I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Sunday Planning, I plan for the week ahead.
Having completed my week of sedentariness post eye surgery, I’m ready to rejoin active life. I’m still supposed to be taking it a little easy but my eye is fortunately healing well.
I discovered that Keystone is having an art festival at River Run. I decided to take a chance and apply, since my Snow Bound project photos were taken there. I ordered a 10′ x 10′ tent with sides. I’m going to set it up in my backyard with paintings and photo prints so I can take a booth shot, a photo of my booth set up with example paintings and photo prints. I’m a little late in applying, though the deadline hasn’t been reached yet, so even if I get rejected it’s not necessarily a judgment on me and my art, if they fill up the painting category beforehand.
I’m not really sure how to best display my painting-photo pairings. I will probably get medium-sized prints (e.g., 11″ x 14″) of the photos then mat and frame them, but make the paintings the feature.
The application instructions say “one medium only” but I suppose my medium is mixed — paintings and photos together. So I’ll just go for it and see what happens.
If I do get accepted then I’ll have to quickly make plans to exhibit and sell at the festival. I don’t need to think much of that yet. Just get the application in.
I put the likelihood of being accepted at around 20-25% given I’ve never participated in a festival before and my art is unusual in that it pairs paintings with photos. Better to be ready for rejection, just like in options trading need to be ready for losses.
I ask myself, “do you really want to show in festivals, Anne?” I’m not sure. I’m just doing the next right thing — taking one goblet of water at a time.
It feels scary to apply, and I imagine if I get rejected I will feel some relief. Then I’ll have to decide about applying to other festivals.
musical plans
Yesterday I cleared out the basement bonus room where I was storing my photography equipment (strip lights and stands, tripod with three-way tripod head), a bunch of paintings, and my old guitar with music. My daughter is living in the basement now and she wanted to free it up as an additional space for her and her cats.
After decluttering the room, I sat down with my guitar and started playing — that was fun! My mother recently handed down an electronic keyboard to me. I pulled out my old piano music and played that too.
I miss making music.
I felt so inspired by it that I’m thinking of taking up guitar lessons again at Swallow Hill, a concert and music education place in Denver. The current session just started. Might wait for the fall one to start as my vision should be in a better place in September. Need to be able to see the music to play!
writing this week
I have been working on a newsletter article about living life as though you were the main character in a tragi-comedy. I like the ideas but the article feels ponderous and overly long. I might split it into multiple pieces. The idea I’m sharing is pretty simple; it’s the example I’m using that’s taking up so much space. I could move that into a blog post I guess. Substack encourages too lengthy of writing, I think. I want to make my articles punchy and easy to consume.
The good thing is the ideas I’m ready to communicate seemingly have plenty of substance to them. Some ideas that people write whole books about (I’m looking at you Mel Robbins) could be a blog post.
I have not been publishing any newsletter articles lately but I have been exploring many ideas and frameworks here, giving me plenty of material to share more widely.
And other activities
Of course there’s the usual life management tasks on the schedule: options trading, keeping up with home and garden tasks, and also getting an oil change and tire rotation.
I feel nervous anticipation about applying to the festival. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing or whether it is yet another byway, yet another dead end.
I’m going to quote from Brianna Wiest’s daybook The Pivot Year again:
If you do not know what to do next, it usually isn’t because your next step is far out in the distance, but rather right in front of your feet. You are being asked to stop gazing outward and stop looking inward. You are being called to rebuild yourself at this exact moment. If you do not know what to do next, it is not because you need to seek more answers, but rather, accept the ones you’ve already been given.
The next step is just to get an application into that festival, or at the very least get the booth shot for it (by the time I have it done, the painting category might be full? But I can still apply for the waitlist).