Can't help myself

Our new shower curtain, courtesy of the folks at Cafe Press and my sketchbook.

So I'm working along, happily creating ART (that's the one with the capital A) and my mind starts wandering. What if I made a set of pillows using this design? Could I create a product line? Would it translate to a fabric pattern? What about copyrighting the idea? Should I open a shop on my website? Does my creative vision extend to others who would be willing to pay for these products if I did? And...the big one...what to do about marketing? Oh, yeah, that's why I don't finish the thoughts.

It's the design mind butting up against reality.

The multi-layered opportunities for creators in this have-it-in-an-instant-my-way society are confusing enough to make me wonder where I put my brain cells. I can enlarge my drawings to the size of king size sheets. I can wear my images on my feet, in my backpack, on the face of my watch if I took a hankering for it. Soon the print on demand services will be selling homes with preprinted and customized wallpaper. Self marketing through Etsy, Spoonflower, Society6, CafePress, etc. (ad nauseum), creates instant links to the products and service industries (for a cut of my action). Should I stay or should I go?

I think I'll go back to ART. It's sleeting outside and the phone is quiet.

The Solstice

Happy end of year everyone.

This beautiful poem warms my heart.

Winter Solstice

by Rebecca Parker

Perhaps for a moment the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling,
the computers desist computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant in the stillness,
the chiming of the celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised in the crystalline darkness, and then gracefully tilts.
Let this be a season when holiness is heard and the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.
We are not alone.
In the universe there moves a Wild One whose gestures alter earth's axis toward love.
In the immense darkness everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars, cradled in a swaying embrace, rocked by the holy night, babes of the universe.
Let this be the time we wake to life, like spring wakes,
in the moment of winter solstice.