Lisa Call

South African Impressions

A month back I dyed the fabric for my South African Impressions project. I got waylaid with life but now it’s time to get this project going and wrapped up.

These aren’t all the colors I will be using, I need to add in some purples for the Drakensburg mountains and some blue for the sky, and all sorts of other fun colors for the houses, but this is the basic palette I will be using.

I really appreciate all the folks that have pre-purchased this art and your art will be created soon. I organized all my paperwork last night so I know what I need to create and I’m pretty excited about it.

Time to make some new art!

Life

Obviously my plan to blog 3 times a week didn’t quite pan out. Since my last post I traveled out to Kansas to pack up my mom and bring her back to live in Denver. She’s soon going to be ready to move into something more permanent, which means another trip to Kansas to get her house ready to sell. So I won’t kid myself this time, more disruption is coming (first I have to find a place for her to live!).

So until my mom is settled blogging will be a lower priority. But I’ll be back eventually.

Since my return from South Africa a month ago, I’ve been struggling with art, blogging and in general getting back to my life.

I keep thinking I’ll get into things but I still haven’t found what it takes to get me to the studio or to my computer on any sort of consistent schedule or for any amount of time.

There are a zillion things that have factored into this and currently the major one is some decisions around my mom and her health and living accomadations and all of the attending emotions that come with dealing with situations like this. It’s a story told over and over and one that isn’t easy for anyone involved.

I believe that continuing to work on my art is an ideal way to process the situation and stay balanced yet I’m not quite there yet. Doing nothing seems to have more appeal at the moment.

In the meantime I think about blogging, I think about making art, and soon I’m sure, I’ll be back to do both.

Thanks to everyone that has emailed me and contacted me and commented on my absence. Much appreciated!

 
I returned home from Africa a week ago. 36 hours of travel, 5 flights, 8 time zones. It was an adventure.

I had thought I would return and get right back to the my studio but life had other plans for me. Family health issues, project canceled at work so anything but a quiet routine, I haven’t finished unpacking yet.

Yesterday I did get all of my photos onto my laptop from the trip and I’ll start with those as a good way to get back into the swing of things and labor day weekend (a 3 day weekend next weekend) will be my dyeing weekend to make the cloth for me South Africa Impressions project.

It’s excellent to be on vacation and now it’s excellent to be home – just need to get organized again.

ACEO #35
©2009 Lisa Call
3.5" x 2.5"
ACEO – textiles, beaded, thread
Purchase Here

Coaching

I hired Christine Kane as my coach this year and joined her platinum level mastermind coaching circle. I’ve learned much from Christine over the past couple years and appreciate all she has to offer and very highly recommend her Uplevel Your Life Mastery program and retreats.

Christine has leveraged a very popular and successful method of marketing online, ie The Client Attraction System + variations from other online gurus, and is now fabulously successful and teaching marketing along with the mindset work she is so amazing at.

I have no doubt Christine will be excellent teaching the business and marketing stuff also and I’m sure her clients will be equally successful when they follow these formulas because they do work.

Problem is that style of marketing is not for me. Doesn’t fit my personality, doesn’t fit my goals, doesn’t sound like fun to do, etc. The result was a lot of friction in our coaching relationship and so last week it came to an end.

I still think Christine is fabulous and am grateful for all she gives the world, she just isn’t the person to help me with my business decisions. I am now working with a local coach here in Denver as I find in person meetings to be a better fit for my needs.

Transparency

The standard of success in life isn’t the things. It isn’t the money or the stuff — it is absolutely the amount of joy you feel.

— Abraham

My way of writing and marketing is very simply stated with a single word: transparency. Pretty much not much happens that I don’t write about the “why” of it. Like pricing of my artwork or this post, explaining this decision. This is me at my authentic best and where I find joy.

I’m not a pioneer in this type of marketing (Steve Pavlina is an example of a very successful blogger using a similar style) and over on makebigart I’ll write more about the different styles of online marketing some day as it is interesting look at the marketing on the internet and think about how the different ideas can be leveraged in selling art online.

I absolutely believe in abundance and I have no doubt that my style of marketing will bring me exactly the success and joy and I am looking for.

Structures #95
©2008 Lisa Call
52" x 34"
Textile Painting (hand dyed fabric, batting, thread)

Music

Many (most? all?) artists are happy to talk about the music they listen to in their studio while creating art. I’m certainly no exception and have written about it before. Today’s post is a bit of a stream of consciousness and my music listening.

So now the confession – I’m not a big music person. It’s not that I don’t like music, it’s just I can’t be bothered to learn very much about it and there are days and weeks that go by when I forget to listen to it.

I like silence. I like the meditative quiet as I stitch parallel lines back and forth on my textile paintings for hours on end. Much self coaching and problem solving happens during this time.

But this post is about music, so back to that.

Music History

I have a nice sized CD collection, mostly the rock I listened to in high school and in my 20s – cause it’s what I know, I like it, it’s obvious, it’s easy. Stuff like The Beetles, The Gogos, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Leonard Skynard, Blondie. Pretty main stream stuff or at least it was in the 70s and 80s.

I listen to this music on the stereo I bought in graduate school with the student loan I took out to go on a ski trip and buy a stereo.

I actually have a pretty nice stereo because I was dating a guy (who I eventually married) that vacuumed his records with a nitty gritty record machine (if you don’t know what that is – it’s fine – just imagine a vacuum cleaner for records and people rather obsessive about sound quality from a piece of black plastic).

Music was a big thing for him. Listening to, playing, watching performances. A crappy stereo was not an option (hence the need for a loan).

We attended a lot music events in college and then in New York City when we were working at IBM Research. Almost weekly we’d head down to Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center from Westchester County to listen to folks like Yo-Yo Ma and The Berlin Philharmonic. I learned to love opera during these 2 years.

He grew up with music and his family is packed with musical talent. He inherited that talent and love for music.

I don’t remember a lot of music in our house growing up until my sister conned me into paying for half or her stereo (with an 8-track player – we were on top of the trends). When she left for college she took the stereo with her. I don’t recall being unhappy about it.

About the same time my mom moved out and my dad started listening to music. Even bought a nice stereo as I recall. I enjoyed the likes of Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers with him. And PDQ Bach.

I owned a few albums so I listened to them over and over as it was all I had. Lots of repetition.

In the Studio

So now – back to the studio. As a result of having been married to a guy that was into music I have alot of CDs. Mostly rock – he kept the classical.

But what I listen to is extremely limited. For the last 18 months it’s been almost exclusively Christine Kane’s music.

The above textile painting was designed while I listened to She Don’t Like Roses on repeat over and over and over again for hours and hours.

Turns out I love repetition. Not surprising as I’ve created 111 textile paintings in the Structures series over the years. Could be how my brain is wired.

In the past a few other artists have captured my attention and I’ve listened to them repeatedly – just before Christine it was Johnny Cash.

The music I do remember as a kid was my brother listening to Johnny Cash over and over and over again. He was apparently into repetition also. My sister and I used to tease him mercilessly about it and he was smart enough to ignore us (or maybe he didn’t, but he didn’t stop listening to it).

After seeing the movie Walk the Line (about Johnny Cash) I bought a few of his CDs on my way home from the theater. Listened to them repeatedly for months and months. Bought my sister a CD as a gift, which she also liked.

We decided we should probably apologize to my brother for teasing him so much – he apparently had pretty good taste in music as a kid.

I try to remind myself of that when my kids are playing music in my studio (they bring their ipods and plug them into my stereo). Last night my son was programming (my 16 year old is writing an game for the iphone this summer) and came up to spend the evening in my studio while I worked.

We listened to Velvet Underground and The Horror from his MP3 player. Not bad but more on the noise side than I usually listen to.

 
PS – this blog post is also my entry into Vinyl Art’s contest: Storied Past. Barely squeaking in by the deadline.

 
What are you listening to in the studio?

Resting

I’ve put in a huge number of hours in the studio and on the art business the last few weeks. I’m nearing 1/2 way done on the big deadline coming up in July so my brain took a vacation.

Last night I watched a movie with my daughter that on a scale of 1-10 was maybe a 1. Tonight I watched Mall Cop, which maybe doesn’t even make it to 1 on that scale. This is serious “lisa needs a break” time.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to making art and dyeing fabric cause this deadline isn’t going to go away.

Living with Art

In the meantime here are some images of more ways to display small art and a small sampling of the art in my house:

My bulletin board – the aceo in the lower left hand corner was made by Jessica Torrant. Around it are my journey blessings from Journey Juju. The card to the right is from Sandy Woock (a brilliant textile artist who has a new blog). The postcard is of art by Charles Waller. The dream catcher was made by my mom (who is very talented but has no website).

There are also fortunes from fortune cookies on there, some photos of rocks (one sent to me by my sister), a card from a hospital with 101 ways to praise a child, and a few quotes I like: “You can be right or you can be free” and “I won’t let anything into my life I don’t absolutely love”.

I have a bulletin board above this one that ends up with the more practical things that people put on bulletin boards – like the recycling pick up schedule. Although it seems to have more art than life management stuff on it also.
 

This is Lines #28, a small 3″x3″ textile painting stitched to canvas, posing in front of some old glass insulators, which came from Kansas from my grandparents – they are way cool. These little artworks on stretched canvas are great cause they can stand up on their own or be hung on a wall.

Lines #28 is available here: Lines #28.
 

This is Lines #23, another piece mounted on stretched canvas. The plant in this photo is a favorite meal for my cats so adding a bit of color to the scene maybe hides the bit marks.

These glass bottles are from my sister and the lava rocks (which probably have a more technical name) are from New Zealand. I brought a lot of rocks home from New Zealand – they’ve got really good ones.

Lines #23 is available for purchase here: Lines #23.

Two small pieces by Tina Mammoser, a purple aceo and an orange 5″ horizons. I love them both and see them daily as they sit next to my clock in my bedroom.
 

This is a larger context for where they live. That is Structures #44 on the wall. To the right is a howling coyote my mom’s husband made for me many years ago (Fred was also very talented) sitting next to a pinecone I long since forgot where it came from but I’ve had it forever so it must mean something.

And here is Lines #31 hanging out with some plants on top of my piano. I love having little spots of color about my house. (these aloe plants are babies from my big aloe that seems to generate more new plants than I know what to do with – like zucchini it seems – want some?).Lines #31 is available here: Lines #31.

Upleveling

As long time readers know, I began working with Christine Kane in December of 2007 and since then my life has changed in amazing and positive ways. Christine calls this Upleveling.

My journey to improve my life began after listening to the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert in the summer of 2007. A truly awesome and fun book.

From there I attended Christine’s retreat and then participated in her Uplevel your Life Mastery Program home study course (she called it something different back in 2008 but it is the same thing – although I think it’s even bigger and better now). I redid both the uplevel program and attended a second retreat later in 2008.

Now in 2009 I am part of Christine’s platinum coaching circle. It’s all amazing. Christine is amazing. The group is amazing. Life is truly wonderful.

I knew I wanted things to change in my life and Christine provided the tools by which to make those changes.

Recommendation

I wrote a testimonial for Christine’s Uplevel your Life Mastery Program and since then I’ve gotten quite a few people asking me about her. Wanting some assurance I meant what I wrote. Indeed I did mean it.

So now Christine has offered an opportunity for me to recommend her further by creating an affiliates program, which means if you sign up to do a program with her I will get a percent of the price (her affiliates payout is 35%).

I have signed up to be an affiliate because I 100% believe in what Christine is offering. I also signed up because I spend a lot of time talking to people about Christine and it takes time away from my art and my art business. It’s nice to have an opportunity to be compensated for my time.

Free Teleseminar

If you want to see what Christine is all about and if she has something you might be interested in she is going to be giving a free teleseminar on June 10th in the evening. It’s titled 5 Simple Action Steps to Take Your Life to the Next Level this Summer.

You can sign up here (this is my affiliate link): Sign Up for Christine’s Free Teleseminar

Yes – the teleseminar is free – costs nothing and I get paid nothing. It’s only later if you do sign up for one of her programs that I will receive a payment.

So this is a chance to not only check out Christine’s amazing coaching talents, but also support me in my journey, currently all for free.

My Journey

What follow is the post I wrote on Christine’s blog last December about my word of the year Courage, it’ll give you and idea of the changes I made in my life in the past year (as will looking over the last few years of my blog posts).

I’m Not That Kind of Girl

When I first saw the information for Christine’s Great Big Dreams Retreats I thought with a bit of regret, I’m not the type of person that does things like this, and went back to my very busy life. Female bonding and getting all touchy-feely was not my thing, being the ever so competent INTJ.

Upon recommendation from friends, the internet and the universe, I listened to the book Eat, Pray, Love in the summer of 2007 and, like so many other people, it had a profound impact on me. I realized I was not living the life I wanted, yet I had no idea how to create the life I wanted. I wasn’t even sure what that might be. I was just sure it wasn’t what I was doing.

Taking a Leap

That fall my father passed away and a long term relationship came to an end and I was exhausted. It finally pushed me over the edge and even before selecting my word of the year, courage, I took a huge leap and signed up for the December retreat.

I thought, maybe if I were the type of person that did these retreats I would have a life I liked a lot more. Unfortunately I learned the single room I had wanted was sold out.

In an act of pure clarity (and a lot of experiences I did not wish to repeat), I declined the chance to attend and share a room with someone else and asked to be put on the waiting list for a single room, of which there are only 2. At the time I didn’t realize my chances weren’t all that good for getting this, I just knew what I needed for the retreat to work for me, and I knew I needed to attend.

So I was very happy, but not at all surprised, to get an email a few weeks before the December 2007 retreat that a space was available.

I am that Girl

So off to Ashville I went and not only did I survive my girl bonding weekend, I loved every minute of it. It wasn’t nearly as touchy-feely as I feared and I was welcome to be whoever or whatever I needed.

During that amazing weekend I had one aha-moment after the an other. Yes, I could indeed create the life I wanted, as I now had a treasure chest of tools to help me do just that.

I started by setting aside my usual beginning of the year ritual, that of setting dozens of aggressive goals and jumping in getting things done, and instead I choose just a single word to focus my year around.

Courage

I selected Courage. Courage to slow down. Courage to listen to myself. Courage to find my feelings. Courage to listen to the tiny voice that was my true desires. Courage to follow my dreams no matter how foreign the territory or scary the path might be.

I’ll be the first to admit, 2008 has been an incredible fabulous year for me. I thought of my word often and have managed to free myself from many of my old limiting beliefs. Every day I choose to create and live the life I want to live.

The list of positive changes I have created in my life over the past year is astounding, from health improvements, to an upcoming amazing vacation in Africa, to deeper and closer friendships, to an art career that turned a profit for the first time ever. I could write for pages on all that has come about this year. But this is a blog and I’ve already rambled on for longer than recommended, so I’ll just touch on one which took great courage.

Leaving the Burbs

One of the first things I tackled upon arriving home was to declutter my house. I rather smugly sat through the discussion of clutter during the retreat thinking I had very little. When I got home I discovered I just had a really big house to hide it all in. Clutter was everywhere. Er oops.

No wonder I was stuck. Did I really need a box full of 18 year old hand made mints from a marriage that ended 7 years prior? Tossed were the ski equipment, racquetball, scuba diving, etc, etc, etc. I gave away furniture, clothes, toys, keepsakes. I tossed it all. (Although I admit I kept the frog made out of icing that was on my birthday cake when I was 8 years old because you never know when a 37 year old amphibian made of sugar and fat will come in handy. Don’t tell Christine.)

After a few months of freeing myself from things that only served to drain my energy, I found the courage to admit to myself that I didn’t want to live in this big beautiful house anymore. The suburbs no longer appealed to me and it was simply too large.

I had always been afraid to admit this because the thought of moving was too daunting. As the house emptied out, it became very doable to pick up myself and my 2 kids and move to the city, close to both my work and their school.

So that’s what we did. In early April I talked to a real estate agent and 2 months later I had the house fixed up and ready to hit the market. I told her repeatedly the house would sell in 1 week or less, and yes, this was during what was supposedly a very difficult housing market.

I learned my lesson in 2007, getting really clear about what I wanted resulted in it manifesting, be it a single room at a retreat or a fast home sale.

So that’s exactly what happened. The house sold in 1 day and after a bidding war, sold for substantially more than my asking price. So much for the buyers market.

A few days later I found a small house within walking distance to my kids’ school and we moved at the end of June, less than 3 months after first having the thought that it was possible. I’m a 3 on the enneagram, the achiever, I don’t just sit around and wait for the universe to do it’s thing, I take action and help it along.

Dream Home and Studio

I first told myself this was a temporary move and after the kids were out of the house I would move again, because I could not afford to live in Denver long term. I stopped telling myself this story when it was clear I didn’t want to live in a 900 sq ft house with no studio, even temporarily.

That took about 5 minutes. Who was I kidding, I was not going from a 600 sq ft studio to a non-existent studio so I could claim some virtue about living small. I had this idea that I would find it easier to start selling and marketing my art if I had a tiny house, cause I’d look more like I needed money.

That’s crazy. I sell my art because it provides value to the world and people connect to it, it enhances their lives so they want to own it, not because I live in a small house with bad electrical and broken plumbing. I can’t create the art I want in that environment.

So enough playing small, I had the courage to admit I wanted a bigger house and I hired a contractor to build me my dream home and studio. Why wait? I could have both the art career and the cool house and big studio if I wanted it. And so that is exactly what I am doing. I found the courage to admit I deserve it and to take the steps necessary to make it happen.

 
PS – Here’s that link again if you want to attend Christine’s free teleseminar: Sign Up for Christine’s Free Teleseminar, 5 Simple Action Steps to Take Your Life to the Next Level this Summer.

Carl and Jerry bolting the last of the lights to the ceiling.

Perfect

Yay! The studio lights are finally installed. It only took 4 attempts and 2 months but it happened. And they are perfect.

I didn’t hire a lighting designer so with a bunch of online research I took a big guess and a big check and ordered some top of the line commercial lighting fixtures for the studio.

I’m going to do a series of posts about building a studio later on and don’t have time to go into details tonight – just wanted to do a little happy dance with you all.

The lights installed (not easy taking a photo of lights but it’s as bright and white as daylight in my studio now – 24/7):

Hotel Room
 

Construction Update

It’s been a while since I posted as the last moments of the remodel project are taking up much of my time. Big events like finishing hardwood floors and putting in carpet require a lot of movement of belongings.

Nothing is yet in it’s permanent position but tomorrow movers arrive to start that process by putting the piano up on hardwood floor.

Last week the floors were sanded and finished. They look great – the old and new boards blend well together and they did a nice job. But a smelly job – so I splurged and spent a night at a gorgeous 4 star hotel one night. What a treat. I’m so ready to trade in my twin sized bed for a king again.

Taking the time out for some totally indulgent self care (waffles and fresh berries and cream in the hotel restaurant the next morning was yummy) was perfect. I’m so ready to be living in my house so taking a break from the mess was great.

It’s not looking very likely I’ll be making much art this week but I’ll try to do a couple blog posts. I’m giving a talk next saturday here in Denver about social media so I need to post info about that event (Create Denver Expo).

In the meantime – here are links to the newest construction photos:

March 10-12 – Misc and prep for hardwood floor
March 13 – Refinished hardwood floor and some lights installed.

My House is Painted

Paint

With total happiness I came home from work today to a painted house. I love love love my purple front door. Life without an HOA is joyful.

They moved the bottom beams down a bit on the gable – which solved my "there is something seriously wrong here" feeling every time I looked at the house. I thought about painting purple behind the beams but thought that might be a bit much.

They will start painting inside tomorrow or friday and I’ve asked them to paint everything so I won’t be left with a big unfinished task to drain my energy. I still need to finish my bedroom but they will do everything else – yay!

The back:

 
And for those that have forgotten or never saw here is the before photo (it’s hard to believe this is the same house):

Studio Lights

Sadly the studio lights were not installed last week. Turns out they were longer than the lighting store told me they would be so they didn’t fit based on where we put the electrical boxes in the ceiling.

So time for plan F, which better mean final. I had to pull one of the light fixtures from the run and we’ll center what is left. We won’t try hanging them again for a while because the kids are currently living up in the studio.

Everything Else

There isn’t much left to do on the house. The indoor painting, a bunch of electrical, which seems to be a never ending task, some clean up, finishing the plumbing and cabinets and then some little stuff – like a fire wall between my garage and house up in the new attic.

Oh yea – there is the refinish of the hardwood floor and carpet still also. Big tasks requiring furniture moving. But soon soon it’ll be done and I’ll get my studio back.