Currently experiencing technical difficulties…

Okay, when did a scanner become such a specialized item that Office Max and Costco have quit carrying them?

I want a scanner. Just a scanner. Not a combination scanner-fax-copier. And that was all either store had.

So I’m going to order one online, as I don’t have the patience to call around and see who carries plain, flatbed scanners of specific makes and models.

And–oh, god; I have to laugh at this–I am currently camera-less, as well. Or, rather, I have the camera, but the battery is dead, and I have no idea where the charger has gone. I’ve cleaned up my office, my bedroom, and the sewing room while searching for it, so at least something good is coming from this debacle, but it’s still nowhere to be found.

So I have several days’ worth of images, and no means to convert them to digital form and post them.

Brilliant, huh?

[laughs hysterically]

Yes #5

The design for this one was inspired by the design on the gold coin in Yes #3. I’ve wanted to create a laurel-wreath design for something else for a while now, and decided that this was as good a time as any. I used a CD as a template to draw the circle on 8-1/2 x 11″ cardstock, then drew it freehand, from memory:

I started with the idea that this would end up a painting. But by the time I was done I liked the pencil sketch so much I thought I’d leave it as it is. I’ll still make a painting of the wreath based on it, but for now this is enough.

And I liked the idea of the laurel wreath because what is victory but the result of saying “Yes” often enough, long enough, with enough conviction?

[ETA: And no, I still haven't replaced the scanner; I haven't even looked at prices online. Mopping up the basement took precedence, alas. But before the weekend is over I'll have one .]

Yes #4

It’s a good thing I didn’t get too ambitious with last night’s image; I’d nearly completed it and was waiting for paint to dry when I thought I’d run a load of laundry (so it would be done before I headed off to bed). Going down the basement steps,  however, I discovered water all over the floor.

We’ve had very heavy, wind-driven rains for he last few days, and some of it decided to come in beneath my exterior basement door.  Lovely. So I spent an hour or so mopping up, and by the time I was done all I was up to doing was shutting off the studio lights and dragging myself upstairs.

But here’s what I had finished:

Not very ambitious, compared to yesterday’s image, is it? But what I really wanted to do was play with a design I had in mind for another project, and rather than get hung up on why I shouldn’t, I said “Yes” to it. Not everything I undertake has to be complex, or impressive, or have a story behind it.

But after yesterday’s image, I felt like I should do something more complex, and that do do something like this was–oh, I don’t know–regressing, I guess, as if yesterday’s painting set a standard that I should always try to meet or exceed with each successive piece.

So I almost talked myself out of it. But none of the other ideas I had felt quite right, or I didn’t feel  up to doing them. And forcing myself to go against my inspiration–to say “No” to it–goes against the point of this whole Yes Project.

Is it successful? Do I like it? [shrugs] Not particularly. But I’m not sure that matters. What is important to me is that did it at all, and didn’t let myself get caught up in a lot of bullshit ego reasons for not doing it, or not posting it. The design is strictly decorative, and has no meaning at all; what does have meaning is that I chose to get past my own self-conscious perfectionism and just make something strictly for the hell of it, even if it isn’t all that good. I put away the yardstick in my head for a while, and said “Yes” to what I felt like doing, rather than my inner critic’s dictatorial fantasies of what I should be doing.

I can always make something more interesting and more impressive later, and I will. I don’t have to perform at a high level all the time. I can experiment, I can goof off, I can make something insipid or boring or forgettable. Maybe I’ll learn something by doing it, but I don’t even have to do that.

So I think what this is about is saying “Yes” to imperfection, to dead ends, to half-baked experiments,  because maybe–just maybe–the more often I say “Yes” to those, and the easier it becomes, better-prepared I will be to say “Yes” to some truly inspired ideas.

Yes #3

The Yes Project is off to a bit of a bumpy start. It’s not the image-making part of it that’s the problem (that’s actually going very well); it’s the digitizing-the-images part of it that’s the monkeywrench in the works.

Despite all my efforts today, my scanner still refuses to work properly. Given that it’s ten years old, I think it’’s time to replace it. So until I do that, I’m stuck using my little point-and-shoot camera, and using all the tricks at my command to get in-focus shots under less than ideal lighting conditions.

Yesterday’s image definitely took a turn for the strange. I had several options in mind, but this one was the most insistent. It also wanted to be larger than the previous images, so it’s acrylic on an 8×10″ canvas board:

Definitely not one for the arachnophobic.

I didn’t know what it meant until I started working on it. The tarantula came first; the image I had in my mind was either a pink-and-black one with markings that spelled “Yes,” or a black one standing on top of some small object–a card, a key, a coin–that said “Yes” on it.

The tarantula was a lot of fun to paint, but this image took me four hours; I started it at a little after 10:00 PM last night, and finished it at around 2:00 AM. (So much for one-hour time limits. It was a stupid rule, anyway.) A lot of time was spent mucking about with perspective on the key he was originally menacing before I abandoned it in favor of the medallion. I went into it not knowing what the background would look like–blank white nothingness? a lacy tablecloth?–and the rocks and weeds developed spontaneously.

So here’s the story that emerged as I worked:

You’re walking along your path, making your way through life, and something brilliant catches your eye. Maybe you weren’t looking for a golden opportunity, and maybe you didn’t expect to find it at this point along your path, but there it is. Perfect and gleaming and just lying there, waiting for you to pick it up–to say “Yes” to it.

But as you’re about to do so, fear stops you. Whatever it is that frightens you suddenly comes out of hiding, and the next thing you know it’s standing between you and your golden opportunity. It comes between you and “Yes.” You’re so filled with dread, you recoil from it, and maybe your first impulse is to flee.

So what do you do?

Do you meet your fear with aggression–kicking it out of the way, squashing it (never mind that what you’ve destroyed is really only a symbol, not your fear itself) ? Do you run away, screaming, completely unwilling to even consider facing it? Do you grab a long stick and cautiously prod at it, in the hope that it leaves?

Do you slowly back away, telling yourself there will be other opportunities, or that you can come back later for this one, after your fear has passed?

Or do you convince yourself that it couldn’t possibly be real gold anyway, not if you found it lying around like that?

Or maybe you have lots of experience with large, hairy spiders, and can recognize that this one only looks scary, and is in fact timid and harmless, and will scurry out of your way as soon as you reach down to claim your find.

Or maybe you don’t know the first thing about spiders, but you’re willing to sit and observe this one until it leaves on its own. After all, you know you’re much bigger than it; what harm could it possibly do?

It’s already 11:45 PM and I haven’t yet started today’s image. Fortunately, I have something much simpler in mind. Let’s see if I can get it painted, photographed, and uploaded before 1:00 AM–between scanner-shopping and finally getting my new ukulele, tomorrow’s going to be a busy day, after all.

Yes #2

After yesterday’s unimpressive start, I did much better tonight:

(Sorry for the image quality; we had a blackout last night, and when I started up the studio computer tonight so I could scan this, it had forgotten the scanner even existed. This is the second time it has simply tossed out the driver for the scanner for no apparent reason. Tomorrow, I’ll reinstall it and get a better image; this was the best my little point-and-shoot camera could do.)

I suspect the tropical foliage is due to the fact that I’m awaiting a package from Hawai’i. At any rate, I had a lot of fun painting this one, and when my alarm told me the hour was up I ignored it and kept painting. Like yesterday’s, it’s postcard-sized, and I was about halfway through when I started to wish I’d done it a bit larger. Oh, well–maybe later. It’s not like this is the only version I’ll ever be able to paint.

For the most part, I focused on having fun with the painting. Unlike yesterday, I didn’t get caught up in a lot of drama over it. But as I worked I did think about the plants as a symbol of growth and vigor, and how it is the nature of plants to say “Yes”–yes to the soil, yes to the water, yes to the sun. Receptivity is their state of being. They don’t ask, “Is that tap water, or bottled? Are my branches on straight?” And you’ll never hear a plant say, “Oh, no, I shouldn’t; my stems are too thick as it is,” or “I don’t want to get too big; what will the other plants say?”

And no, humans are not plants, but maybe it would be a good idea to stop and see the world from a plant’s perspective now and again.  Consider the lilies. [shrugs] Yeah.

Yes #1

While working on my very first image, I came face-to-face with “No” in one of its most pernicious forms: perfectionism. If I can’t do it perfectly, or up to some standard, I too often abandon a project or don’t start it at all.

I had the idea that my very first “Yes” image would be skillfully rendered, and imagined myself posting it proudly–I wanted to kick off the project in a big way.

But my very first Yes? Is a mess. I mean, come on–pink and purple? What kind of crack was I smoking? Or, alternately, what Barbie-obsessed nine-year-old did I channel to get this?

I came very close to ditching it about halfway through, and starting over. When I finished it (or at least when the hour had run out), I seriously considered starting afresh, creating another image.

And then I came to my senses. I realized I was fussing over a handpainted postcard. I was getting all bent out of shape over this? My ego went into full-on threat-mode over some paint on a little piece of paper?

The amount of crappy, fearful self-talk that came up surprised even me. It was as if the worst thing I could do was post this, because it wasn’t good enough. No, no, no, no, no.

But to give in to the chorus of “No” would have violated the very principle of the Yes Project, which is all about freeing myself from fear-based decision-making.

So I said “Yes,” instead.

And now that I’ve said all this, and am posting the image for all the Internet to see, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.  That my very first image is kinda sucky and lame, and that I got so uptight over it,  is actually funny.

So there you go. Yes.

The Yes Project: A Not-So-Brief Explanation

So. The Yes Project.

What the hell is it?

Back on October 7th, I came to an abrupt decision–in 2009 I was going to completely change my life.

It wasn’t that things were bad–far from it. I love my house, my neighborhood, my life. Yet I had the overwhelming desire to clear everything off the drawing board in one great sweep and start over again. It was coming time, I decided, to move back to San Francisco (having been gone for 14 years), and embark on a new creative career.

So I started to make some changes, clearing out clutter and tying up various loose financial ends. I don’t yet know when or how the move is going to happen, only that it will, and when the time comes I’m not hauling a lot of old, unwanted stuff, or carrying forward any old, unfinished business with me. I want a clean start, even if it means the only things I take with me are the cats and the computer and a change of underwear.

While decluttering, a lot of old anxieties kept coming up. I’ve always had a hard time letting go of stuff; I had a bad habit of hanging on to things that might be useful someday. To get rid of things would mean that they wouldn’t be there when I needed them–and I was sure I would one day need them.

It was a poverty mindset. Never mind that I was no longer in poverty, and hadn’t been for years; my brain hadn’t yet caught up with my bank balance. And the more stuff I forced myself to get rid of, the more “poor-thinking” arose in protest. Despite the fact that I’ve always managed to get what I need, I still carried around the fear that one day my luck would run out, and I’d be left wanting.

That same poor-thinking also made me a tightwad. Man, I was cheap. And I was so stingy that I frequently talked myself out of things I really wanted because they were “too expensive.” Travel, hobbies, new creative interests, better clothes, going out to listen to music–I spent money on books and art supplies, but that was about it.

I was very good at telling myself “No,” in other words. Worse, I often managed to convince myself that not only was something too expensive, but I didn’t really want it in the first place.

Which was bullshit, of course.

Hello world!

When hit with a freshly-mutated strain of thought-virus, what does one do these days?

Start another blog, of course.

The Yes Project has been incubating in my head for a couple of days, without my realizing it. Then symptoms developed yesterday evening, and a couple of hours ago it hit full virulence.

“I could ride this one out,” I thought. “Just ignore it, and it will go away on its own.”

But then I started to consider what could happen if I not only embraced the infection, but served as a vector, too.

I’ll be back later today with an explanation and the first installment.