Goals and plans

I had planned to not worry about art this year. To not push myself to create a product and try to sell anything.

That lasted about three months.

Bored, frustrated, and feeling like I am not contributing enough I've decided to once again venture out into my creativity and try create a viable venue for it.

I am hoping to build stock and sell my art at festivals in Oct and later. Steamcon, mourning market, burlycon. All in oct this year!!

I just received cuff link bases so I can include more accessories for guys in my product, which is very exciting! I have enough for 20 pairs of cuff links, the possibilities are swirling in my mind.

On top of cufflinks I have jewelry to make and hair pieces to construct.

In the mail I have some lovely pendant bases I can put my artwork in. The concept of including my watercolors in with ribbon and metal jewelry has me giddy. I see my concepts as Victorian inspired alternative treasures.

A majority of my ribbon comes from midori ribbon. Working with higher quality ribbon is much more forgiving (not on the pocket book!!) and I find its actually easier to put down when I'm interrupted by Finni's needs. Having more forgiving material to work with while simlutaniously juggling a 6 month old wiggle boy is a bonus. Its a main reason I've held off from painting with acrylics recently.

If your in Seattle midori ribbon has a once a month sale room that makes my mouth water.

Velvet, silk duponi, satin, french wired ribbon...all discounted on the first friday of the month. Its a beautiful day.

Once I get enough Product I'll be posting online as well. Paul has agreed to help me manage this end of it, creating a website as well as maintaining an etsy presence.

To be able to create an income I can generate from my creativity, and not have to leave my son in daycare to do it is very important to me.

In my Son's eyes

Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be in stage. Making up acts, kidnapping adults to be my audience, its always been a part of who I am. After the birth of my son I was nervous performing again. Coming to terms with my body image has been very difficult. Patience has never been my strong suit especially with myself. So trying to give myself recovery time has been a joke.

I am blessed to have had supportive people around me who have every step of the way encouraged me to continue performing. Facing these body changes have been as wonderful as they have been painful. Costumes stopped fitting...and I dont mean a few, all of my costumes stopped fitting. My body is no longer as limber, and I have far less time to devote to performing in general.

AND YET

I have never felt so inspired. Even in my darkest moments of body loathing I worked through it. I have felt more devoted to creating costumes, better about getting critic and in general more willing to try new ideas.

Since having my baby opportunities have opened up for me I had never had before. I feel like with the extra challenges I have had more desire to achieve my goals, and have seen the path to them much easier.

All of this is overshadowed by one amazing thing. When I dress up, put up my hair, wear jewelry, coat myself in glitter...in general try to emulate a dragqueen the best I can my almost six month old son gives me this look. He looks up at me and gets this delighted smile and his eyes sparkle, when he gives me this look my insides melt and I feel like I am on top of the world. My son, my tiny son thinks I'm beautiful.

Maybe this sounds strange, but it fills me with such a feeling elation to see this special look he reserves just for me, and just when I dress up.

Dancing burlesque is something I want to do for the rest of my life, its a part of me and in many ways always has been. This process of acceptance has really changed my outlook on myself and my community. I will never hide who I am from my son, and its wonderful to know that (at least right now) I am lovely.

Trips, Hips, and Pastie Slips

The last few months have been hectic, adjusting to having a more active baby and getting myself ready for more performances.

I recently auditioned for an awesome show.....I happen to have auditioning gremlins, everything that can go wrong typically does during an audition, no matter how many times I've done an act before. This leads to a flash of embarrassment, some tears over the phone to my sweetie and then YEARS of great stories. What I did get from my most recent audition was some fab critic which I took to heart, I also realized that spirit gum is not going to work on my nipples....I realized this after 3 nip slips during my act.

The act I used to audition with was the act I had been planning on taking to Jim thorpe Burlesque festival. I used the information provided and spent the next month preparing, and reworking my act and costume until I thought it would be more stage worthy. My son sitting in his exersaucer bouncing along his smile growing broader the more rhinestones I added to my costume.

As the realization that my trip to PA was looming closer and closer I knew I wasnt going to get enough BM pumped for him in time, so I turned to HM4HB on facebook a group that used to be called eats on feets. Through them I was able to get enough milk that my baby would be fed easily while I was away.

The week before I left I broke down crying nearly once a day at the idea of leaving, terror gripping me. I was certain something was going to go wrong. My sweetie would neglect the baby, or accidentally hurt him in some thoughtless way, someone would kidnap him, my plane would go down...trust me if it was a possible concept (or not) it went through my head. Throughout all of this my sweetie was patient and kind.

The airport drop off was hard. I told woggins (my sweetie) to not wait forever at the gate, and when he left I was devastated. I sat to put on my shoes and tried to calm down my raging emotions. A well meaning woman asked if this was my first trip away from my baby, and thats all it took for the flood gates to break as I sat there trying to put on my boots while not obviously crying all over the security area.

My trip to jim thorpe was amazing, its an adorable town, with a lovely opera house. The guest houses provided for the performers were awesome. I loved performing, and watching other performers from different areas of our country compete. I didnt like my hard torpedo breasts that decided suddenly they needed to feed an army of babies who werent there.

Coming home was an amazing experience. Meeting woggins at the gate with baby tucked into the ergo asleep.

Baby Fin wouldnt look at me for the entire trip home. I sat on the train crying next to a sleepy sweetie and baby who wouldnt make eye contact with me. I felt more alone than I had on the train.

My last couple of days have been about trying to rebuild my milk supply. After coming home my breasts decided that finni must have weaned himself. So I reached out to the breastfeeding community in tears terrified I had ruined my supply forever. Met with kindness and great advice I am now working everyday on rebuilding and cutting out the bottle.

Clad in rhinestones, leopard print and silk flowers I sign off with promises to write again soon with less randomness.