Process and progress

Thank you everyone for the encouraging comments on the last entry, it really does help to have you rallying around like cute little carrots on sticks, urging me onward.

Tribe of One

This week has been a strain- sitting at the tail end of an old life and making ready to get into a new one feels exactly like what it is- no man's land. This old life is done, but the new one hasn't yet started. I still have the house to pack and some of my mother's things to donate to the local thrift. I've been cleaning out my own stuff as well- this next chapter in my world is about re-filling the spirit and if it's going to work, I have to go into it with as little complications as possible.

With that in mind, I've opened my photography shop again -albeit briefly- so I can get rid of some old work. There's a 25% off sale happening there too (coupon is FREEBIRD), and all the work in there is not likely to be re-printed any time soon, so don't wait around! I'm also having a secret blog sale in my jewelry shop- just enter the coupon SECRETSALE and get 25% off! Go do it now before I have some kind of artist's crisis and close my shops until after I've moved house. Don't think I won't do that. I'm unstable- anything could happen!

source

Here's a random shot I found on the internet that shows you what my new surrounds will look like. It's a little mountain suburb of Melbourne called Hurstbridge. Not long ago voted one of the best places in the city to live, Hurstbridge has a two-fold meaning for me; my father's grandparents lived there and recently my two best friends bought a house there. I'll tell you more about it in a later post where I can show you pretty pictures of the town, including the house my great grandparents lived in.

Uphill

Chickarnee

Here's some earrings. They have stuff. And you know...feathers. Yeah. You may have noticed it's been a while since I blogged. I'm doing fine, physically. Still a little way to go, but getting there. Mentally? Emotionally? Drained. Exhausted. At the end of my tether. Hence the lack of blogging- every time I try it ends up being a big ol' therapy post, which I don't want. (This one is disguised as a shop update.) Turns out being in a near fatal car accident, losing your mother and having to have your 15 year old cat put down all in under 6 months can really take it out of a girl! But I don't want to end up being one of those blogs that's all introspective and listless. Don't mind me, I have a pathalogical Britishness that forbids me to focus on my own problems and see them as legitimate.

Gondwana

Here's some more earrings- someone bought these before the accident- I only just remembered they never paid up, so I relisted them. I like 'em. But looking at them now, I honestly am surprised at how creative they are. I don't currently feel I have that much creativity in me. everything i make lately gets taken apart again, it doesn't work. I've forgotten how to make jewelry.

Woden's prayer

Hey look- earrings! So weird that fanci and I both started getting into gold embellishment at the same time without telling each other, only I haven't listed any of mine till now. All the jewelry in this post has only just been listed, but it's all old- most of it was made before the 'big bang'.

Milk thistle

On top of dealing with everything mentioned above, I have to move house in a month - the lease ends here and I can't afford to live here on my own (and don't want to) so any energy I have for life gets pumped into that. Where I'm moving to is so compellingly restful and lovely (more about that in another post) but cleaning out the house, having to sort out my mother's things and paring down my own possessions leaves little time or energy to make things, let alone something rewarding. I have been thinking about art though- a lot. Constantly. I'm having both new and reunited-with ideas, plans for large, messy things that you do not wear. Jewelry has been a love/hate battle for me for a long time now, I finally feel I'm ready to try something else. Not give up jewelry exactly (I've tried that before, never works!) but to put it aside and do... something that requires a drop cloth.

The Empress

So there you have it. A miserable post (albiet with pretty pictures) that had to happen so I could break the ice with my blogging burn out. But as the sun leaves the sky each day and the dementors are free to roam, I do not dwell on the past. I find my thoughts turning always to the future. Never anxious, never grieving. My future is so bright, wearing shades would be ludicrously ineffective. We might need radiation sheilds here, kids.