Mama's Adventures

Hmmm. . . Just found this post in the Drafts.

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Well, I already have so many requests for what to post on - but I have to begin somewhere.

I will post someday about the process of unschooling I've been going through since college.

But for now I'm going to describe what's been going on around the house lately - as far as me.

Last fall we moved into an artists' co-op. Partly, I must admit, we did this because the apartments are huge and gorgeous and you can ride bikes in them and hang swings and ladders from the ceiling. But mostly we did it because I felt like I needed to pull myself together as an artist, and the time was *ripe* - now or never, it seemed. And it has turned out to be an excellent decision - one we almost didn't make on account of our children "needing" a yard and a neighborhood, but now I can definitely see how this place, and the people in it, and the experiences they are having living downtown, are just as beneficial. Not to mention that I am *not* going insane, which I definitely would have otherwise.

Anyway, next month is the Spring St. Paul Art Crawl. We moved in just before the fall one, so I did not participate, though I easily could have, I now see! I decided to set some goals for myself for participating in the art crawl as a cartoonist and zinester. I have not participated in any art shows or sales (save one extremely depressing zine show) since before Ezra was born, and my medium was always clay - and now it's paper.

So, I've been sort of frantically trying to figure out what to make, how I'm going to get it done, and how I can possibly pull it off with a 7-year-old Mac, a semi-broken printer that was not meant for artwork reproduction, and a broken scanner (now replaced, thank God!)

The process of zine-making (especially my zine) is extremely time-consuming and crazymaking. And I'm trying out a lot of new "products" as well - t-shirts, matchbook notebooks, greeting cards, little cartoon books, blank books, and whatever else I can crank out before April 24. Fortunately I'm sharing my display space (a.k.a. our home) with my friend Brie from Viroqua - she is going to make "eco-friendly wearables" which will help fill the vast amount of space we have in here.

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I feel so wistful. I am going crazy now. What happened? Well, the art crawl was not all that I had dreamed. Somehow the disappointment over not being able to get done what I wanted to get done (only ended up getting done an "almost-double issue" of my zine, and a little book about cats that was ill-received by everyone but ONE enlightened shopper. *Sigh*.

But we have just found out we are moving to Wisconsin. . . so, time to regroup and reassess! I am excited to decide what the next segment of my life will be about. The singleness of purpose (relatively speaking) since moving into this downtown co-op has been extremely invigorating. I can't wait to see what I'll move on to next!