30 March

Keeping B.O. at Bay


Thinking ahead of the garden art that I need to make for the upcoming Spenard Farmers Market and the Alaska Botanical Garden’s Garden Shop caused me to have a bit of production panic today. Production panic happens when I worry too much about the art yet to be made. When I force myself to stay in the moment of creating and push negative

"what-if” thoughts from my head, I have much more productive and satisfying days. Lately my worries include; the rising cost of materials versus retail price thresholds, changing customer buying trends that are a constant moving target, hoping my new designs will be creative or new enough, having enough inventory to sell or for some reason not being physically able to make enough inventory due to the flu or a cold or just worrying that I don’t have a pulse on what my customers will want to buy. The other worry I’ve been fighting is how to keep B.O. at bay - the dreaded burn out. Mixing up

my mediums has helped in the past but it seems like the more art I want to make and the more worrying I do about the art unmade, the closer I feel the possibility of burnout… I love what I do and have been really good about balancing family and work so I’m going to blame all this silly worrying on the IRS because it is that time of year and even after all we PAID, I OWE MORE! arrrrggh.

With snow still on the ground and now being under a winter storm advisory for tonight, Mother Nature hasn’t quite inspired me to be thinking garden art. I did make some cool garden grids from concrete mesh that I’ve been wanting to make since I made some for my friend Jana. They are weathering in the snow covered garden with the soil still so frozen I couldn’t stick them in the ground so they’re resting against other weathering sculptures. The Gallery has been needing new wall sculptures, especially bright painted seascapes. Customers have really liked the colorful pieces at Katie’s Gallery –maybe they’re acting as our artificial sunshine?!

After putting the new garden grids to weather in the garden look who visited us eating the last of the cabbage stumps and willow shoots.

3 comments:

Tracey Broome said...

We have deer eating everything, you have moose :)
ooooohhhh, felted mooses!
I am about to pull myself apart in this gray wet weather we are having, if I had to add snow to it, I don't know what I would do! My sign, however, is rusting nicely, at least someone is digging the rain!

cookingwithgas said...

for some reason poeple think we have no worries...hate to tell them that we are really just like them in many ways.
Put those worries to bed or to work-I do my best worring at 3 am.
What about you?
And now i have to worry about your garden- those are big rodents you have there!

ang design said...

I love your garden talk about wild :)) I know everything goes up and so must your prices to keep up...keep an eye on that BO factor...have some fun Cindy!!! summer's a coming woohoo!!!