Word Of The Day

Overwhelmed.

Today the final piece of my life was delivered back to me.  After packing up my life to move to San Francisco it has arrived back at my doorstep in Vancouver.  My stuff made a round trip pretty much from Vancouver, to SF then back again without ever being unpacked.  I've gone without about 85% of my personal belongings since July.  Whatever didn't fit in a suitcase and carry on has now been returned.  I've been thinking about this day with excitement for a while and now that it's here I feel anxious.  My apartment is scattered with boxes.  I have to unpack.  Again.  I am swinging between the excitement of picking up working on my own art (including my short!!!!) and the paralyzing fear that once again, I am unemployed.

This industry can be a dream come true and a nightmare.  I'm so thankful for the amazing support that I constantly feel from my friends and family.  Nobody has ever told me they don't believe in me, and I think thats why I am always able to believe in myself.  Even now, under the weight of my fears.... I think I can still make this work.

So.

Time to rehang the hooks I took down.  Put together the desk I took apart.  Refill the drawers I emptied.

And put the luggage AWAY.

So Much To Say....

....that I can't sort out my thoughts today in any coherent manner.

Drawing was fun but now my brain is screaming!  AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Combobulated

I finished working on Robot Chicken last week and WOW that was fun!!!!  I'm so proud of the work I did while I was down there and so proud to have worked with such a fantastic team.  I enjoyed that contract so much but I also had so much on my mind in regards to reconstructing my life from what I like to call "The Great San Francisco Detour" that there were times that my head was not totally there.

I arrived back in Vancouver this week and felt all sorts of discombobulation for the last few days.  I've been running around taking care of errands, piecing things back together.  I also just got over a cold so I've been feeling SUPER low energy.  Today was the first day I went drawing since I've been back.  I returned to my usual spot where I was welcomed very warmly by the staff who remembered me.  It's one of life's little joys to be a regular at a coffee shop I think...  The cafe was bustling with activity and before I  took a sip of my latte I felt like someone had injected me with caffeine.  The cafe I go to has such a fantastic energy.... I think probably the best in my neighborhood.  I've tried at least 3 other places but this one always comes out ahead.  I felt shocked back to life in the best way possible.

The last few weeks my drawings have kind of been lacking in something, but as I started to sketch I felt that something come back.  I felt so excited and alive and ready to DRAW.  When I first moved to Vancouver it took me such a long time to really connect with it.  Now I feel connected.  I can see the art everywhere.  Life can be so strange sometimes.

I tried to love markers.... I just... don't.

This woman was so simply dressed but so elegant.

Within the next few weeks my belongings will be shipped back to me from SF.  Including my bike (YAY) and paints (YAY!).  Even though I have a mounting list of errands to run, even though I gave up my studio when I moved to SF and now have nowhere to work on my short, even though I don't have a job right now, I feel really happy.

Head and Heart

BLARG.  There is so much going on in my life right now that I have tried to write this post three times already.  All I've managed to do with it is throw myself a pity party which I am totally over!!!!  Without things getting too heavy I think I will reduce my thoughts into bullet points:

- I have a cold and feel totally worn out
- Job is going amazingly, I'm having the best time!  9am-7pm, Mon-Fri is a GOOD TIME.
- I realized lately that its been almost a year since I've done an improv class or performed improv.  This kills me.
- I need to work yoga into my life regularly to help me cope with the anxieties in my life that worsen when I go through transitions (i.e.- moving).  When things get bad I get obsessive AND compulsive.  I wouldn't say I'm at disorder stage but it's definitely not comfortable!
- I miss biking so much.  Hopefully when I get back to Vancouver there will be some rain-less days that I can take advantage of.
- I feel sad that I haven't posted on my blog in so long.  But today I feel happy that I am posting.
- I think I'm in some sort of personal rut.  There.  I've said it.  Now hopefully I can get out of it.

I have some pretty big thoughts about 2013.  I have a loose idea of how I'd like it to go but of course we won't know till we get there :)

Anyone else have some big feeling they want to share in bullet points?

Choosing Choice

With so many changes and transitions happening in my life in the past few months there were a lot of times when I felt like dissolving into a puddle on the ground.  I felt so out of control of my life and powerless as external forces moved the trajectory of my life around.  I felt like I was on a string being yanked every which way and I had no choice but to follow.  Somewhere in the midst of all the craziness I remembered this rhyme by Dr. Seuss that I had seen somewhere on the internet months before:

You have brains in your head. 

You have feet in your shoes. 

You can steer yourself any direction you choose. 

You're on your own. 

And you know what you know. 

And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go

Just reading this made me feel so calm.  Try saying this to yourself replacing the word "you" with "I".  Don't you feel better?  It made me reflect back on all of the times I let other people make choices for me when I believed I had no choice and all of the times I stood up and made my own choices for my life and where it took me.  We are all so responsible for our own lives.  We are as responsible for the choice of believing we are powerless and let other choose for us as we are for the choice of taking charge of our own lives and living a deliberate life where we choose our own paths.  Either way you are responsible for the outcome.  Be powerful or powerless, it is your choice but it IS a choice.  It is easy to slip between the spectrum of the two back and forth, and I think that this is how most people live their lives.  It's certainly what I used to do.  But I just can't afford to do that anymore, the stakes are higher now and I just can't risk my future in anyones hands but my own.  I get to choose where I go and what I do and who I spend my time with.  And if I make a bad decision then the responsibility is on me and I can't blame it on anyone but myself.  And if I make a good decision then I can own it and not say "well I was lucky...".  I know that my life is exactly the way it is because of my own doing.  Because of this somehow it makes me able to be as proud of my bad decisions as I am of my good decisions.  It feels good to own up to something and take responsibility, fixing it if it is bad or reveling in it if it is good.

So there's that.  Do me a favor, next time you feel helpless say this Dr. Seuss thing to yourself.  See if you can find a choice for change in your life where you didn't think you had one before.  When you do discover the power you have in your own life you will feel amazing, I promise.  Choose Choice.

In Celebration of Failure

I have failed so much in my life, both publicly and privately, professionally and personally, in any way you can imagine I have failed at least once but most often multiple times and more than once making the same mistake over and over again until I learned from it.  I have no doubt that I will continue to fail in the future.  This fact used to be upsetting to me and something that I would instinctively want to hide and deny.  Many times when I failed I felt like I couldn't even admit it to myself, instead making justifications as to why other variables out of my control had set me up to fail and that I was just a victim of circumstance, and even then I still managed to beat myself up about it. 

This is a topic I think about a lot, and I have been meaning to write about it for so long.  I think because of that I find it hard to write this post.  My relationship with failure is such a huge part of who I am now and I can only hope to articulate it well enough.  We all have our own unique relationships with failure.  I'm just here to share mine.  

"Failure is not an option"

I think we have all heard that one before, and I think we have all said that to ourselves.  Well guess what?  Failure actually is an option!!  And it's actually a pretty great one.  When I started drawing again I just wanted so badly for my drawings to reflect what I actually was seeing in my head.  This was easier said then done and after so many failed attempts at this I became so fearful to draw because I knew I would fail.  I froze every time I saw something I knew I couldn't draw.  This led to much self loathing.  It got so bad that everyday I would just totally freeze up and find myself staring at a blank page for minutes.  Finally I had enough and one day I looked down at a blank page in my sketchbook and said to myself "This page is for failing".  I gave myself permission to fail, and I made it my main directive to fail and only fail on that one page of my sketchbook.  Suddenly I felt like I had been freed and I drew things that I never would have attempted otherwise.  I wasn't frozen.  When it became my goal to fail I felt so free and I drew so horribly and it meant I had succeeded!  By giving myself this freedom I stopped being scared, I stopped beating myself up.  Self loathing ceased and was replaced by encouragement.  I kept giving myself permission and the goal to fail weekly.  Eventually my "fail" pages in my sketchbook became the ones with the most energy  and the best drawings.  Now when I look at a blank page the permission to fail is automatic and I think that this was the main key to my improvement in my drawing over the past year.  

This is just one small way in which I have embraced failure in my everyday life.  So in honor of this I thought I'd share a page of my sketchbook that I think is just about the worst!  I'm not ashamed of it, I know that this one page doesn't define me and I also know it is an important and successful step forward.  

GO FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!

I actually wasn't expecting to fail on this page but after I drew it  I was really not happy with how it turned out!  So here it is, a failed page.  

When I saw this couple I felt apprehensive about drawing them, but I gave myself permission to fail and I went for it.  I ended up really liking this drawing.  Technically it's nothing special but theres something about the energy of it that I feel like I captured successfully   

Growing Pains

Well this post has been a long time coming.  Crazy changes have happened and I've been physically and emotionally all over the map.  After SF fell through I thought about my options.  To make a long story short I ended up getting a spot animating on Robot Chicken in Burbank.  It's been crazy amazing and the studio is fantastic.

I've still been drawing every day and thank goodness for that.  In this time of my life that seems to be full of constant transition and change, drawing has been the one consistent thing that I can count on.  It is the one thing that after being laid off, with no job and few friends in SF, gave me a reason to get up in the morning and get out.  Every time before this time I knew when I would be unemployed and I was able to plan for it.  There would be an end date on my contract that I could prepare for it.  This time around it came out of nowhere and I wasn't prepared.  If I hadn't started drawing again so long ago I literally would have had nothing to fall back on.  If you move to a city for a job and then the job disappears, what are you left with?  A city that is indifferent to your existence.  When I am working and living in a city I feel like I am a contributing and valuable part of the community.  Anytime the work dried up in a city I've been living in I immediately feel like I've overstayed my welcome.  To stay longer in SF would have been like being the last person at a party that can't take the hint even though the host is yawning and saying "well it's getting to be that time....." as they load up the dishwasher.  I love Toronto, New York and San Francisco.  I loved working and living in those place.  But once I had no more work those cities seemed to close themselves off to me.  Every day I felt like they were saying "oh, are you still here?".  With no work I am not needed, nobody notices my existence and nobody would miss the absence of it.  This is a strange place to be in.  I had the option of staying in SF longer just to hang out but I left as soon as I could.  It became such an empty place with nothing there for me.  San Francisco is such a beautiful and vibrant city with so much to offer, but I had nothing to offer it in return and so our relationship felt like it had come to a natural (though abrupt) ending.

I suppose that is all there really is to say about that situation.  Now I am in Burbank.  A city that wants me here.  When I arrived last week it was very bittersweet.  I am in a job that I love, but I really hadn't expected to find myself here.  I don't regret anything but I feel like there is still a version of myself in a parallel universe still in San Francisco working on a feature.  And yet another version of myself in Vancouver still working on my short and living quite happily.  The past week when I have woken up it takes me a good few minutes to realize where I am and what I am doing here.

And then I get up and go to work.

I have begun experimenting with markers!  They are a more portable solution than paint.   Stay tuned for more fun experimenting with markers!!

One Day At A Time

So... it's been a stressful week.

Aside from any other nonsense I've been having a lot of really nice moments.  It's amazing that no matter what is going on in your life if you look hard enough you can always find some measure of peace.

The other day I started my day by going sketching and getting a latte.  Then I wandered over to a juice bar and grabbed a really great vegetable juice.  From there I meandered up the street to a used book store and picked up a new-to-me book.  Then I found a nice shady spot in one of the most beautiful parks I've ever been in and I sat and read (and laughed out loud - thank you David Sedaris) for a few hours.

No matter what is going on in any other area of my life, that is a damn good day.

Oh Jeeeeeeez

Wow Ok.  I did not expect it to be almost a month before I blogged again but here we are.  So THE BIG MOVE is completed.  I am now in San Francisco for the time being working at a great new job.  Every move gets a little easier, the logistics still stress me out to no end but adjusting to this new city was pretty easy for me.  There is a great energy here.  The people are diverse and inspiring.  The coffee shops are plentiful.  Improv lives.  I know I will be just fine here :).

I'm happy to report that although my time blogging was very off and on I have still been drawing every day.  I even found a really great cafe nearby that I go to an hour before work and sketch.  Heaven.

Currently I still am looking for a more permanent place to live but once THAT monkey is off my back every thing will be peachy........right?

This move has stirred some thoughts.  That combined with starting a new job has really got my brain spinning.  Once I have a things more in place I hope to post about some of the things I have been thinking about. 

Laaaaaaaaaaaater!

So Much

Well if you have noticed I took a bit of a blogging break.  I have a big move coming up (more on that later) and I'm afraid I really let the tasks associated with the move overwhelm me.  I actually attempted a few blog posts but I found that I was just writing my heart out and it was really more of a personal journal entry that nobody would really understand except me.  Even as I am writing this now I feel the urge to write about some of the things I have been thinking about but I know my mind is to much of a mess to do that right now so I'll keep it short and sweet so I actually end up posting!

So YAY ME.  I finally did it.