Grow Time

It's no secret: Juggling a career and all the other demands of life can be tough. How many of us scramble around trying to pack it all in, only to fall into bed at night feeling like we could have used just a few more hours in the day?

Combine that with the demands of owning your own business, and you may find yourself running around like a chicken with its head cut off, dashing between business and personal tasks. Everyone functions differently, but my sanity solution has been to block-schedule everything. I do not combine work and home. At all. I literally have a separate location for work, a wardrobe for the studio, and a separate name that I use in connection with my art. I pull on my painting jeans every morning and drive into my studio as Nicole Bourgea. Then I come home, change into my Nicole Gleason clothes and pick up my kiddlets from school. 

I realize that this is not for everyone. I have friends who love working from home. For me though, being able to separate career and family ensures that I can dive full-heartedly into each. I can be more present, more engaged and more productive when I block schedule. That may be why I appreciated this blog post from Penelope Trunk. She is a very successful entrepreneur with Asperger's, so her advice is very literal and intense. 

So I'm curious, any advice for packing more quality into the day? How do you handle the work life balance?

When Advertising Gets It Right

Most of the time, I daydream about moving to a place like Bhutan where I won't have to spend mental energy dodging the push and pull of companies trying to sell me happiness. Then today, I came across this ad:

This is why I love painting portraits. This is why I spent a year on my AS IS project.

There truly is a flame of life at the core of every person. It is so much more intensely beautiful than we let ourselves see. 

So try to look at yourself kindly today. You are alive and you are beautiful.

Ignoring the Price Tag

The first painting that I ever made was done with car touch-up paint on my bedroom wall...yup, most laid-back parents ever. There was something so freeing about using cheap, left over supplies to create. Mess up big time? No big deal.

 Flash forward a couple of decades, and I am sort of tip-toeing around these gorgeous, seven-foot maple panels with my expensive paints and gold leaf, scared to make any move that I can't take back. Maybe if this weren't a commissioned project for a public space, or maybe if the supplies didn't cost as much as my car, I'd be slinging paint like a machine.  As it stands though, knowing that those enormous wooden pieces were cut and hauled all the way up to my studio just for this project has me shaking in my boots. So send your brave thoughts my way Friends, because this alter wall is not going to paint itself!

Monday Match: Exhausted Edition

It has been a while...

This painting by Ramon Casas reminds me of this room via Living Etc and both images are straight up taunting me right now. So much work and yet so exhausted!  

Default

Do you know what happens when you are an artist who happens to think that her spouse is one good looking dude?

Every single male figure that you paint or draw starts to look vaguely like him! 

I'm serious. This 'generic' angel that I sketched out in preparation for a large sanctuary wall that I am painting, could be my husband...or at least a relative of his...eesh.

Time to call in some models.

Seriously though, thank you to the friends who have let me cajole them into being angels. You guys are the best!

Thank you to everyone who came out to the National Museum of Women in the Arts on Sunday to hear me speak about my Urban Portrait Project and Anna Ancher's work!

It was an absolute honor.

Inspiration

Have you ever found yourself charging into a project...

with what you believe is an incredible attack plan...

only to find yourself suddenly in the dark and not so sure anymore?

It is a sad place to be.

Sometimes though, when you're lucky, a new light brightens a little of the darkness.

Then everything that you see glows with it...

 and you feel like singing along.

Thank you Kay Nielsen and Ivan Bilibin for the unexpected inspiration!