Women Dancing Series:  A Joyful Woman, hand and slab built, original wall sculpture, ceramic and wood, 14"t x 10.5"w by Tammy Vitale

Well, y’all.  That Joyful Woman?  Me. 

Things are swimming along, and that’s always nice.

I have my postcard addresser, for barter.  Sounds like a good fit:  we both have a grandkid.  Aside from that, she’s an artist too and so I know my postcards will be in good hands.

Also, Alyson Stanfield has named this blog in her post, Artist blogs to fall in love with.  This is doubly nice:  once being mentioned and once because I admire Alyson’s work (which is why I am an Inner Circle member – disclosure.  =])

And I had an interesting free follow-up phone call from a tele-seminar that’s part of my One Coach package with Michelle  of Million Dollar Message (which, oddly enough, isn’t coming up on Google for a link – I must have something wrong here…or there are too many Million Dollar nomenclatures out there).  This was a 15 minute session and she was laser focused, asking questions and then stopping me before I went too far along in the name of time.  A bit disconcerting but we did get into some good meat of conversation.  Her message is that it is not so much what you are doing as who you are being that will attract what you want.  So she asked if who I am being is synchronized with what I want.  And that’s something to chew on – because she says you have to stay in that role all the time. 

She also asked about contacting New York and San Francisco galleries (and no, I haven’t thought of that.  It seems daunting, but I guess that’s who I’m being:  someone daunted by the idea of contacting New York and San Francisco galleries.  interesting, yes?).  She mentioned something about listening – she had a phrase which I didn’t write down, which essentially meant:  you listen but you already discount as you are listening because you feel you already know the answer.  I felt like she directed this at me because she had asked several questions about the obvious art stuff and I had answers for them.  Well, they are experiential answers and I’ve earned them.  But I did take away that perhaps I should just listen more and not judge, understanding experiences can change.  She also mentioned getting in our own way.  Now, I know this one well.  But if I knew how to get out of my own way, I wouldn’t need help trying to identify why I’m in my own way, would I.  So that gets a bit circular when you think about it.

All in all, I think it was a successful discussion.  I did come away with some new press ideas – me who’s been doing local press for a very long time.  I realized I’m in a rut there and need to think larger (in my own way), and so will be following up on some of her suggestions.  For instance, she asked if I had any famous clients.  And I do!  Melissa Marr, who is touring all over the place right now with her hit book, Wicked Lovely, bought a torso from the British Ink DC tattoo Solstice Show.  Now there’s a story!  And so I’ve been thinking about approaches to stories, not having a good approach being why:  write an article for Ceramics Monthly has been on my todo list for a very long time.

All in all a very good day!

thought for the day:  Artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.  Stephen DeStaebler