There’s a Mary Chapin Carpenter song with a line that resonated with me these last two weeks: “Some times you’re the windshield, some times you’re the bug.”  What this means is that sometimes you're on top of things; you're cookin' with gas; you're hot; you're rockin' it; you're gettin' it done.  You're the windshield.  

Sometimes, however, life does it's very best to knock you off of your stride, off your block, off your game.  On those occasions, you're the bug.

During these last two weeks, I was the bug.  First, my home studio developed a mold problem.  My basement studio is half underground and it has been a wet year.  Somehow, mold developed inside the drywall on two sides, two LONG sides - 23’ and 12’.   So we immediately ripped off the baseboard and the drywall up to about 3’ off the ground.  When we have a moment (or when my handyman has a moment) we’ll rip the rest off and call it good.

Meanwhile, as I’ve a show pending, I had to rent an alternate place to work.  Between the dust and the mold, working with resin in my home studio was no longer a viable option.  Renting an alternative place to work ASAP was critical for I've got a couple of more pieces to do for my September 11th show at Walker Fine Art.  Finding an inexpensive alternative space took me quite a while as we all know that real estate in Denver is super hot right now.  But I finally found a small 8’ x 12’ studio for a very reasonable price.   

What made me think about the “some days you’re the windshield, some days you’re the bug” line was the fact that the day after I discovered the mold and spent a long day and early evening ripping off wet drywall and carrying it out to the dumpster, my neighbor (who owns the other half of my house – my house is technically a townhouse), knocked on my door.  He is selling his half of the house so he had the sewer inspected via video camera. 

You can see this coming, right? 

We’ve a break in the sewer.   Fortunately , the break is just after his sewer and mine join up.  That means that we each will pay ½ of the cost, the very substantial cost, to repair the break.

When I added the sewer repair to the mold in my studio, it was clear that I was the bug, not the windshield.    

The good news is that these are what we laughingly refer to as “First World” problems.  Only in the First World are we fortunately enough to have homes and sewers as well as the money to pay for repairs to them.  Many in the world, indeed even in our own country, are not so fortunate as to have First World problems.

I’ve learned how to be grateful even when I’m the bug.

As a consequence of having lived in a world filled with deadlines (and because it is my personality to be this way), I lean toward focus, drive, production and ambition.  Everything I read about being a professional artist says that I must make the production of art a top priority.   In short, I am under pressure for I am a serious artist.  I have to blog because that’s how one finds followers on social media, followers who buy your art.  I want to create an artist talk that would be interesting to non-artists so I can shop the talk around to Rotary and others, thereby exposing my art to new audiences.

I want to be a supportive friend so I attempt to show up at art openings and post on social media about my friend’s openings.  I attend artist talks both to support the artists who are speaking and to learn what artists say that resonates with the public. 

Recently, however, I had to laugh at my self-imposed pressure cooker.  I found my self stressed out, all stressed out, about Art (with a capital A).  I wasn’t meeting my own, self-imposed deadlines.  I wasn’t creating enough.  I wasn’t doing enough on social media. I was wasting time on the wrong social media.  I was too tired at night to attend every event that remotely had a business purpose.  In short, the pressure was overwhelming me.

This was and is ridiculous.  The pressure was all self imposed.  The pressure to “win” (i.e., make a reasonable living from art) is entirely self-imposed.  So what was I doing to myself?  No one else had these same expectations or demands of me, not even my business-minded husband.  This was me, all me.  This was my nonsense, my “stuff”. 

Fortunately, I picked up Arianna Huffington’s latest book, “Thrive”.  “Thrive” is all about how we work too hard, don’t take time for ourselves and can’t seem to shut off our phones.  I saw myself in “Thrive”.  It wasn’t a pretty picture. 

Arianna has some very reasonable suggestions, some of which I’ve read before.  Shut off the computer.  Meditate.  Don’t get on email or social media until noon.  Exercise.  Connect with nature and family.  Put your health (and sanity!) first.  All of these are simple solutions.  All of these solutions apply to artists. 

I’m going to take Arianna Huffington's "Thrive" advice and relax.  Creating art is supposed to be fun, right? Why on earth am I doing this slightly crazy career if I'm not going to take the time to enjoy it? 

And I’m going to forgive myself when at the end of the week I didn’t quite get it all done. 

I’m going to relax and enjoy the journey because the journey is all there is.

I read this excellent blog by the aptly named Yvonne Branchflower on the topic of what to tell your collectors who are downsizing.

 http://branchflower.net/blog/90267/the-aging-artist-when-your-collectors-want-advice-on-downsizing

Sadly for collectors, there is no secondary market for artists who are (a) still alive and (b) not famous (yet!).  Here's the list of possible options:

• Donating the artwork to a qualifying charity* may be the easiest route.  
• Giving art to family and friends.
• If you have quite a lot of art and collectibles that need to go, contact an estate liquidation expert. They might be willing to handle it.
• If you work through a resale gallery, expect to pay about 50% in commission.  

To this list I would add the following comments.  

     1.  Be sure to get the artwork appraised if you plan to deduct more than $100 or so.  There are limits on non-appraised charitable deductions.  

     2.  I like the giving away option but do be sure your family and friends actually want the piece.  I'm alway hesitant to give my art away because I'm afraid that my family will have to haul it out of a closet every time I come back to Iowa.  Unless they specifically admire a piece, I don't give art to them.

     3.  I really have no idea where one would find a resale gallery.  There are none in Denver that I'm aware of.

     4.  I like the craigslist option.  Yes, it's a heartbreak to sell a piece of art for what it cost you to have it framed but at some level it's nice to get it out of your house and get it into the hands of someone who wants it.  Such is life.

     I did love Yvonne's comments at the end of her blog about how you, collector, received years of enjoyment from the piece.  I would add that Collectors, you should treasure the years that you owned the artwork, the beauty that you were fortunate enough to live with and the memory of how the piece made you happy every time you looked at it.  That is the true value of art; it enhanced your life.