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

Big Ideas

Image Copyright Enoch Bolles

I've run out of witty banter for this week I'm afraid. I've been working incredibly hard to sell some new ideas and generate some new income streams here at Studio Margot. I've been brewing them up and pitching them to anyone who'll listen. I'm now in the waiting for responses stage.

The waiting is...as Tom Petty so aptly said...the hardest part.

You can't control how the people in charge will react to your big ideas.

You can't do anything about the people around them who may have conflicting agendas.

You may have a brilliant idea and be absolutely capable of seeing it through to fruition, but there are a number of factors you simply can't control. That's why I am always pitching a slew of ideas to a bevy of people. All of the things that I do are highly competitive and subject to brutal judgment. Be it designing or writing or hosting or performing...I'm constantly putting myself out there to be judged by others. It's what creatives do. If you think it's easy, think again. I've developed a tough outer skin, but I still have a soft white underbelly. No one likes being dismissed.

I'm often vying for work with the same companies as other creatives. It's tough because many folks can't see that there's room for all of us. There will always be people who look at you as competition and do what they can to trip you up. You can't get away from that because, especially in times such as these, a lack mentality begins to prevail. When people have a lack mentality, they live in constant fear that someone else is trying to take their piece of the pie. Often those people show up wherever you go, whispering mean things about you behind your back. You have to hope that your talent, integrity, honesty and transparency will shine over their pettiness and deep sense of lack. If not...and this is a tough one...it probably wasn't the right fit for you.

When you're willing to toot your horn without shame, it freaks other people out. Do it anyway. Even though I pay it forward and sideways and backwards...people can be so threatened by me they take great pleasure in doing things to sidetrack my success. It's been an ongoing scenario and a frustrating one, but I'm not willing to let it stop me.

That's life.

It happens to everyone who dares to dream big.

Keep dreaming.

The folks in charge of approving your pitches are often also operating from a lack mentality. They're afraid of taking risks. In times like these, they think it's better to play it safe. They can't see the possibility of a new idea when they're being pressured to keep making the same idea over and over and over again. This is why books and music and movies and TV Shows get so watered down.

I disagree with this approach, but I'm not in charge.

I'm in charge of imagining, fine tuning and pitching my big ideas. After that I can only hope that someone with vision will get them and get me and see the value in taking a risk. I can only hope that the people around them will realize that I'm not competition and that the only person with whom any of us are competing is ourselves.

"There is room enough in the sky for every star to shine." Madge

I'm a hard working, talented, compassionate, witty and wise woman. I'm standing on the edge of my success and I'm ready to leap. I just need someone to take that big risk with me...to embrace my big ideas and help me get them out to a larger audience. In the meantime, I'm throwing as many things as I can at the wall with the absolute belief that the right one will stick.

"Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming..." Dory the Fish


xoxo
Madge

Mangolicious

Image Copyright K. O. Munson

I’ve been working on some big ideas and yesterday one of them was shelved. It’s a really cool idea and I think folks would love it, but at least for the foreseeable future it’s not going to happen. It’s frustrating sometimes knowing that the people in charge of approving your big ideas and getting them out to the masses are often entirely lacking in vision, but what’s a gal to do?

You never quite know if you fit the suit, Johnny Bravo and it’s often got little to nothing to do with your talent. More often than not, it’s one or two people who have decided they want oranges and if you’re a mango you can forget about it. So what do you do when your big ideas get shelved? What do you do if you’re a mango in an orange world? You have a good cry. You feel really bad about your big idea and yourself for a moment or two. You beat yourself up a little for not being taller or smaller or younger or older or curvier or skinnier or more orangish...and then you shout out...as loud as you can...

“SCREW THAT! I AM FABULOUS!”

You have to believe in yourself and your brilliance. You have to be willing to take rejection and keep on moving forward. You have to know that if oranges are popular right now with the ‘not visionaries’ in charge...mangos just might be the next big thing. So be ready to knock their socks off when that day comes...which might be sooner than later because the winds are constantly changing direction.

I have a page from a magazine taped on the shelf next to my desk with ghastly movie reviews of some of the most successful and well loved films in history. This page reminds me that even if you’re not everyone’s cup of tea...if you make great tea someone will love it. Maybe lots of folks will love it, but no matter how delicious you are someone will think you tasteless. C’est la vie. It’s a damn good thing Elvis didn’t listen to the person who told him to keep driving trucks...and Hemingway kept trying to sell books after over a hundred rejection letters...and Dr. Seuss didn’t listen to the children’s book publishers who thought his books too weird for the masses...because without that tenacity and self-belief the world would have missed out. All because some ‘not visionaries’ were looking for oranges instead of mangos.

I’ve got some other big ideas simmering right now and I do believe that one of them is going to cook up really nicely. Onward and upwards. Success happens when the right big idea and the right visionaries come together at the right moment. I’m a mango and I’m going to be as mangolicious as possible because when it’s my time to shine I’ll be ready.

I’m mangolicious. How about you?

Until next time...craft on with your bad selves.

xoxo
Madge