I admit it. I feel lost again.

Totally.

And I wonder why it is that I have to do this: toss everything inside of me up into the air so often I never feel really settled. For a while I felt I was getting there. Slowly, but still getting there. Slowly polishing an illustration, and then another. Slowly brainstorming about ideas and slowly sorting through them to try and feel where I should lay my focus and when. Slowly reading books about creative business to see if I could learn of a way to do this.

Because I don't know.

I really don't know how all those other mothers do it. I don't. I read descriptions of work during naps, during nights and with baby by the feet. And I try. But I can't make it work. Naptime works ok sometimes. If we are not out walking. Which is usually when baby falls asleep. So I try to keep all my art and business things in a bag. Packing and unpacking and sometimes actually managing to bring what I need/want. Nights? What a joke! It is 9.30 now. Both children have been asleep for half an hour and I am nackard. My body almost pulling itself to bed as I write this. Baby by the feet? Yes. Every now and then that also works.

Maybe it is I who hasn't understood that, yes, it did take all those mamas months and months and months before something was finished. Maybe I have missed crucial information like: Oh, yes my youngest is five years now, during the baby and toddler years I just slept when I could.

Or maybe it is me.
I think it is me.
I seem to be more unfocused then others I know. And I am sure my insecurities are hempering me. The fact that when I see all the beautiful things that are done by other artists here on the internet I just want to sit down and cry. Because I feel so sure that I am just kidding myself. Who would ever want to take part in what I do? How can I even think for a moment that someone is actually going to by something I drew? Ha! And where are all those wonderful projects and artpieces I keep telling myself I am going to make? I never finish anything, do I?

And so on and on.
Until I feel so heavy I can barely move my feet. Except I have to.

I know what I need to do. I know I can't worry too much about what other people think. About what I think other people think. I know I cannot wait for somebody else's approval or pat on the back. I have to support myself. Cheer myself along. Inside me sits the child, still waiting for someone to say: of course you can do it! Your art is wonderful! And so are you! I know that I am the one that child is waiting for. I just don't know how to go about it yet.

Sometimes I think I am so used to my insecurities that I'll never really do what it takes to get rid off them. Like those old ugly jumpers you don't want to wear outside the house anymore, you don't really want to wear them at all, but you don't throw them away, you toss them back into the closet because you never know what could happen, or something like that. I do throw away old clothes more than other people though. Maybe it's my subconscious trying to be funny :).

Anyways, days like this I feel so blessed to have this outside my door. I love it. I do. It is so beautiful it makes my heart cry and sing at the same time.

Trees have a spirit. I am sure of it.

Love!
Robin

The sentence I picked and how I continued it.

Today I went to the library. We had an appointment at the doctors, but had to wait for over an hour (hooray for my doctor who gives you a time estimate when you get in line!). So I took baby L across the street to have a cup of coffee at the library café and she fell asleep on the way.

In the café there was a sale of books that had been sorted out from the library and I found a book by one of my favorite authors. Naturally I bought it. I closed my eyes, flipped the pages and put my finger down on a sentence (the book is in swedish, and I wrote it in swedish, here is my attempt to translate it):

But Jenny came and sang...


She sang so the evening sky paled. The blackbird who always filled our early evenings with his homey chirrups and twirrels sat down by the rail of the verandah to listen. His black suit floated out into the dark shadows around him, but the lights from inside made his eye twinkle. His shiny eye and my dry eyes met and fell into eachother until I no longer knew who was the observer and who was the observed. The I in the tale. All that happened that evening - was it my or the blackbird's story?

The others were watching Jenny of course. Actually she was rather inconsiderable. The hair of no particular colour and her skin was sensitive and therefore filled with blushes and dry spots. The eyes were filled with some sort of light, I guess, but they weren't more beautiful than average. Besides, her lips were thin and pale. But when those lips parted, and she sang - then everybody forgot how inconsiderable she was. Like tiny lit candles they all sat turned towards her, shining. Their faces full of glow and wonder. Some were smiling. Some closed their eyes. Some cried. Only my heart closed. Filled with blackbird feathers.

Maybe it was my hatred that made her fall on the stairs. Maybe my slippery kindness found it's way under her petite shoes and made her lose foothold. I don't know. Strangely enough neither of the shoes fell of. She lay there with her skirts spred out like a fan, a growing shadow around her hair. The beautiful tiny slippers still both on their foot.


Also, I played around with my image from week two a bit. Not great, but here it is :).

Robin's Playground. Week three.

I almost didn't make it this week. I kind of didn't. I only have a sketch, almost, to show. I will have to post the finished picture later.

I imagined the lamps with dreams and thoughts pooring out of them and onto the tired woman at the bottom. Will post it when I'm finished... My children were both sick and I have had almost no sleep so I decided to go easy on myself and not stress the project. It's called Playground for a reason :).

Ok. The second week we were inspired by an image or a small piece of an image. This week, we shall do something similar, but with words. Pick a book - from your bookshelf or a friends, or at a library or wherever - randomly open it and write down the first sentence your eyes fall upon. When you have a small chunk of time, like maybe 15 minutes (or more of course), look at it again and write what ever poors into your mind. Continue the sentence like a story, or a poem, or a manifesto :). If you feel called to draw something as a continuation to the sentence - do so! That would be wonderful as well.

I am sorry if this post is a bit on the short side. I really, reeaaalllly need to go to sleep :).

I leave you with the best hairdo ever (just woke up):

Love!

walking barefoot.

A time of transition.
The dead has yet to disappear into the earth. The living has just made it's way through it.
I will do my best to walk tall through it and explore the gifts it carries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzCLnaIOHOA&feature=youtu.be

Love!

seven years.

Notebooks filled to the brim. Kept in boxes for a while. By my bed for a while. In the basement and most recently in a bookshelf. Seven years of something I felt I absolutely had to hold on to. Something probalby invaluable.

 

Today I looked to see what there was that was so necessary to keep. Page up and down with draining negative thoughts. List after list of how I ought to improve myself and my life. Boring notes from boring classes at the university. I mean, really. Robin, really.  

And so I lit a candle, paused to gather and center myself. And then I started ripping. I did find a few things I want to keep. Scraps of words. Hastily jotted down ideas of images or songs. Those, I shall keep. The rest - into the fire.

It is so easy to be held back by the past. I sure have been for so long. I know there is a lot I need to let go of in order to be free. And I have refused to do anything about it. Partly because one of the things (paradoxically) I need to let go of is the idea of myself as living my life as an artist. In the sence you can do when you are twenty something. Letting art always come first. Have all the time in the world to explore and evolve. Work late hours at the theatre. Live on lettuce for a month. It is not going to happen. I didn't become the at least rather good actress I know I could have been. I didn't become the singer and songwriter I know lives in my heart somewhere. I didn't go to London to live a wilder life for a couple of years. I didn't travel the world to collect stories. And I am probably not going to do those things either. I need to let go of those dreams, grieve them. They only prevent me from being the person and artist I am now. It is scary to let go of something that you have treasured for so long. And trust that what rises from the ashes can also be great. And more true to what I am today.

What do you have to let go of in order to be true to who you are today?

Love!

Robin's Playground. Week two.

This week has passed so fast I can hardly believe it is time for me to hand out (and do). I wanted to get the video working for this week, but I am just going to have to accept that I don't have the time for anything else than the absolutely necessary right now. And that does not entail swearing over machines I don't know how to work :). Hopefully I'll figure it out further ahead along the way.

Anyways.... I hope you had fun creating your hands. I saw a lovely example of what one of you have been doing on my facebook page, and it filled my heart with joy. I got plenty of more ideas of what I want to do with the theme, but now it is surely time that I present the next theme:

Elaborate! Maybe that is a good name for it. I'm not sure. What you do is this: cut out a picture or a small piece of a picture. Glue onto a piece of paper (or onto something else if you would rather make the image on something other than paper). Elaborate = use the picture as a part of your own picture. Be inspired by it. What could it be? What happens around it? I don't really know of a way to do this with words, but if you do - feel free to do it =).

I am now going to post a crappy example of what I am talking about. I think these "instruction examples" are all going to be like that. Made in the last minute. Taking no more than a minute. Good for my impro skills! Here it is:

Ok I got carried away. Maybe a little bit more than a minute. More like ten. Just like last week I will post what I do as soon as it is finished. Feel free to post on the facebookpage or on flickr! Thank you so much for being here.

Love!

mornings.

I think we've got a nice little morning routine going. If I can just keep the stress at bay that is. We get up, not too early, not too late. I make myself some coffee and then we play, put the clothes on and have breakfast. Not  in order, not very orderly. Quite messy and often with some sort of powerstruggle, but still nice and easy. Cosy. Every now and then I have a meltdown while trying to put outdoor clothes on two struggling ones. But I'm working on that part.

As soon as we get outside it's all sunshine. No matter what the weather. I so much love the outdoors. And I am so happy to see that so do my children. And now that spring truly is here it's all the more lovely. Even though we live in a city, I do feel that I can get in touch with nature. After I have left S at daycare, I venture in the parks with L. (Even small parks can be adventures for small children. So much to touch and look at and smell and eat! :)).

Love!