Flying Anyway...

Okay, I’m doing it. I’ve sent in my 50% deposit. I’m looking at flights. I’m telling myself and telling myself again that it’s okay to do this thing just for me, so here I go. February 18-22, 2010, I will be participating in An Artful Journey, taking DJ Pettitt’s class. I am incredibly excited and incredibly terrified at the same time. I’ve wanted to do something like this ever since I started playing around with mixed media. I’m very much a kinesthetic learner; I have to learn by doing. And what better way to learn by doing than to actually be there learning and doing with an incredibly talented artist and instructor? This will push me past just marking all the wonderful projects in Somerset Studio and Cloth Paper Scissors with my “I must try this soon” sticky notes. This will make me sit down with a group of other artists (I still hesitate at calling myself that) and do. This will force me to face my fears and my doubts and really put myself out there for all to see (well, at least all in the class anyway…) I talked with DJ via email earlier today and she’s incredibly gracious and incredibly encouraging and incredibly unaware of my sheer terror. :-) Have I said incredibly enough yet? This photo is a sample of DJ’s beautiful work.
I actually registered for this class about two weeks ago, but I had been hesitating sending in my confirmation deposit because I was having a hard time justifying spending the money on something this self-indulgent that would take me away from my family for five days. This is definitely a “want to” do, not a “have to” do. Times are tough all around right now economically. I have friends who’ve lost their jobs, I have a husband who’s had to lay off employees and is concerned about the amount of work he has, and I have children who need school clothes and supplies. And then there’s me: full-time-working, bust-my-buttin', family-care-taking wife and mom who yearns to ditch her day job and play with paint, paper and beads all day long. What pushed me to finally send in my deposit was a discussion (read the comments) we had over on Creative Construction on “flying anyway”, prompted my Miranda’s "fly" photo and comments. Thanks for that push, Brittany. “Work every day but fly when you can.” I’m working my butt off so I can fly to California in February. Maybe I’ll even work enough to bring the family along so they can walk through a giant redwood while I sift through a pile of beautiful papers. Either way, California, here I come!