lo and behold

I am so, so, so excited – and I feel like a madwoman!

I have made a decision, and signed on the dotted line.

In April, I am putting myself on a plane and flying myself down to Austin, TX to take a three-day glass class with Heather Trimlett at Blue Moon Glassworks. Check this out:   Marbles. Buttons. Beads.  One each day.  Can you imagine anything better?

And then, in May, I am driving myself down to New Jersey and taking a two-day glass class with Kristina Logan at Carlisle School of Glass Art . Two whole days – I think the title is something like Take Your Bead Making to the Next Level. 

I am looking at five days of glass instruction and inspiration with women whose beads I love and admire, whose aesthetics feel near to my own, artists who are nationally and internationally recognized for their skill and their pioneering efforts in the bead making world. These women have fingerprints, and I’m ready to have them all over me.  They feel like mentors – not that they are going to take me under wing and become my best friend or anything, but I feel quite differently about learning from them than I did about the Italian glass master that I wrote about a few weeks ago.   I would feel nervous about taking his class – that I wasn’t good enough yet, that I’m not so interested in sculpture so maybe it’s not a good idea to spend time tinkering in it. . . .but for these two classes, I am nothing but thrilled to death!

I’m still a babe when it comes to this lampwork stuff, and taking these two classes, and even in such proximity to each other, feels like an amazing opportunity to feel as if I really was in art school.  I took two glass classes last year, and they were great, but I made the choices based on what was close by, what times worked, basically, what was simplest.  But now, I am making decisions with intention and direction.  And apparently, I’m willing to go far to get what I think I need to become the artist I want to be!   These five days are going to fuel me for the rest of the year.

Two months in a row – that’s what makes me feel like a madwoman.  This is where the “middle age, midlife” thing comes into play.  I am leaving my family, spending money, and doing something for. my. self. And it makes me just want to grin from ear to ear. 

But it’s not even totally for myself.  Or rather, it’s not like it’s just spending five days by myself on a beach in the Caribbean (but that wouldn’t be so bad either).  I’m trying to build a new business.  A creative business. The creative business that I did not manage to build from my writing skills.  Until now, I’ve made almost all the decisions about my work life around what would keep me most flexible and available for my job as a mother.  I gave things up.  Sometimes knowingly, and sometimes not so much.  I don’t regret that I did, but now, I want a work life that nurtures me, and I know that flying to Austin, TX is part of what it will take to make that happen.  And other people will give things up, for me.

So, why does it make me feel like a madwoman?  I think it happens to a lot of women and a lot of moms.  We lose ourselves along the way – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.  If you had asked me when I got married if I would “lose myself” in motherhood, I would have laughed in your face. I was in my early thirties, I was a strong feminist, a deep thinker, a woman of ideas and integrity.  I knew what I wanted and what I didn’t. But ya know, it didn’t go as smoothly as I expected.  I’m certainly not the first for whom that is true. 

When I told my a local friend about my plan for Austin, and said that I felt like a madwoman, she looked at me and said, “I need to find my madness.”  She is a creative soul, and she knew exactly what I was talking about.  And she will find her madness, I know. It’s part of how and why we are friends. 

The more I make choices that make me feel like a madwoman, the sooner those kinds of choices will be the “new normal” and not madness at all. 

P.S.  Come back to tomorrow.  I’m giving out presents to celebrate my madness!