Part 4: Here’s where the fun begins!

“With each new project, we are challenging ourselves to most beautifully reflect what’s living in us at that particular window of time. In this spirit of self-competiton, task yourself to go further and push into the unexpected. Don’t stop even at greatness. Venture beyond.”

-Rick Rubin

This is the fourth post in a series about how The Willa Workshops on willawanders.com came to be. It’s kind of a long story, and I don’t know how many people will find it interesting, but the response to my first post in this series has been very warm, so I’m just going to continue to go with that.

Part 4

At this point in the story, a whole bunch of stuff just happens:

My middle child, Maya, starts a business while she’s in middle school, and then quickly starts a second business. Her second business takes off and she becomes a teen age slime celebrity and we start manufacturing and selling slime out of our basement. At her peak, she had over 800,000 followers on Instagram (yes, this is an important part of my story) and we were travelling around doing slime conventions with her.

My father passes away at age 91 and I quickly move my mother in with us. She is sick and needs a lot of medical attention. The first year that she lives with us is rough. She is understandably in mourning, and my kids are utterly freaked out that an almost stranger is now living amongst us. It all worked out in the end . . .

I quit dieting shortly after my dad dies. It’s almost like he sent me a gift from the other side. My great healing begins and I start to re-evaluate my entire life and what led me up to the point where being thin became my most important life goal.

I quit blogging.

Something, I do not know what, reminds me of the things I used to love to do, before kids and a business and a dieting obsession took over my brain. I dig out my watercolor paints and calligraphy supplies and start to fool around, very casually.

Maya, the 13 year old slime celebrity, convinces me that with my revived interest in watercolor painting and hand lettering that I should start an Instagram account for my art. I blow her off thinking that it sounds silly, but she’s persistent and convincing and well, she has a track record of success so I do it for the goof.

I quickly discover that Instagram is the mother load of arts and crafts inspiration and where have I been all these years???

I see that there are many, many sources of online art education that are now in existence that I somehow was oblivious too as I was running my printing company. I sign up for lots of classes. Lots and lots and lots of classes. I’m like a totally dehydrated person who finally finds a source of water and I’m drowning now in the best possible way in art education and FUN.

But I’m also feeling wildly confused. What does all of this mean? Am I now supposed to pursue the dream of becoming an artist with a capital “A?” If I’m creating all of this art, what the hell am I supposed to do with it all? Where would I even store all of these finished works on canvas or wood if I just created as much as my soul desired.

I’m very conflicted. I reach out to Laura Horn and ask her if she would be interested in having me come on her podcast. I’m a huge fan of hers and I listen to her podcast religiously at the time. I’m hoping that she can help me figure this out because she seems like she has a clue.

I’m joining too many art memberships all at once. Skillshare, Creative Bug, Wanderlust, Color Crush Creative, Get Messy. My OCD has totally taken over but I’m becoming overwhelmed and wondering what any of this means when the idea of trying to sell the art that I am creating sends a shiver down my spine.

I do a couple of 100 Day projects consecutively and then create something called “Series of Nine” on Instagram as a way to cope with coming off of The 100 Day Project and feeling aimless with your art. It is pretty popular and I’m continuing to make online friendships with lots of other artists.

A miracle occurs. I sign up for a free class by Louise Fletcher called Find Your Joy. Louise actually helps me find my joy! Her program works. I discover that what I really want to do is just make art while listening to podcast episodes. I don’t want any of the pressure that comes along with making art “for a living.” I just want to play, explore and have fun. This is what feels natural and right. This is what feels good to me after a lifetime of stress and pressure.

I also take a course called The Layered Page from Kellee Wynn Conrad. It’s a combination mixed media collage art plus handmade book course. It brings me back to a time in my life 25 years prior when I was making handmade books with The Society for Calligraphy in Southern California. A time when I knew what mixed media art was because I saw it in magazines but it all felt so out of reach.

All of that passion and love comes flooding back into my bloodstream and I start signing up for all of the online handmade book courses I can find.

One particular handmade journal course lights such an incredible fire inside of me that I feel as if I want to make 1,000 of the books I just learned how to make. I loved that process. I get inspired to open an Etsy shop so that I can sell the 1,000 books that I plan to create. I sell a handful of handmade journals in a matter of minutes. Everything starts to feel like it all makes sense. Like the starts are finally aligning for me again.

And then I manage to piss off the very artist that inspired me the most, the one that I had the single biggest art crush on.

To be continued . . .

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Wow. I didn’t realize this story was going to go on and on! And I’m not even finished yet. Share any thoughts you have in the comments below.