the last few weeks have been very hectic. two long weekends in a row i was overnight dog sitting (my day job) which increasingly takes a toll on me AND the cats. i have trouble sleeping due to the combo of foreign bed (old person problem) and animals not used to me being there, so i end up really worn down by the end of the sit, so two weekends in a row of that is a lot. and while i had those overnights going on, i also had 3-4 cat sits i was juggling across town in addition to trying to be at my own house with my cats 2-3 times a day, and of course my regular dog walking clients. (lily was still getting eye drops 2x/day and they eat 2x/day.) lily’s eyes now look better but her appetite is off which another sign of a herpes flair up, and usually those flair ups are caused by stress… like the stress of me being gone a lot and the cats’ schedule being off. i’ve started the nose drops and all the other meds the vet has loaded me up with to help counter these flair ups so hoping for the best.
all of this has made me realize i just can’t keep doing overnights any more. right now i’m saying for the rest of the year but it might be permanent. but i will definitely need to find ways to replace that income cuz i’ve had a pretty steady stream of overnights this year and it’s saved me financially since the pet biz has been otherwise kinda slow and the cost of living keeps going up.
one of the ways i can hustle some money, i have been reminded, is doing new t-shirt and sticker designs. it had been a while but thankfully my “wake up” eyeball design that kinda came about organically (accidentally?) really took off over the past few weeks and especially this past weekend in the lead up to the local NO KINGS rally this past saturday. i sold a lot of shirts in just a few days as folks panicked about what they would wear to the protest. i’m honored they chose to wear my design and to support me. i did say when i created this design that i’d tithe 10% back to indivisible nola and so far i’ve donated $30 but after the last little whirlwind of sales, i need to recalculate and probably make another donation.
it is my hope that i can keep coming up with designs and/or slogans to do limited shirt runs. i’d love to do it monthly but i think that’s unrealistic given how much work it is and how little cash flow i have, as i usually front the money for the blank shirts. we’ll see what i can come up with next and maybe i’ll do pre-orders to alleviate the cash flow issue. (i also do intend to have more stock of both the “wake up” and “resist” shirts for the holidays too.)
speaking of the NO KINGS rally… it was great. wonderful turnout, though i’m not quite sure i believe the numbers being thrown around for attendance (10,000-12,500), but it was packed and the vibe was joyous and rebellious and upbeat. lots of creative costumes and signs. great speakers, especially that woman from the ACLU, and it was sweet that kermit ruffins opened the proceedings with a solo trumpet rendition of the star spangled banner. these mass mobilizations are important because they engage lots of people who aren’t otherwise very engaged, often serving as an entry point to further action, and they also take over the news cycle for a while, both of which have lots of value. they aren’t going to topple fascism on their own but they are an important step along the way.
i volunteered pretty much every day for the week before the rally stapling up flyers all over the city, around my work schedule. big thanks to my pal mary ann who helped me cover a lot of ground one afternoon. (it’s so much easier/faster with two people.) that activity and the regular weekly pro-democracy pop-up protest in front of city park at esplanade in the circle on thursdays also contributed to my overwhelm and busy-ness last week. it was a lot juggling all the pet work, my own animals and all the activist stuff including hawking my own tshirts. i’m glad it’s over and i get a break for a while! (which is why i’m finally updating this blog!)
tuesday i went into my studio for the first time in months. i cleaned up, freshed my water buckets and threw out some hardened paint brushes, set up my wet palettes and threw some paint around on some canvases. it felt really good even if the results weren’t anything compelling. it’s therapeutic to play with paint and eventually when you keep doing it, things start to happen. so i will be hopeful that i can get back in the habit of painting again.
last night i went to the jazzfest craft application social, again. i went last year and seriously thought about applying but ultimately realized i was nowhere near ready to do so, in terms of where my work was. and while i showed up last night mostly to show my face and eat some snacks and hang out with debra and karen, i’m pretty sure i am still not where i need to be in order to apply. i’ve made progress since last year, for sure, especially with my purely abstract work, but i don’t have a “body of work” – more like a bunch of random individual paintings that came together kinda by accident. but i have til december 2nd so i guess i’ll keep showing up in the studio and see if something starts to gel that would make me feel like i could possibly come up with a body of work to fill a booth at jazzfest. one of these years it will come together.
meanwhile, i continue to work on my webstore. i have a bunch of items loaded in the shop and just have to figure out how to configure the shipping part – that’s the last thing holding me up. but i think i’m close as i continue to deep dive via google on woo commerce, the free e-commerce plugin for wordpress blogs like mine that i’m using. hopefully in the next few days that will go live and i can continue to upload all the backstock of stuff i have for sale. it would be nice for some of that stuff to find new homes!
i guess that’s enough rambling for today. hope everyone is hanging in there.