"Blonde Senior Moments"

(I'm going off track a bit here from the art/craft thing, but it's sometimes good to know that you're not the only one who can do something incredibly dumb or embarassing. So I offer up this little tale as a public service to those suffering from age-related foot-in-mouth disorder.)
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Ok, so I'm not exactly 'senior' and while my hair may be 3 or 4 different colors, blonde isn't one of them. But, the 'moments' are.
I'm sort of watching this aging thing happen from the sidelines as if it's not happening to me, but to someone who looks and sounds like me. The reason for this could be one of two things: denial, or the more interesting choice: the soul watching the body. Yes, that one fits better, I think. I'm much too realistic to be in THAT much denial :-)

I always tell young people, especially the ones who think 'old people' (as in over 30) are from another solar system, "Just wait, you'll find out that no matter how old you get, you're still you. You're the same person with one exception: random body parts start hurting for absolutely no reason and it's very confusing."

I can look at anyone, no matter their age and regress them in my head. They're 70, then 40, then 20, then 12. It's something I learned to occupy myself with while on buses when I was a kid because where I lived, if you looked at someone in what they thought was the 'wrong way' you could get beat up or worse.

So I concentrated on the old folks and it worked.

Anyway, what brought all this about is something that happened the other day. I sort of take pride in the fact that there are very few times I've really put my foot in my mouth and it hasn't happened in years, until this past Thursday.

There's a great Italian deli right around the corner and I go there a couple of times a week to reinforce my 'roots'. This place is the real deal, just like the markets my grandmother brought me to when we lived in Jersey, where the owners thought I was 'too skinny' and wanted to fatten me up.

By the time I was 12, I must have eaten thousands of dollars (by today's $20 per pound standards) worth of prosciutto, roasted chick peas ('cheechee beans') and pepperoni. The owner would hand me a huge chunk of meat or cheese, or bag of chick peas and while he and Gram were chatting, I'd walk around eating and staring at the piles of homemade pasta in wooden boxes, barrels of dried beans and that strange board-like stuff called baccala.

The deli here is kind of like that: hard cheeses in ropes hanging from the ceiling, every type of salami one could ever imagine, lots of different olive oils and vinegars, fresh pasta and mozzarella made in the store, anchovies in bulk, an amazing bakery area (the real thing, not the crap you see in supermarkets), 10 kinds of espresso, loads of olives, hot pickled peppers and those weird, greyish-tan cherries in a jar that have been sitting in brandy since Mussolini was in power. About 80% of the packages are printed in Italian--this is the good stuff.

The shop is run by a bunch of guys, all 'familia' (of course), and they remember what each customer likes, who wants their sopressata cut on an angle, who doesn't want seeds on their bread and if you get there at the right time, you can taste things the second they come out of the kitchen--you get the idea.

Joe is the boss, a real nice guy; a rugged looking, sturdy, grey haired man with a gravelly voice and thick accent. I'd guess he's in his early/mid-60s or so. His is the classic New York immigrant story: born in Italy, came over as a kid, worked his butt off his entire life and will never retire because working is just 'what you do'.

So I went in there on Thursday and as usual he asked about my mother, work, whatever and we drifted into a discussion about the current situation here and in the world in general. He said even with all the nutty things that go on here in the U.S., it's still THE place to be, and he beamed with pride while talking about being a citizen. It was nice to see.

He then told me about a time when he was in the service and got stuck in France overnight, then stuck in Germany (some kind of red tape problem), and I blurted out:
"When was this Joe, World War 2?"

This no sooner came out of my mouth than my foot was firmly implanted in it. In a nanosecond I saw his face, heard my words, my brain rewound and I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. The man is maybe only 10 or 15 years older than me! My father was in WWII and if he was still alive he'd be 94 years old, so it's not hard to figure out.

Thing is, since I don't 'feel' like I'm 51, I responded like I wasn't. He was the 'older person', not me.

So I had one of my first Blonde Senior Moments--God forbid it continues; I'll go live in a cave to spare people from dealing with it, and me.

Poor Joe. Of course, he was polite and said 'nahh, it was way after that' and laughed. That's how these people are: gracious, friendly and everybody's like 'familia'. They yell sometimes, but it's more of a way of communicating rather than out of anger. You have a problem, it ends, you laugh, and then you eat.

Ciao.

2nd Attempt, Locked in, All Systems Go

Ok, so here we go again. I WILL keep this thing up from now on.
This is what's planned so far:

-Interviews with my (and soon, your) favorite artists/craftspeople.
-Reviews of great stuff found online.
-Reports on shows, fairs and other events.
-New work and W.I.P.
-Creative riting as the urge hits me.
-Opinions, often on the curmudgeon-y side. Very often, actually.
-Etsy news from the Artsfarm shop.
and today's topic:
"Thanks to the nice people who have featured Artsfarm on their blogs"
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Below are some of the blogs that have featured Artsfarm lately. Many thanks to them all, I really appreiate it!

An interview I did back in May by the EtsyVintage Street Team
A Chat with Artsfarmstudios

VINTAGE INDIE (Artsfarm received the first-ever VintagePulse 'Peer Award'!)

JODISCRAFTEMPORIUM (Rose quartz heart necklace, black velvet bag)

SUNSHINE CITY LASSIE (Vintage buttons)

JUST MY CUP OF TEA (Vintage Trifari brooch)

DAILY OUTFITTING (Smoky Quartz Earrings)

THE VINTAGE ZOO (Vintage Lace Doilies Used in Darla's New Scarf)

FASHION ME FABULOUS (Glass Fruit Bracelet)

PESKY CAT DESIGNS (Vintage Vegetable Ivory Buttons)

THEN & NOW (A gallery of various artisans' work, then...and now)

SNICKER-SNACK (Vintage sellers with 'alter-egos')

PAST PRESENTS SHOP (Vintage teacup/saucer set)

INDIE GALS (Aventurine Leaf Necklace)

I think that's it, but if I find any others, I'll be sure to add them to the list.

Launching...

Well, hello.

I've been putting off starting this thing because there are so many ways to start, so many directions to go in that it makes my brain hurt. So the solution seems to be to just let it rip and see what happens. Hopefully, it will take its own care & feeding upon itself at some point, and I'll not have to deal with the 'blank white page' issue so often. The really cool thing is there is no right or wrong because, well...it's my blog he heh.

I guess I'll start at the top, literally. The title of this was originally going to be "The Starving Artist, Daily Curmudgeon, Indigo Blues from the Chrysalis". I like the rhythm of it, it has meaning and encompasses pretty much everything that I think, feel and do. (Why this is all relevant will come to light at some point--stay tuned) But there already is a blog called "The Daily Curmudgeon" (how dare they!). Plus, if I did leave it at the original version it is a bit long for practical purposes. So we'll stick with the abbreviated one.

As for the rest, I am a 'starving artist'. Not literally "starving" (I am Italian, after all), but I'm smart enough to know that as an artist I'm nowhere close to where I should be, and recognize that sacrifices have to be made to get there. This is not uncommon; if anyone ever thinks they've learned and done all there is to know and do, they're lying to themselves. I've come to the realization that I cannot (not 'won't, but really 'can't') make a living or spend the majority of my time doing something that isn't a creative expression of some kind.

Unfortunately, society as a whole hasn't caught up with that reality, and it can knock our kind around quite a bit. (More on that later--have I got some stories on 'bucking the system' and all that entails) I will however, go without all the trappings of a normal American lifestyle as a welcome tradeoff to working at what I love, and must do. You have to make a choice and figure out if you really need the little 'luxuries' that everyone seems to think are necessary. I don't, and this is a good thing. It's not hard, really, and makes for a reasonable facsimile of 'contentment' for what it's worth.

"From the Chrysalis" is the title of a poem that I wrote when I was 17 and is another thing that will come up at some point here, at another time."Indigo Blues" is the working title of a book of poetry and drawings that has been in the queue for quite a while which I hope to get it into tangible form very soon. Indigo, yes :-)

All I'll say about that right now is to direct you to these two sites:
http://indigolifecenter.wordpress.com/
http://metagifted.org/

Great organizations, great people. Check 'em out; it may save you a lot of grief.



"But artsfarm, what is the purpose of all this anyway, and why should we even read this drivel of yours?"

Well, several reasons, Bunky.

Basically, I've seen a lot and have way too much stored in this head of mine that needs somewhere to go. I like to talk, and to write. I figure if any of it can help someone along the way, all the better. It's always easier to deal with something if we know someone else has been through it. If we have to go through crap in our lives, it may as well have some value, even if not to us directly ('waste not, want not' and all that).

One thing that I hope to address is kids, young and old, who are artists and/or indigos. Being either type is hard enough, but being both and surviving takes some major work. The indigo thing is touched on above, so we'll elaborate on that later. But first-art, or rather, 'the arts'--music, writing, and all the rest, as well as the more traditional aspects like drawing, painting, etc.

There is an overwhelming number of folks who think they don't have any artistic ability at all, and the problem is that virtually everyone does, but have been 'trained' to believe otherwise by parents, siblings, teachers etc. That is a crime, plain & simple, and if I can get through to even one person the FACT that we all have innate creativity that just needs to be recognized and developed, then I've done my job.

This blog is just one of several self-indulgent ways to fix my own stuff so I can move on. So we're in this together, kids.


So that's all for now; I have to get some work done here, and will be back to continue this strange ride as soon as I can.

See ya!
-artsfarm.

*Now playing: "Easter" by Patti Smith. Get it NOW.