Hanging Tough

Dover Books Mermaids

It's been a long week.  There are things that happen in my real life I can't share here.  That's the funny thing about having an online presence, navigating the complexities of just how much to share and how much to keep private.  I keep most of my real life...real.  I don't owe that to anyone, it's mine.  The internet is where I'm promoting my craft career and sharing creative inspiration with others.  The internet is where I am happy, sunny, crafty Madge.  I had a confessional style blog for several years, and it was a very cathartic and powerful experience, but it also came back to bite me on the ass a few times and I decided it was better to take the posts down.  I have a penchant for salty language and bawdy stories...

I try to stay on the sunny side.  I spent a lot of years walking under a large rain cloud, but it got exhausting being so obtuse and serious all of the time.  Life is so short and so tenuous and I've experienced enough sorrow to know that I have to grab the joy whenever and wherever I can. I've been trying to keep my chin up this week, but it's been slipping a little. There are things going on in my real life that are really tough. Real life is like that sometimes.

I am blessed in many, many ways.  I'm trying to stay focused on that and not let the tough stuff that I can not change beat me up too much.  I think that's all any of us can do, really.  In fact, I may be on the way to getting some real answers and that's the star upon which I'm going to hang my jaunty beret.  None of us know how long we have, what is coming next, where life may lead...all we have is the moment and the more we can be in that fully, the better life becomes.  Even the toughest moments have something for us.

The joy and the sorrow, the pleasure and the pain, the laughter and the tears...in the Tao they are all the same.

Love
Madge

Some New Advice for a New Year

(The divine Ms. Carmen Miranda)

I've got my work cut out for me as I head into the New Year. Three major design projects are all standing shoulder to shoulder and gawking at me slack jawed and sans inspiration shuffling their feet and sighing deeply. Rattling around in my brain are the seeds of some ideas that are, of course, fraught with potential for craftastrophic events. Most of what I do is challenge the impossible, stretch the acceptable and defy the laws of physics. My process is akin to that of a mad scientist. I get an idea and then I do whatever it takes to make that idea coalesce into a tangible design.

There are threads that run through my work...but for me, for the most part, each new design is a unique entity with a specific aesthetic and core concept. My eclecticism is my strength as a designer and on the flip side it is my greatest challenge. That's usually the way it works. Most artists have a very distinct style you can point to and say...oh that's so and so. My work doesn't have that continuity. My brain simply doesn't work that way. It's constantly moving at the speed of light in multiple directions. I may riff on a theme for a while, but eventually I get bored and move on. I truly love so many things...so many styles of design, art, music, decor, cuisine, literature...it all excites and inspires me. If there is one definitive thread in my work I think it's the narrative element. I love to tell stories. I like to create a collection of thematically related concepts and then when the story is full developed, move on to a new story.

It's important to develop your style, your sense of who you are and what you're trying to say with your work. If you're influenced by other artists (and no matter what anyone tells you, we all are) then you need to create a dialog and not just create derivative concepts that lack any of your special sauce. If you look at the work of other artists and think, "Crap...I'll never do that." You're right. So what?! What is it about you that makes you unique, extraordinary, fabulously you? What resonates for you visually...viscerally? What can you do that no one else can?

Wild thing, what makes your heart sing?

The more you can tap into that vein...the deeper, richer and more fascinating your work will become. The more you can allow yourself to dance on the edge, to risk looking ridiculous and to leave the safety of the same old crapadoodle, the better. I often look at craft magazines, blogs and books and feel as if everyone is drinking the same design Kool-Aid. The first time you see a new idea you think, "Wow, that's cool." After a while of seeing that same idea being played ad infinitum you think, "Ugh, that again?" You can mine what's 'hot' for some inspiration, but then let that go or you'll just be another face in the crowd.

Create without filters my fine friends. Color outside of the lines. Spit in the face of convention. Forget the rules. Risk, dare, dream. Live out loud. People will probably point and laugh...but so what. I spent a good portion of my youth being laughed at and making myself smaller. Then I said, "Fuck it." Yeah, I did.

Now who's laughing?!

My goal here is to inspire you to let go of the need to fit in and to become you. I don't always get it right and I'm on my journey too...but I try my best to be transparent.

Your mission in life is to become you. Your life is a process of becoming. Take this New Year by the you know whats and go for it! You may not feel comfortable, but you'll feel the unbridled zeal of being fully and completely free.

Become you and on the way, share that with others. That's the point. Create a life of abundance. Pass it on.

Carpe Gaudium. Seize joy.

Love
Madge

Giving Thanks.

Image Copyright Tamara de Lempicka

This is my final post for the Giving Thanks Blog Hop. Take a moment to visit some of the blogs of these wonderful artists! Just follow the link!

I don't believe in luck, but I do believe in magic. I think luck is something people invented so they'd stop taking responsibility for their lives, it's much easier to tell ourselves that happy people are lucky than it is to accept that life is about choices. There is preparation and there is opportunity, luck is an illusion. Life is all about perspective. Every moment we can choose sorrow or we can choose joy. I believe that in each of us is an endless well of joy. You can keep tapping it over and over again and you will never run out. The glass is neither half full nor half empty, because the universe gives free refills.

Seriously.

Why are you even worried about the glass?

The more we focus on what we don't have and we didn't get, the less we are able see the abundance that is always there for us. At any moment we are free to erase the past and reinvent ourselves. We're only a victim if we choose to be. I choose joy. When we choose joy, the magic happens.

Life is not about the money or the stuff or the awards or the accolades, though all of those things are nice and it's okay to enjoy them fully. Life is all about the love we share and just like joy there's an endless supply.

I am thankful that somewhere along the way I realized that I was the captain of my own ship. I realized that I could take the wheel. I could choose to be sad about the things that happened in the past or I could focus on the moment. Every moment is an opportunity for joy and for grace and for love.

Thank each of you for visiting me here at this little blog of mine. Here is my advice, for what it's worth: Try to love more and judge less...that applies to you, your friends, your enemies, complete strangers...and to your artwork. Love is the key to joy.

Be in the moment, it is all you have.

Carpe Gaudium.

Seize joy.

Love,
Madge

PS: I'll be on QVC this morning at 11am EST with two fun items! Spongebob Squarepants chair and Munchables 2-in-1 pillow and blankie! If you miss me, you can always go to the QVC website and watch the video.

Life Crafting 101 with Madge

Montego Bay Jamaica Image Copyright 2009 Margot Potter

I’m prepping for a taped radio interview this morning from the folks at Reclaim U. It’s a motivational website. Motivation and inspiration are things we can all use in these trying times. I am a firm believer in creating reality, and I also know that sometimes chaos steps in and the best we can do is to trust. Trust our instincts. Trust our vision. Trust in the infinite power of unconditional love that is always working in our favor. Throw on your captain’s hat, batton down the hatches, tie down the sails, ride out the storm and believe.

We can be and do absolutely anything we can dream if we have faith and are willing to do the work. There is nothing that can stop us from creating a life of joy if we take the wheel of our ship and steer it towards a bright horizon. There is no hurdle, no wall, no obstacle we cannot overcome. It is entirely up to us. We are in control. We can’t hand it over to someone else or something else, but when we take the wheel we are in essence channeling the force we call God. I believe God is a verb, the act of unconditional love. We must love ourselves and others unconditionally if we want to live fully. It has to start with self love, because if we judge ourselves harshly or lack self belief, how can we ever love anyone else fully? The key is to follow the basic tenets of unconditional love. Compassion...patience...yes I said patience...and faith. Faith is the x-factor because it’s entirely intangible. If you can believe in yourself as a perfect creation with a mission to become the fullest expression of who you are in order to fulfill the journey you selected before you joined this crazy experiment; then you can manifest anything.

Your job is to become you. Your life is a process of becoming. When you begin the process, you inspire others to do the same. You inspire the people whom you love and the people you may never know. Your fearlessness allows others to shed fear and embrace love. Don’t listen to that voice that says, "Can’t, no, stop"...the voice that makes you feel small and insignificant, because you are anything but. You have the power to change the world, starting with you. Even in the darkness, even in the depths of the most painful moments of your life, you can choose joy. And when you choose joy, abundance comes along for the ride. There will be stormy seas and there will be sunny skies. There will be joy and there will be sorrow. In the Tao it is all the same.

When we take control, when we seize the joy we so richly deserve, our capacity for love expands exponentially.

Carpe Gaudium!

Avast and ahoy, me hearties!

This is my ‘free project’ for today, tune in tomorrow for a ‘free project’ from my new book Beyond the Bead. Consider today “Life Crafting 101 with Madge.”

xoxo
Dread Pirate Maggie