Life is a job and it takes work
It’s all happening.
Dear Reader,
A bit of housekeeping before I start. Perhaps you realized that I changed the title of my newsletter. Why you might ask? I decided to called the newsletter Moon's Day because it comes out on Mondays and Monday was named for the moon. The literal translation is moon day. The moon governs our emotions, intuition, and more nurturing motherly qualities. The moon is the symbol of change as the moon ebbs and flows moving through many phases. I thought this name best represented me and what I intend to create here.
Life is a job and it takes work
Everything we do in life is work either personally or professionally. So we show up day after day amidst successes and failures, knowing that the things that are really worth it take a whole lot of work.
As an artist, I ask myself all of the time how much I will choose to suffer/sacrifice for my work. To be clear, I acknowledge the fact that being able to choose is a privilege. And, when I say suffer for my work I'm not speaking of depriving myself, I'm referring to how much work I'm willing to put into an offering. More often than not, I am willing to put in as much work as possible to realize what I want to create, regardless of compensation.
Sometimes there is a balance with this, and sometimes there isn't. I've had ideas that involved an immense amount of work that I release into the world, and even though I was pleased with what I created, no one else was. That's all part of the process. And I will continue to do it again, and again, and again.
When I've talked to other artists, I find it interesting that even if you're not supporting yourself full- time, if you do receive compensation for your work, then, it is a job. However, we never refer to what we do as a job. We reference our work or our projects, but we don't use the word job to describe what we do. Is it perhaps because it doesn't feel like a job? Maybe because for the most part, we make our own rules? I don't know the reason, but it's interesting, isn't it? At least it is to me.
But what about our practices and rituals in life? Those take work too. I have things that I do for myself and I show up and make the effort every day to do these things that help me in life.
Some of my practices
- Making time for my family
- Daily yoga
- Walking my dog
- Gardening
- Hiking
- Spending as much time in nature as possible
- Playing guitar and sometimes piano
- Reading
- Morning pages
All of these things and more, make me who I am, and I'm sure that they inform my work as well. But, is there a difference in how I show up for my practices and how I show up for my work? There might be. But, I know that I would probably not be able to do my job without the practices that support and uplift me. I would be a different person without them because it's all connected. What do you do for yourself, reader? Are there practices in your life that you couldn't live without?
I love my job. And, I've certainly had many jobs in my life that I didn't love, and some that I even hated. I'm beyond grateful that this is what I get to do for a living. Of course, it takes a lot of work. I work constantly in one way or another, mostly behind the scenes and in my brain. Sometimes things work out, and sometimes they don't, but I'm willing to keep showing up every day. I have an amazing family and I wouldn't be who I am without them. We all work together every day to be the people we are individually and together. Even though life is a job and it takes work, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Circling back to sacrifices we make for our art, leads me to a decision I made on Saturday. It was a bit impulsive, but as a person who leads with her emotions, spontaneity is often inevitable. I woke up on Saturday and just felt that I didn't want a photo archive of my work to exist on instagram, which is a space that isn't exclusively mine. So, I deleted all of my photos and reels, and screen shot anything I wanted to save. The photos of my work that don't already exist on my website will be moved there in the sold work/archive/portfolio category.
I've been doing a lot of deep research and consideration regarding what's next for my business, which has led me to an amazing podcast called, * Off The Grid-Leaving Social Media Without Losing All of Your Clients*. If you've been having doubts or you're struggling with your relationship to social media, I would highly recommend it. It took me a long time to build up my followers on my instagram, but such is life, and as the title of this week's newsletter states, it takes work. After all, what does the number really matter when no one sees my posts anyway?
This whole process of exiting social media has given me my writing practice back again and made me want to create everything in so many different ways.
- Clothing and accessories
- Art
- Writing zines and self-publishing small books
- Getting involved in community projects
- Perhaps classes and workshops locally and online
Last week I started working on a rough draft for my first zine and I dropped off a crochet square for a community project happening at Snake and Skein. If you've never gone there you should definitely check it out.
This week's links
Snake + Skein
Your local yarn shop full of fiber magic in Elizabethtown, PA!
Where you'll find me selling my wares next
- The Big Bloom Second Sunday Art Market. Warehouse District Beer Garden 555 N Charlotte St. Lancaster Sunday, July 13 1pm-6pm
The only brick and mortar store where you can buy my work locally
https://www.riverpearlstudio.comIf you don't think this newsletter sucks and you know someone who might like it, I would be so grateful if you recommended it. I plan on bumping up my plan to the next tier on this platform sometime in July, so you will then be able to comment. I'm pretty excited about that.
In the meantime, please feel free to email me if you'd like.
Have a wonderful week.
xo,
Christa
Thanks for reading-I’m glad you’re here.