April's Ups and Downs: How Nellie Wong, Tank Girl and various artists are keeping me inspired through the challenging creative times of my 45th year
I hope that your April has had many ups and fewer downs and lots of love either way.
Here we are at the end of April, the month of my 45th birthday, the first month of the second quarter of the year, a month of … well, of a lot of ups and downs here - and to be honest, more downs than ups. Personal difficulties combined with professional challenges for a month when it has been hard to maintain hope and enthusiasm and momentum for creativity. And yet, I shared a lot of things, wrote things, read things, did things. This is, after all, how life is.
I had been so excited about launching the Craft to Heal workshop series, and then it really fell flat. There had been a lot of initial interest but it tapered off quickly. A handful of amazing supporters joined in and I was moved by some of the things that they shared with me. And I believe in the work I’m doing with the project. But ultimately there wasn’t enough interest to sustain it as an ongoing offer in the intended manner. To be honest, at this point, I can’t even afford to keep the Podia website up, where people could have signed up for the classes, and ultimately designing and setting up the workshops cost me more than it earned me.
It’s just kind of been like that lately. A lot of people are feeling a financial pinch, and I’ve been grappling with my experience of it. I have started to feel like I all I ever do is create things and beg people to pay for them and I am begging people who are also creating things and beginning people to pay for them and it all just feels really unsustainable and … I don’t know, just not the right way to go about it all. So, you’ll see that in April I started off trying to sell people on Craft to Heal workshops or heck, even to “buy me a piece of birthday cake,” all of which fell flat and made me realize that I need to find a different approach.
And I’m not really sure what that approach is. It’s the time of year when I hear back every few days about grants and fellowships that I applied to in the winter and it’s been no after resounding no, some of which are from places I truly thought would support the work that I was proposing. I’ve been pitching my writing and consulting services far and wide in “cold call” style approaches and there has been some interest but not much. I’ve dusted off the resume and begun applying for a variety of jobs that I don’t necessarily honestly want to do but since I paid my rent on a credit card this month, I can’t exactly be picky. And it doesn’t really matter since no one is picking my resume out of those piles anyway.
It’ll turn around. It always does. This is freelance life, creative life, American life, just life.
It’s just hard when it intersects with personal stuff going on (extended family challenges, things that aren’t really my story to tell) and my own health stuff. And it’s hard to make sure that I’m taking care of myself well enough that my mental health doesn’t spiral down and make it all worse. It already probably makes it seem worse than it is and if I go too far down that road, it makes it actually worse. So, I’m trying one day at a time to stay positive and inspired and shore up my support systems and so forth.
Part of that effort has been to continue writing and sharing things that mean something to me via my Substack newsletter but to mostly remove myself from the social media aspect of the website for the time being as that was negatively impacting my mental health. I’m still sorting that out. I’ve been on the platform for three years this May, and it didn’t ever become what I thought it would become for me, so I’m sorting, thinking, mulling, pivoting. We’ll see.
And yet, I’m here. I’m sharing this newsletter. And since it’s the end of the month, let me share my April recap with you - and at the end find some more photos of things keeping me inspired this month …
Artists’ Psychology Essays
I updated and re-shared these three pieces:
Interviews
I always love the opportunity to share insights through interviews and I was especially moved by this one with
:
And I really appreciated what Sarah said, because the most important thing to me in any interview is that the person being interviewed gets value out of the experience:
And over on THREADSTACK I got to learn so much from
:
Other People’s Work
Guest posts and cross-posts and quotes:
shared this terrific guest post that I’ve read several times over myself and am so honored to have been able to share with others here.
Inspiring quotes from: Emily Charlotte Powell, Decorating Dissidence, Natalie Eslick, Jacqueline C, Ali Boston, Paris Collage Collective, Petra Zehner, Amie McNee, Charissa Steyn, Thibault, Girls on the Page and Meaghan McIsaac via Martin Hughes.
Over on THREADSTACK I shared inspiring recent posts from
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
^ Cross-post of this terrific piece from
which I found so moving.
^ I also cross-posted this exciting news from
I was also just really happy to see that an older piece I had shared by
was recently noticed and still resonates:Craft to Heal, Birthday Requests, Writing Services and More
I also serve as the writer for the Center for Mindful Psychotherapy monthly newsletter:
And Life Things
I hope that your April has had many ups and fewer downs and lots of love either way.
Phew, I feel you - with all of this! Thank you for taking the time to write and curate everything (and for the mention 😊) It can be so hard to keep going when it feels the universe is conspiring to thwart every effort, but I'm glad you are.
Always inspiring to read you and seems like I'll have a few more rabbit holes to explore with what you've shared here. I feel honored and humbled to be included. 💓
(And happy birthday! I've also turned 45 in April. Not an easy time, but I believe and hope our best years are still to come. Rooting for you, Kathryn!)