New Beginnings

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I feel as though I need to introduce myself as a newbie blogger. Come to think of it, that is fitting. After all, I began this blog in July 2007. Now, here I am coming back after a long absence and doing it a few days after my fifth anniversary as a blogger.

My absence was not about being lazy, traveling, or being tired of blogging. When I was first struck with the notion that it would be interesting to explore marketing some of my prints, I thought that was I fairly well prepared. I am curious, by nature, and had long made time to read articles on the pitfalls and strategies for art sales. Certainly, in the beginning, I read the material strictly out of curiosity. But then, I couldn't resist dipping a toe into the water. Talk about slippery slopes! The next thing I knew I was neck deep in art shows and flailing to stay afloat. Yikes! I have to get out of this deep water metaphor. There is history here.

I do have a habit of getting into things that are over my head. When I was young and even more foolish, I took up water-skiing in spite of the fact that I was never able to learn to swim. That is, unless you count dog paddling for a couple of yards, at best. Still, my desire to get up on those skis overpowered my fear of drowning and ski I did. I even had a grand time doing it. Those life vests make you feel indestructible—provided you haven't yet hit your twenties and your brain hasn't begun to grasp the concept of mortality.

My foray into selling my work reminds me of that person I was long ago. Here I am older—oh, so keenly aware of my mortality—yet diving into things without considering all the possibilities. Yes, I thought long and hard about the preparations for this venture, and I felt pretty darned ready. Hey, I had my bright orange life vest at the ready, didn't I? What I didn't anticipate was handling the sales and keeping up with all that entailed.

Reminds me of the night we took the skis out on a lake waiting for the moon to come up. Of course we hadn't checked to see when the moon was rising! Are you kidding? I was a kid a very long time ago. One didn't pull up that info on a smartphone, because we didn't even have cell phones for Pete's sake. There we were on a vast body of water—one well-stocked with Water Moccasins—under pitch black skies (no city light lights for many, many miles), racing along atop the inky water and laughing like the numbskulls we were. It hadn't occurred to us how the driver of the boat would find us when one us went down. Since the other silly female on skis was even more a novice than I, she went down first. That is when it finally hit me that I had to drop the rope out there in that thick darkness and wait, trusting.

I have had flashbacks on that experience during the last few weeks. Still, just as my young and foolish self had faith, so have I. Back then, I didn't really dwell on the fact that we could be run over by some other nut jobs tearing around that lake and unable to spot a body bobbing up and down thanks only to an inflated orange vest. Now I am taking this adventure one day at a time. I try to stay calm while dealing with a perpetual state of lagging behind my ambitions and barely meeting deadlines.

It has been a great ride, so far. After all, there are no deadly poisonous snakes on this body of water. Yippee! Crank up that engine! Faster, faster!