Happy Anniversary!

Me and my husband circa 1998
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Just look at those kids! Today is our fifth anniversary, and we are close to having been together ten years total. A lot has changed with both us and our relationship. We have grown old up together having been dumb kids who barely knew anything about life or relationships when we first started seeing each other. But I can say that right off the bat I knew that we had something special, something to be serious about.



And now here we are with our beautiful baby girl. I remember thinking about this upcoming anniversary last year on our forth and possibly doing something special like a renewal of vows since we never had a proper wedding. Now everything has changed and we will be lucky to go out to dinner together. But that is fine with me because I think having a baby reasserts our commitment to each other pretty well!

I'm going to be taking a bit of a hiatus from blogging. At least until I have new work to show. Hopefully that will be by Monday, but you never know. Plus I could always have the time and energy to work and have everything turn out terribly since it has been so long I feel rusty. I've both come out of downtime better than ever and also come out with great difficulty.

I'm not feeling well emotionally, physically or spiritually right now. I'm feeling rather down on my art too as of late. Despite the good things that have happened I choose to focus on the negative. I'm also having a blogging mid life crisis not knowing what to do with this thing as I feel I am getting boring. I don't really do anything interesting. I am not finishing the interesting books that I am reading. Heck, I've only picked one up once since having blee. And I don't want these emotions to leak into my blog as I fear they will if I keep updating throughout this difficult period in my life.

See you when I am feeling better. Hopefully coming off of a major creative high very soon. I'll be around reading blogs whenever I have a few spare moments that aren't dedicated to cleaning or working on art.

New Business Ideas

Reproductions
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Hi guys and thanks for all the well wishes I have received. I'm alive and on the road to recovery. But am almost always tired and at least a bit run down. In fact, I bet I will have to stop and start writing this blog entry a number of times before being able to finish it because I always have a million things to do, most of them involving the hippo. At five weeks her sleeping habits are changing and we are adjusting to them and only starting to get the hang of them. I hear her fussing a lot during the day and run to check on her only to find her asleep. I've learned to detect what cries need immediate attention and what ones don't.

Heroes was on TV, saved onto our Tivo and commercial free after we got home from running errands. No matter how Monday goes, and how tired I am at the end, I will not put off watching Heroes until another day. We were up to late watching it, but it was worth it!







With much blood sweat and tears I managed to finish carving that block that I started working on eons ago and I think it turned out great. I finished it on Saturday and as I was going to bed asked myself if I should work on printing it Sunday or do some small blocks over the week and save the printing for next weekend. Giving myself a break since I am still ill. Well blee nixed any plans of doing anything on Sunday. She was a nightmare baby. Neither one of us got a single thing done unless you count Jon eating a burrito and me getting photo mailers for an order.

The simple fact is that it is harder for me to produce less work now and that is likely to remain unchanged for a very long time. I don't have massive amounts of new work coming out anymore, but when I do I think it is top notch and getting better. I think the work from my last printing sessions back in July was some of my best, and it selling out quickly proves that. It is time for me to raise my prices. Just on future work, I will not be going back to my old pieces and raising them. I won't decide my new price structure until I actually print and am looking at the new work.

To counter the price increase I am going to be offering more reproductions in my shop so that more people will be able to collect my work. I will continue to only offer pieces that have not only sold but have sold rather quickly, or were personal favorites. I even have two pieces framed
and hanging in my studio because I missed looking at them when they sold. I like them a lot, but my focus is going to remain on originals.

Oh, Jon and my fifth wedding anniversary is tomorrow. Hopefully we will be able to do something. Our favorite restaurant is pretty family friendly so we might go there. And as a real treat I am having somebody over to clean on Thursday! I am thinking I will stay in my studio with the baby and do some work and tend to her while the woman does her magic on the place.

Oh noes! Tragedy and pain.

blee is a zombie
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

I thought I had transformed my studio into my happy space. Not just back but better than ever. I had fantasies about where the pack n play will go with the baby and even finding a way to put a comfy rocking chair for me next to it so I can just chill and be comfortable in my favorite room.

I found a couple cool things while cleaning. That makes me happy. I could see the floor again and that gave me a sense of accomplishment.

Then I realized this morning that I probably threw away one of my two favorite pieces while I was in my cleaning frenzy. A piece I had been holding onto for myself and stupidly put off framing. I've looked but it doesn't look good. I've decided that I am going to try and "remake" it though that is completely impossible. The colors are so subtly and randomly varied there is just no way. But maybe I can get something that I like? It is really all I can do. But I expect the magic that was in the original will be lacking from anything now.

To top everything off while looking for the missing piece I found one of my old journals. A journal from when we first got married and things were not so good. Some people know this about us, but many do not. Our marriage started off very rocky. I shouldn't have opened the pretty little pink and red journal but I did. Didn't get any farther than a couple of sentences but the damage is already done. I tossed it in total disgust. What a self pitying pain in the butt, not willing to do things to make our marriage better bitter bitch I was. I was 24 at the time, but acted more like I was a spoiled teenager. I don't even deserve him. I can't believe he stuck with us through all this. I thank God that everything was able to change. That I was able to change because while of course we have fights here and there just like any couple that world that we lived in just a few short years ago is now miles away. This baby is being brought into a marriage filled with love. By the time I got pregnant things were better. I'm pretty damn lucky.

He is off right now getting me an iced coffee and a bagel. Yup, I've got it good.

Thanks for letting me vent. Happy weekend. I am going to try and cheer myself up. Get some paper ready and attempt to make something pretty.

Working small

Completed Face Woodblock
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Yawn! I have been up for hours yet my brain still hasn't caught up. The problem with taking medicine to sleep is that it does leave me with a bit of a medicine hangover that is hard to shake. But if I don't take the medicine I don't sleep and that is much worse. I'm drinking a pot of tea not. I hope everybody else is having a more alert morning, soon to be after noon than I am.

I haven't carved a new block in so long. The last block I finished carving was the large maple leaf block over two months ago and that wasn't even a new design but something I had started back in November. So I have been doing doodles on paper and on wood. And I can't even remember the last time I carved a block specifically to be used for art cards and only art cards. So now is the perfect time to focus on that, they are quick to carve and the wood is so small the money lost if I mess up is piddly. Not much of a time loss either. The lack of any sort of real risk is something I find freeing when I am in a creative slump.

I carved this face on a 3.5"x4" block of scrap wood. Bigger than an art card so that when I use it I can place the blank cards in different spots for different compositions. On the other side of it I have poppies. The image should look very familiar since it is the same poppies I have been offering in a 6"x6" size for over a year now shrunk down. I was doodling and had a drawn but uncolored and unshrunk shrinkydink pendant lying on my desk that I happened to glance at. I also had a blank art card that I picked up and placed near the future pendant. At that size it would suit an art card quite nicely I realized. So I transfered my drawing onto the wood, got out my magnifying visor to help me carve the tight spaces and carved it.

Now I have quite a few new images to print once I clean off my desk. Then I can print. Other than that today should be pretty quiet and laid back. I think I am going to meet Jon at the Museum of Fine Arts tonight to check out the Edward Hopper exhibit they are having. That museum hasn't had an exhibit that interested me since the Gauguin exhibit back when we first moved here four years ago! Then we will get dinner somewhere in that area. Our favorite Thai resturant is around there but I think both of us would like to find someplace new.