies ever. 

These two women converted an old, unused church into an art gallery in a somewhat remote location and have turned it into a must-stop place on Hwy. M-35 between Escanaba and Menominee, Michigan.  It is primarily filled with art from local and regional artists.  There are so many talented artists represented here!

When I first met the ladies of the Old Church Gallery, I was newly divorced and lacking self-confidence.  My friend Karen encouraged (nagged) me into approaching them with my jewelry designs. I was so nervous!  But the ladies were fabulous and we have had a wonderful working relationship ever since.  Karen and I have done an artist-in-residence day,and this fall we are teaching classes.  It has been such a great relationship for me, and I know Karen feels the same.

During my hours there, my brain flooded with ideas!  I kept jotting things down in my notebook, barely able to keep up!  Creativity spurs creativity in me, and this place is SO inspiring!

If you’re ever in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, make it a point to stop in to see the ladies and their wonderful gallery.  You won’t be sorry!

The Security Myth…

No one needs to tell us these are tough times.  The economy is in a deep slump.  I have the distinction of graduating from college (at 46) during this fabulous economic time.  Jobs are nearly impossible to come by, especially in my small town.  I have promised my daughter to do everything in my power to stay here until she graduates in 2011.  That’s proving difficult.

I’ve been praying a lot lately for God’s provision.  I keep asking for a job.  Instead, good things keep happening with my jewelry business.  I have picked up a new gallery, and things seem to be going well there.  I was contacted by an old friend who wants to shop my animal lovers line around in his far-away state.  Things are good, which has me wondering…is this what God wants me to do?

I have a problem in the area of security. I was married for 17 years and was very secure in the fact I was going to grow old with this person.  So much for security.  I have listened and watched as the economy has shrunk retirement accounts down to nothing.  What is security, exactly?

I have been wanting a steady, secure job.  No surprises, no upheavals, no uncertainty.  But is there such a thing?  Day after day people are getting downsized, laid off and let go.  So why do I still think a full-time job is secure? 

I need to have more confidence in myself than I do in some unknown employer.  I need to trust my abilities to make a living for myself and my children.  Maybe God is telling me to trust myself and to use this opportunity to take my jewelry business to the next level.   A sure thing?  No, but then again, is there such a thing?

If this is what God has in store for me, I need to trust His leading and trust myself.

I Am Not Superwoman!

I have given up the battle to be Superwoman.  I am a single mother, a jewelry artist, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an employee, a Christian, a neighbor, a teacher and a million other titles that suck up my time and energy.  One thing I am not is a superwoman.  I don’t even want to try to be one.

We already do enough.  We do too much.  We all feel inadequate because most of the time we can’t get everything done.  So I cannot feel guilty for not doing even more.  I can’t handle it all – so sue me.  My house is a mess half the time and I have paperwork in stacks…oh, well!  My mom had a plaque on the wall in our kitchen that said “So this isn’t Home Sweet Home – ADJUST!”  I have that plaque now and I love it.  It wasn’t that there wasn’t tons of love and tons of fun and tons of hard work, because there was.  What there wasn’t was that sense that everything had to be in its place OR ELSE. We lived in that house and we were comfortable there.  I now have that kind of house, too.  We live here and it’s never going to be perfect.

I will never be the woman who is put together, calm and self-assured.  I’m the one running in sweating and frazzled.  I’m the one with the never-ending to-do list.  I will nearly always have a basket of clean laundry to be folded in my living room.  But this is me, and this is my life.  It’s the best that I can do, and that must be enough.  I don’t have fancy bullet deflecting cuffs, but I dodge bullets every day.

Superwoman’s bustier looks really uncomfortable anyway.

Visual Inspiration

While browsing around at Etsy recently, I was blown away by the photograph above.  I loved the poppy pods, and I LOVED the “shabby chic” or vintage look to the photo.

After clicking over to ScarletBeautiful’s Etsy store, I learned that this photo is part of her “Through the Viewfinder” series.  Basically, these photos are taken though the viewfinder of any camera with another camera.  Who would have thunk it?  Not me!  I can’t look at this enough. 

But was this the only thing I loved?  Not by a long shot.  There were many other beautiful shots using this technique, and tons of others that were such visual inspiration for me.  I just had to write ScarletBeautiful and ask permission to share this with my readers.

While Etsy is a great place to find cool stuff to buy, it is also like a virtual gallery, where every page brings more creativity right to your computer screen.  I encourage you to visit today and get inspired!

My Etsy site  is there, also, if you’re interested in taking a look…!

Karen and I A”muse” Each Other!

Karen’s Lighthouse Mosaic

My friend Karen and I are a riot together.  I posted about an Artists in Residence day that we both participated in, and I realized she would make a great post herself.  Karen’s business is named Re-Creations Mosaics.  She used to be a successful decorative painter and very much in demand, but the stresses on her body were getting to be too much, so she sold that business. Now she channels her artistic urges into her mosaics, and they are something.  At first she was timid about showing them to people (she still gives away more than she gets to galleries!), but I talked her into doing a show at the Peninsula Art School in Door County, Wisconsin (specifically in Fish Creek) and they both sold, which blew her away!  I wasn’t surprised because I know how great her work is.  She has started to show them more, and I keep encouraging her to do more, because they are wonderful.

She and I have been friends since the fifth grade.  We were both crazy artist types, and we were the bane of Mr. Jones’ art classes.  I know he loved us, but we couldn’t have been easy to have in class.  We have always been able to inspire each other, and we sure have fun while we do it.  We try to get together regularly to do art projects, sometimes it’s jewelry for me and glasswork for her, but most of the time we try to paint, or collage, or some other medium.  She and I also are the leaders of our church Youth Art Ministry (YAM).  We get a group of the junior and senior high kids together and go crazy.  We call these YAM jams. 

Karen does her mosaics in much smaller pieces than I’ve ever seen – they are literally paintings done with glass pieces.  The detail and color is fantastic!  She typically does them on old salvaged windows (some from my old house), but sometimes she finds cool old frames and uses those, too.  Her creativity is contagious.I am working on her to get a website and Etsy account, etc.  For now I will just brag about her on mine.  The pictures don’t do her work justice, but I hope you can get the idea.

Sunflower Mosaic by Karen