CATEGORIZE ME
I awoke just before 7:00am, and arrived at my studio near 8:00am with my breakfast in hand: a pear, an apple, and a large cup of coffee. Part of the reason why I got up so early was that I had to pee, and when I woke up to do so, I found that I couldn't get back to sleep. Nonetheless, I got my 7 hours (of sleep) in. I stayed home last night, which seems to be the trend of late, watching a National Geographic documentary about stress. I have been incredibly stressed recently, but the intention of my post is not to write about that. I chose to mention it because I, in fact, fell asleep about 10 minutes into the program and then woke up again about an hour later. How funny that a program about stress actually alleviated some of my own.
I admire people who have the endurance to work an endless number of hours, to commit most of their lives to work, and to perform it all in such a collected way; maybe there is sweat, perhaps tears, and yes, even a bit of blood, but I don't envy them at all - at least not anymore.
When I moved to New York over five years ago, the primary purpose was to grow my career; and I use the word primary instead of sole intention because my secondary catalyst was that I was running away from a relationship that ended in Toronto.
When I arrived here it was everything I dreamed that it would be. I lived in Hell's Kitchen then, and I remember waking up many times as early as I did this morning, and walking down Ninth Avenue, slicing through the heat and stink of the Port Authority, and glimpsing into the rituals of the men who prepared and pushed their food carts along invisible trails to whichever locations they were destined to go to that morning, on the way to my studio.
And it was good.
As the months passed, I supported my work with other work related lunches, industry events, shop talk, and all the stuff related to illustration.
And it was good.
And I traveled to the studio almost every day, and devoted most of my time to my commercial assignments; on weekdays and on weekends at the studio, morning until night, and sometimes brought work home.
And still, it was good.
But as I continued to focus my line of sight only on one industry, never venturing outside of it, I began to feel overwhelmed and anxious. I had invested everything into my work, from my second year of art college onwards. I had followed the rules laid for out for me and my classmates, and had done everything that I thought that I was supposed to do in order to reach those marks in my career that I had set for myself. And although it still felt good, the emotional return that I received from it began to diminish. That's not to suggest that I stopped enjoying what I was doing i.e. illustration, nor should it imply that I wanted to distance myself from the illustration community, either. All that happened was that my goals began to shift, and I came to question the kind of illustrator who I wanted to be.

FRIDAY NIGHT, AIN'T A DAMN THING FUNNY...
I'm going to keep this entry short.
It's been an incredibly busy week -- weeks -- and so, I'm tired.
Exhausted.
Spent.
I'm busily back to work
Thank gawd.
Although, it's not quite back to normal.
The reason why is that now it feels more like a game of catch-up that I'm playing. And not just me, but it seems to be the word-on-the-street for some of us; that we're taking on as many projects as possible to make-up for our weak earnings in 2009. I picked up three more jobs this week, one of which is due Sunday, and another one Monday, on top of other deadlines that I have on-the-go and my classes at MICA and SVA.
I have to confess that I had a mini-meltdown a few days ago, but didn't even realize that it was happening until someone called me out on it. He said that I sounded overwhelmed, but at the moment I didn't think that I was. However a few minutes later, I felt a flood of anxiety, exhaustion, and guilt hit me all at once.
What a strange sensation.
In any event, today was a very good day. I got tons of work done, and still managed to go to my friends art opening in Williamsburg (props to Katherine Streeter's new work; you should check it out at 457 Grand Street, at Keap, near the BQE).
"Friday night ain't a damn thing funny..." is right; lyrics by Big Daddy Kane, whose videos kept me company tonight along with Bel Biv Devoe, Maestro Fresh Wes, Special Ed, and Janet, Miss Jackson if you're Nasty.

EASY DOES IT
I already posted today's entry onto The Snow Queen blog on tumblr.

Here it is again.
"The project is going very well (with changes along the way). The weeks are flying by, and I'm having a blast seeing the various components of the production take shape and coalesce. Yes, we've chosen parts to keep in the production, and discarded others, but so far, I feel as though this has been a true collaboration, and I venture to admit that it might also be one of the closest educational experiences of mine that has aligned with the real world. Those last minute changes and seemingly endless revisions that are going on in our class right now mimics the process within the illustration industry. The process that sometimes I undergo with my own client-based work. For better, or for worse, ideas grow into better ideas via collaboration, but sometimes the good ones get cut and thrown onto the floor for whatever reason.
This happens, but as long as we remember that it's our work that is being critiqued and revised, not us as individuals, then it will help us to restore some distance from our work so that we can improve upon them later on.
We've all got egos, we wouldn't be artists, designers, or illustrators if we didn't have them; however, at the same time, those moments occur when we have to check our egos at the door in order to push ourselves further into places within our own artistic practice that make our work "better."
Conceptually better.
Aesthetically better.
Technically better.
When I use that word, "better" it's in reference to how close our work comes to resolving those creative obstacles/problems/issues of ours in the most appropriate and aesthetically intriguing ways. It takes time, it takes effort, but this can only happen if we're open to discussing our work at hand. In any event, we're still trying to make this production as tight and as impressive as possible, but still remain within time and budgetary restrictions. Thanks so much for everyone's enthusiasm and flexibility. We're not even halfway through the semester, but so far, I believe we're maintaining good momentum within our process. If you haven't already done so, check out the previous post, marked Sep 28, on tumblr, it's an assemblage of your work with your classmates.
I think it's très cool.
Think Y-3; Yohji Yamamoto for Adidas; they work well separately, but together they're even more bad-ass.
* The image at the top of the page is our own MICA Studio Remix in-class collab!

POETIC JUSTICE
Janet Jackson's song, "Again," from the movie Poetic Justice, circa 1993, which I have not seen by the way, relaxes me. I bought it (yet again) from iTunes and listened to it on my walk to the studio this morning. The song warped me back in time for a short moment.

4 minutes and I was 18 again.
1993 was near the end of my high school years; that period of my life that I hated. Yes, I had friends, good friends who have still remained a very strong part of my life, but there were also those bullies who made me miserable. I've wondered about those of the latter bunch, that if it weren't for them, would I have been so driven to get the *bleep* out of the city that I grew up in?
In 1993 when Tupac was still alive and Janet had a six-pack and braids, I was dreaming myself away from Scarborough.
Gawd how I hated that place.

Today I woke up.
Walked to the studio.
Responded to emails.
Worked on 2 rough sketches.
Had a phone meeting.
Worked on 1 final illustration.

TICK TICK TICK
I got back into town this morning, but spent most, if not all of my ride transcribing the notes from yesterday's class at MICA. Teaching this class is not only exciting, and exhausting but incredibly challenging as well because I have never had to assemble anyone other than myself to create a unified body of work. I don't feel only like an art director, but also like a project manager because. Like I said, this is such a fascinating experience because there are so many different facets of the production to coalesce. But more than anything we really don't know how The Snow Queen production is going to end up looking like.

I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a tinge of anxiety within me.
But I am no stranger to that feeling, and so, I expect it to surface especially when I try new things. This place of in-between that I talk and write so much about, well, I'm in it again. I think spending some time in there really helps to build character and separates me from my super ego because it's my super ego that tells me oftentimes that I should not do something because it is too challenging and therefore will make me sad, frustrated, or hurt. I can say that so far, I have felt only one of these feelings (frustration) but conversely the amount of positive feelings that I'm getting in return far outweighs that frustration.
I have also managed to quell this anxiety because I have such a slammin' group of students who are incredibly articulate, talented, charismatic and hard working, a fantastic director (who makes me feel like I'm in grad school studying theatre design even though I have never been to grad school), a brilliant producer who comes up with genius ideas even when he's been worked into the ground himself, and an extremely pragmatic and efficient theatre manager.
Wait, that sounded like I was just awarded an Oscar or Grammy.
Did I ever confess that I used to want to be a back-up dancer for Janet Jackson or some rnb group in the 80s like Bel Biv Devoe?
Tick
Tick
Tick
My day consisted of, as I started to explain, transcribing and simplifying my notes from the class' discussion about the production last night, and then to try to organize it in a way that could inspire new assignments, and how to make use of class time, and enlist the help of others to construct some of the parts for the production (I'm talking sets and costumes).
When I arrived at my studio, I immediately began to respond to emails, and then started to work on rough sketches that I have due for two tomorrow. I picked up three freelance gigs last Friday (which made me a bit nervous because I still have not settled into my new schedule of teaching at two schools, advising a graduate student, teaching one class online, working on my freelance illustration assignments and trying to watch the new season of Dexter at the bar down the street from where I live... ha!)
Again, I sound as though I'm complaining, but I'm not I'm describing some of my daily routines.
So in the midst of working on these rough sketches for clients, I was persuaded somehow to begin laying out some of the visuals from the Snow Queen production (you can see it at snowqueenremix.tumblr.com) only because I started to feel slightly overwhelmed about the possibility of not being able to create a sense of visual consistency amongst the images that I was receiving from my students.
The thing with me is that I have a tendency to think too much. That if my thoughts are not transcribed onto paper, then they continue to waft and curl around inside of my head. So I knew at that point that I had to appease this obsession of mine and so I pulled up some of the visuals that I had of my students work, which were beautifully done, by the way, and started to piece them together randomly to create pleasing and unified compositions. Honestly, I got lost in this process for a while, and then after posting it online, got back to my freelance work.
Now, I'm going to work for a bit more, and then head to SVA to check out the MFA Illustration students' book project exhibition. I'm excited to see the gorgeous work on display.
* The illustration at the top of the page was done for Reader's Digest; it's a piece about memory loss.

SHOW ME
I just got back from teaching not so long ago.

I don't want to mislead you, I didn't work right up until 11pm - I grabbed some dinner afterwards.
It was an incredibly exhausting, but wonderful class. David Drake who is my co-instructor at MICA and Director for The Snow Queen production was present today to help flesh out the direction of the production. The way the course is split up is that I will act as Art Director for the first half of the semester, while David will arrive mid-way to the end to finish up the visuals and begin the staging of the production. It was such good timing because we need all the time that we can get to resolve the visuals and make them cohesive within the production. Very difficult to accomplish since there are about 15 students in my class ranging from Sophomore, Junior, and Senior, all of whom have different points of view; however, I'm incredibly confident that it can be done.
Class discussion today was again very productive, much of the class seemed driven and enthusiastic to participate. I find that typically class revolves around critiques which are lead by the instructor and seldom inspires dialogue amongst the students whose work is not being analyzed - this is something that I have never really enjoyed, as both a student and as an instructor. Although I see the value in listening to and engaging in the critique of someone else's work, I also understand how it can quickly become mundane, and yes, I admit, uninteresting. But today's class did not feel that way at all to me.
Perhaps part of it has to do with the fact that this experience is equally new for me, as it might be for most of the students, and even though I understand how similar the process of creating the visuals for a theatre production can be aligned to the process of illustration, there is still a great amount of knowledge to be learned. I wrote about change in the previous entry, and I probably will do so again in future entries. Change in this case means challenge for me, to position myself humbly within a new situation and truly become open to new ways of approaching image making. As much as I can see the similarities between theatre design and illustration, the translation from the latter to the former does not happen as quickly as I would like for it to. Still, I conceive that I've tried enough new things that lay outside of my discipline to know that nobody was ever born an expert, and that it's the trying-and-failing, and trying-and-questioning, and trying-and-trying that will lead to a person success. Passion, persistence, sincerity and humility might not ensure me a gold medal within my profession, but it does make my heart feel good.

* The image at the top of the page is done by Alexa and Danielle, two of my students from MICA; the images were two illustrations for The Snow Queen production that I pieced together, and adjusted in Photoshop to create a digital collaboration.

LISTS

After watching about 5 episodes of Lost, Season 3 yesterday evening I realized at around 9:30pm that I had another set of sketches that would be due on Monday. Gasp! This meant that I wasn't able to head out last night, as I intended. In any event, I've been pretty beat up from the schedule that I've been keeping as of late.
I've begun teaching at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) on Mondays, which means that I have to commute to Baltimore Monday mornings, teach a 5-6 hour class, and then head back to New York on Tuesday to get back to my freelance work. I'm not the only one, however, Frank Stockton, bad-ass illustrator is doing the same, although he teaches a 12 hour day. That said, he is several years younger than me, so it must be those young genes that keep him vivacious.
Has anyone ever called you vivacious, Frank?

Today I woke up at around 7am because my dog was barking to tell me that she went pee in the bathroom, and therefore wanted her snack. I tried to ignore her, but then decided to wake up. I figured that if I got some work done earlier, then I could free up the rest of my day, and then maybe finish up the last bit of my work in the evening. Sundays are the days when my boyfriend and I hang out since both of us work so much; it's necessary to keep my personal life intact instead of pouring every part of my soul into my art because I've learned that those good feelings associated with achievement and recognition that I receive from my career, as important as they are, can be fleeting. That's not to say that I take them for granted; my career is incredibly important, but equally, it can become really lonely when all I have is my career to keep me company. I should know, I've tried it, and I don't like. Still, it continues to be an incredible to challenge to balance my personal and professional lives.
After leaving my apartment, I made my way to a cafe a few blocks away where I decided to have my breakfast and respond to some interview questions for a book for which I'll be contributing. I had almost forgotten about that as well. This has been happening quite often - my forgetfulness. I don't want to attribute it to middle-age memory loss, or the embryonic stages of early alzheimer's (knock... knock... knock...on wood) but I think it has more to do with the fact, that I've had more-to-do in addition to my freelance illustration work. I said to my intern the other day that I'm finding that I have so much paperwork and other peripheral things to do in addition to actually drawing. I spend the first couple of hours in the morning, sifting through emails, writing people back, invoicing, booking keeping, doing office administrative tasks that when I'm done with those things I have to take a few minutes to exhale and then start the next component of my day. This of course doesn't happen everyday, but it happens often enough that I come to expect it to occur.
As a result, I've started to keep lists like the one that is posted at the top of this entry. It's my action list, and it's taken from a book that I'm currently reading called, "Making Ideas Happen" by Scott Belsky, founder of Behance - the design Think-tank in New York. My friend who works there gave me a copy, which I began to read immediately.
Through anecdotes and case studies Scott presents ways in which creative types can learn to organize their lives, via maintaining and prioritizing their to-do lists, in order to grow their businesses. Yes, I wrote life not career, because it includes one's personal and business lives; it's the marriage of these two things that quantifies the idea of fulfillment. It's been tough to try to keep this list up from day-to-day, and I've missed a few days here and there, but so far doing so has prevented me from getting too distracted working on things outside of what must be done in the present.

So when I arrived into the studio I responded to some emails, critiqued a student's sketch from the class that I teach at SVA (School of Visual Arts) and then I began to work on my rough sketchs, which I'll aim to finish this afternoon/evening, and then put on the finishing touches to my illustrations for Runner's World, after which I'll complete my aforementioned interview, and then go over my notes for Monday's class.
Phewf.
Thank goodness for that list.