"Longing to Fly" clay and glaze torso by Tammy Vitale

I now have cable.  I still don’t have this site completely figured out – cannot get Amazon connections to work so that I can name books and you can get there from here, but I’m working on it.  At least it all moves much faster so that when it doesn’t work I don’t have to wait a full minute while dial up downloads the message that "it ain’t here darlin’"

Am subscribed to Copyblogger an interesting blog/ezine (I can’t tell them apart anymore – it comes to me in my email, that’s all I need to know at this point) which is supposed to help me think through writing copy for this blog – professionaly.  Take into account headlines and attracting traffic and all that other stuff which will, once I get myself targeted on my niche, bring sales of my work.  Except that it all sounds too hard and takes the fun out of it and so I’ve been mostly ignoring it.  But they have a good piece on definitions of things you run across in blogs that aren’t instantly self-defining: del.icio.us use and landing pages.  I’m still not sure I understand del.icio.us but landing pages is now very clear and may be good information once I get focused and stop practicing.

Got a great kiln load out yesterday and wrote a bit about it and Soul/Spirit cards over on myspace.  Gearing up for visiting with Joie de Vivre in Cambridge, MD (410 Race Street, 410-228-7000) to see if we can work out my showing a few pieces in the shop.  Joy Staniforth  owns the shop and has amassed some wonderful treasures in a small space that is helping revitalize downtown Cambridge.  When I was there last month I bought some gorgeous yarn that is now hanging on "Winds of Change" and is being worked into "Rise Up Singing."  I also want to try to pick up a restaurant in Easton but that’s not going to happen if I don’t make the follow-up phone call to the email/postcard.  Some days doing all this marketing feels really hard and winds up buried under things I’d rather do.  Like sitting here typing this blog – a productive procrastination.

I also have a show coming up at Bronze Door Spa in Prince Frederick, MD, on April 30.  They’re having a big jewelry sale and decided to open the doors to all their artists since they anticipate a large crowd of women ready to buy.  I’m there!  While this particular partnership has turned into no sales yet, my space is based solely on comission if I sell, and it attracts the demographic I’m targeting.  Two good bites on the torso that’s hanging there, one who understands raku.  Raku is a fast fire technique that results in broken pieces as often as not.  Some days that’s all you get.  Blame the kiln imps.  Raku work thus is usually priced higher than regularly glazed work.  Finding an already educated audience for that work is like finding a vein of gold.  I created a special Southwest oriented line of work for this spa, since that is their decor and, as serendipity or synchronicity would have it, had just returned from my first trip ever to Arizona when we found each other.  This is the patina-finished SW Shaman Mask  from that work.

I have new work knocking on the creative door at the moment and haven’t allowed much space for them to enter.  After I get done running around today I hope to get myself into the studio to start making plain torsos which will become part of 12 (arbitrary) Spirit torso/collages.  Blogging is taking a lot of creative energy at the moment, and/but I’m trusting that by following where my interest is, it will eventually all weave together.  I don’t question it anymore, or worry that I "should" be doing something different, more business like, fruitful (as in producing $$$).  I just follow the lead of my passion.    If my head starts getting in the way it only gets worse.

Here’s a great site for jumpstarting the creative juices (and they also have a Shoppes section where I sell some of my smaller pieces): Artella Land.  They have  wonderful offerings by way of ezine, print magazine (the absolutely most scumptuous thing you’ll ever see), games, daily "lattes" and great artist helpers for times when nothing wants to move.  Run on over and tell them Tammy said "hi."

Thought for the day:  "The truth is, you just bring your obstacles along on your creative dream-making journey.  Don’t wait to solve them before making your creative dreams real.  If you wait to solve them, you will wait a very long time, because new obstacles will always pop up and the old obstacles will change shape.  I have entered all of my creative dreams in various states of disarray and dishevelment.  This is good…."  SARK, Make Your Creative Dreams Real:  A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy Peopl and Peopl Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day

This is a spirit card.    It is the basis for the next batch of torsos.  Each has a title, and a prose poem that goes with it.  This one is "Wise Woman" and her prose poem is:  "I am the one of many names, the one who has at last claimed my power.  This idea is based on the book Soul Collage