Working in my studio yesterday, I am beginning some new designs for dolls and other artwork. This is a peice I finished last year, it had been started a few years ago and sat in peices, unfinished, unrealized for a long time. I loved the shape of the wood that I had used for the body, it was a peice of driftwood I found up on the north shore (Land Superior), and carried around in my car for dome time, waiting for inspiration to hit. Then, I made the basic body shape, thinking of the Sedna legends from the Arctic areas. She was a girl who ended up being dumped in the ocean, and eventually became the deep sea goddess. When she combs her hair, she releases the animals for the hunters to hunt. The face I had sculpted when I was testing different materials.
After trying a few other ideas for a head, I attatched this mask-like face, and stuck the feathers into the holes I had sculpted around the edge. It is odd how things come together somethimes that I hadn't meant to put together, but had been working on at the same time. If I hadn't had a deadline (it appeared briefly in a show last winter), I know this wouldn't have gotten finished. Deadlines are so useful, even when we fight against them. I am working at setting deadlines for myself inrelation to other parts of my life. School has been good for me to become adjusted to writing deadlines in my calendar, and pushing myself to meet them.

It is the deepest dark of winter, but light is beginning to be visible on the horizon and I am feeling the slightest of stirrings within. After too much time wasted looking for a 'regular' job, I have come to the understanding that my future is heading in a different direction. I am putting together a patchwork of freelance and contract work to keep the money coming in as I finish my degree. I feel excited, but nervous about this path, but I am willing to trust that it can work. Now, I begin to take the things I have learned over the years about business and marketing and promotion and apply them to myself. It helps for me to think about how to create the life (including work) that I am interested in living instead of adjusting to the life that I have stumbled upon. In the face of sorting this out, I realize that I am willing to do almost anything (including temp work) to make this happen. Good, if I have the passion and the interest, then it is a matter of combining these with my skills and vision. And, of course, the basics of hard work and patience.