Once more into the breach

So, back again. I have had a couple of weeks with kids home for the school holidays and am now back to work all energised and enthusiastic, which is important, because a lot of things are going on with me at the moment.

Firstly, the mosaic mirror frame I am making for our bathroom is progressing nicely. I have been a little confused about the creation of this - I thought it would be a hell of a lot easier than it is. Apparently the random placement of tesserae is not as randomly easy as I expected it to be, and I have really struggled at times to produce anymore than a small square of work in a single afternoon session in the studio. 'Fraught', is the word that comes to mind. 'Tense' and 'painful', like a tooth extraction, are other apt expressions.

I have perservered, however, and have just installed the top frame of the mosaic into the bathroom (see picture). I am hoping to gauge, from this small piece of the work-in-progress, what the completed artwork will look like.

And I love it. I LOVE it. The colours are perfect in the bathroom, and all the shiny bits and fiddly bits and flowing bits don't look 'bitty' at all - they have coalesced into something bigger than the sum of the parts, which is the ultimate point of any creative endeavour, I have always thought. I think it looks fab, very different from what I usually make, and I am all inspired to dive back in to the murky depths of 'fraughtness' and fight the good fight once more.

Second big thing in my life is the finalisation of the competition I held across all my media sites - blog, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In. The prize was one of five mosaic pendants, and, as the competition has now finished, I have to select the winners at random and send them their prizes. The trouble is, while the competition got quite a few 'Likes' across the board, people were also supposed to repost it or share it, and most didn't. So what do I do with that? Members of my family followed the instructions, bless them, but it seems a little weird to be giving them the prizes, especially 'cause I can send them a pendant anytime they want, competition or not. I think I shall just get all the names together and stab at them with a pen until I have five winners, (note to Self - use a good promo tool next time) but I can't say I think the competition has been a big success. I have received a little more traffic on my IG and FB sites, but nothing that makes me crack open the bubbly yet. Still, early days and all that.

I think a little more market research and some small business skills training is needed.

It does get hard to remember that I am committed to this process for at least a year, regardless of results along the way. I have had those defeatist 'why bother? No-one is listening anyway' thoughts dribble through my mind now and then, but I am doing my best to ignore them and focus on the process. If nothing else comes of it, I will, at least, have a year of my existence recorded in some small form, preferably a form that is most flattering to me. And seeing as how I am the creator of that form, I'd say that's a pretty good bet!

Another big thing at the moment is that I start teaching next week at the Byron Community College. I am really excited about this. The College very kindly gave my Mosaics for Beginners photo and spiel a half page spread in the Course Brochure, so I am hopeful of having a full class of excited students. I love teaching. I haven't taught adults for a very long time, and even then it has mainly been active things like SCUBA diving, CPR and swimming. So this will be something a little new for me. I have to start preparing my Powerpoint presentation for the first class straight after finishing this blog post. I am, after all, a professional.

And the final big thing in my life is the broody mama. She has sat on her clutch of eggs for five long weeks. So long in fact, that they have, quite literally, gone off. The smell has been getting a little serious, but she is so committed to them we don't have the heart to just throw them all away. She'd be a sad little mama with nothing to show for her months of effort. So, last night, we crept down after dark when all the chooks and ducks were asleep, and smuggled three day-old chicklets under her soft, warm wings. Hopefully she'll think they are her own little hatchlings and she can fulfil her mama needs.

This morning they are still alive, so we can but hope.

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