Just two random people playing elves in the forest, like ya do
Artist Economics
It just sounded interesting. I had to explore.
Adapting a Studio to a Changing Economy
Trending items seem to be going toward the more delicate, minimalist, and refined. I’ve branched out beyond Etsy because I believe one should expand horizons and keep options open. To that end, I’ve made accounts at both DaWanda and Zibbet.
I much prefer handstitching to other forms of needlework. It serves the dual purpose of occupying my mind and my hands and is therefore a creative therapy as well as producing something useful and hopefully lovely to look at. The economics of this is pretty obvious.
Creative pursuits are easier when one has a touchstone for inspiration. Mine has to do with rivulets, creeks, waterways hidden among verdant vegetation, which is why I incorporate willows and rivers into my online presence. These images help to calm turbulent thoughts and evoke a kind of quiet anarchy. There’s a duality at work, as nature knows no bounds, and this reminds me that as water travels over rocks, rough places eventually become smooth. This demonstrates that persistence and consistence result in desired change. And all work results in something transformative, even if we do not know exactly where it is leading, or how things will all turn out.
Nature does not know extinction. All it knows is transformation. Nothing disappears without a trace. Werner von Braun
But back to economics. In its purest sense, economics is the science of choice. It is also a science of change. As is creativity. Art is not the sole claimant here. Art and science are both involved. The synapses and neurons in my brain create and react to choices and direct my actions in creative pursuits. When we separate choice from action all that results is a mindless muddle. Creativity reveals the world behind our choices. We should strive to select those things that reflect meaning in our lives.
Willow Run, by J. Melberg
Originally posted at Susannah’s Heirloom
anger smolders
The Snow by Emily Dickinson
Snow flakes
by Emily Dickinson
I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town –
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down –
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig –
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
The Snow
It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountains and of plain, –
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem, –
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvest were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, –
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.
The Science Of Waking Up
Love this idea. Hate time and clocks anyway, and mornings are the worst. It would totally be worth a bit of extra attention to local time if productivity and health improved.
Maria Konnikova presents research into “sleep inertia” – the reason why we’re all so miserable in the morning – and what can be done about it:
When [neuroscientist Kenneth] Wright asked a group of young adults to embark on a weeklong camping trip, he discovered a striking pattern: before the week was out, the negative sleep patterns that he’d previously observed disappeared. In the days leading up to the trip, he had noted that the subjects’ bodies would begin releasing the sleep hormone melatonin about two hours prior to sleep, around 10:30 P.M. A decrease in the hormone, on the other hand, took place after wake-up, around 8 A.M. After the camping trip, those patterns had changed significantly. Now the melatonin levels increased around sunset—and decreased just after sunrise, an average of fifty minutes before wake-up time. In other words, not only did the time outside, in the absence of artificial…
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What happened to November?
Words Per Day To Finish On Time: 8,354
Days Remaining: 5
Well, at this rate I will have to do twelve-hour days to finish on time. Haven’t given up yet, and there is still Nephele’s December writing challenge to go! Because there is no telling if I’ll have a finished work even if I do complete Nanowrimo this year. This thing is sort of wandering all over the place, and tbh, it’s kind of a long, funny story. So we will see.
Also, my Pandora at-work playlist is a great help.
The Historical Sew Fortnightly: Challenge “Underneath it All”
Once upon a time in a forest long ago and nearly as long forgotten, I made historical garments for museums and historic sites, and pretty much lived as a middling-class woman raising her rather large family. 
Recently I’ve become aware of a group called The Historical Sew Forthnightly, which is “a group to celebrate historical costuming, share our historical sewing triumphs, ask questions, share interesting links and information, and MOST OF ALL, post about the themed historical sewing challenges that we are working towards every fortnight.” Awesome. This is exactly how I shall pick up my long-neglected sewing projects again.
The latest challenge issued is to sew a lovely undergarment. I am in dire need of a new set of stays, my white muslin petticoats are in tatters, and I don’t have nearly enough shifts. What to do? Although the stays are probably the highest on my to-do list, my fingers long to put together neat, orderly squares into a nice new shift. I love the felled-french seaming intrinsic to this garment’s construction. I shall begin forthwith – or as soon as I can lay hands on my linen stash.
Sigh.
