365 Shopping Free Days: Success makes up for failure, right?

So I shopped. Big whoop! I'm making up for it this week and then some!

Keep on reading if you want to find out how I got the following feedback this week:

"I love that you have samples of what they wood look like inside the home!!!! How very cool. I don't know how you did that."

"Guess what? Got my first order. $30 already received. BOOM!"

Not surprised! Congrats!!!

"I'm so impressed with you! LOVING the creative get in done attitude!

"Impressive! Nice work babe, I love this determined organized side of you. "

All of my life, I’ve been in to art and the creation of anything and everything. In Art courses growing up, I found my mind in a happy place and my teachers agreed. Every other class, I got in trouble. I blame the boredom. The teachers blamed me and simply sent me to the principal’s office day after day. Not in Art class. That’s where everything started coming together for me and being the competitive person that I am, I flourished with the responses I got. To this day, you can still find some of my early Jr. High art on my teacher’s website.

What I do still have, is A.D.D.!

I danced in paints, mostly oil paints. I think I chose oil because it’s moveable, and mistakes are easily covered. It could have been the scent too. I graduated from sniffing rubber cement to enjoying the comfort of the scent oil paints so naturally emit.

Anyway, my new found solace in all things artistic lead me to an education (partial) in graphic design. I took a random course to get there by being coerced into a degree in technology from DeVry University in Phoenix. How I got coaxed into their sales pitch, I’ll never know, but I’m glad I did because I wouldn’t be where I am today without wasting thousands upon thousands of dollars at DeVry. Across the street from DeVry in Phoenix, AZ, the lovely Art Institute begged me to enroll day after day. I finally gave in. After a quick conversation about the responsibility of financial aid, I was enrolled and ever anxious for classes to begin! I immediately fell in love with this school. Instantly I had that same special feeling I discovered as a kid. My professors were amazing and they took a liking to me. Except for Mr. Kirshenbaum. He taught Typography. He was engaging, imaginative, and intense. I was stoked to take his class. That was until he gave me a “C” on my first assignment. Lindsay doesn’t get C’s. I was pissed off because my first Type project was clearly the best in the class. He pulled me aside after our projects were returned most likely because he knew I’d be upset. I asked:
“How did you give me a “C?” My project is obviously the best on the wall!” Yes, I was 19 and that was an appropriate response and probably verbatim.

“How long did this take you to put together?” He politely asked, ignoring my ignorance.

“I don’t know, a couple hours, I did it last night.” I spouted proudly, disregarding his humbling tone.

“Everyone else spent many hours over many days working on theirs.”

“Okay, mine’s still better.” Duh, I think. I’m not getting the point here…

“I agree that that quality and originality of yours is superior. However, a ‘few hours’ isn’t sufficient for the type of work you should be producing. Lindsay, you have talent. I expect nothing but the best from you and that means at least doubling the time you spend on your assignments for my class. When it’s evident you took the time to care about what you are delivering, only then will I give you an A.”

Imagine 19 year old Lindsay standing there flabbergasted. This is long before my years of refinement that have made me into the upstanding and highly professional citizen you know today. ;)

That night as I removed my sweater from the over air-conditioned building and packed it into my JansPort red backpack to enter into the 90 degree heat wave, I began to think. Lets just say it didn’t take me forever to finally realize what he was saying. Now to fast forward to the part where I was able to recognize him giving me a C as a compliment and not an incredible idiotic oversight, we’d have to skip a week or two of frustration. Eventually I accepted his challenge and began to focus deeply into each assignment. How he was willing and able to recognize immediately what many of my teachers early in life blamed on insubordination and disregard of authority I’ll never know, but I will forever be grateful for his intuition and frank approach. It’s exactly what I needed to help me develop my talents beyond the surface level. That just because I exuded more natural talent, I wasn’t exempt from giving my all. I’m competitive, and he challenged me in a way no one ever had before.

Now, I still compare myself to other people, but I also learned to challenge myself. I’ve also recently discovered that I don’t need anyone to hold me accountable…that I can offer that service to myself. Whodda thunk it?

So anyway, with my newfound self challengment, I wanted to keep the edge of being unique, I translated a lot of my oil painting talent into digital art. I had to borrow the school camera to make this happen. One assignment from Mr. Hero Kirshenbaum was to photograph close-ups of easily recognizable everyday items and make them into art. This assignment fostered the beginning of a long courtship between me and film. I fell in love with the world through the lens of a camera. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of photos documenting my development. Prior to the age of 15, there are a little more than a dozen photos of me; probably because I was the 5^th kid out of 6. By that point, capturing ‘moment’s’ probably lost its appeal. After 14ish, there are a million and one photos of me all from disposable cameras developed at Bi-Low or something similar. I could wallpaper my entire house with self portraits and random-unimportant moments of my Jr. High + High School days.

I went through crappy pocket camera after crappy pocket camera, always losing or breaking them. My Lumix got stolen 4 Halloween’s ago. It wasn’t until I was saved by the grace of Trevor Dean LaRowe that I stopped living paycheck to paycheck and began to actually save money like a responsible adult. I saved up for my first real DSLR camera. A Nikon D60. I’ve had it for a few years, I still don’t know how to use any of the special features, but somehow It captures nature more perfectly than my natural eye. I keep saying I’m going to take a class, and I’ve even had offers by some incredibly talented colleagues, but have yet to learn more than a few things about the functionality of the amazing machine. Add that to my leap list: take an intermediate digital photography class. My A.D.D. is really kicking in right now. Hail to the queen of non-sequitor thoughts!

Ooooh, so I started this to talk about my accomplishments this week! I’m so proud of myself. I FINALLY began the process to do something to spread my art with the potential of making money. I listed it on Etsy! You can see the right side of my brain by clicking here: http://lilastore.etsy.com .

Let me know what you think. I didn’t do a whole lot of research about how much to charge for photography, so if you have any thoughts about the best way to get them printed/delivered, please please please, let me know!!!

Also, I’ll give anyone the blog discount of 20% off! Let me know what, if anything, you’re interested in! My goal is to have my original art up on etsy in the near future. I have an entire Harry Potter room full of art, photography, and paintings new and old that I need to get up and get selling!

And now it’s time for:

Final Thoughts by Lindsay!

To find true happiness: love your friends, love your wife, love your family, love your husband. Do all of this by first: loving yourself!