Taking it to the next level- The 2nd Floor Challenge

I've been going through a mini creative crisis this year.
It is an increasing challenge to stop all the internal chatter and just create.
There is always the question-who am I making this for?
Usually I'm making something just so it can go up here.
Perhaps that is why my work has so little influence.
It has no unique voice yet.
I made a promise to myself many years ago that when I got older I would write. I would create.
I would take many MANY pictures.
But I got lost along the way.
I decided chasing a corporate career and making money was important.
And I failed.
Spectacularly.

So now I am going back to that original promise and taking my talent seriously.
I am working on developing both my writing and my creative "voice".
I am an artist. Not just a hobbyist.
So when I read Julie Fei Fan Balzer's intro post on the Second Floor challenge.
I felt she was talking to me personally.

I've heard:
- Artists do not take photos of babies and family.
- People who call themselves "artists" are pretentious.
- Artists are too busy creating to run around calling themselves artists.

I let those statements quiet me for a while.
I've been called pretentious so many times I've internalized it and added it to the long list of labels for describing me.
Why is it ok to apply that negative label but not the more open and neutral label of artist?

The first step to any serious endeavor is deciding where you are headed.
You may detour many times along the way (it's fun) but you should have a clear vision of where you are going.
The final destination may change many times but to keep yourself motivated and focused those first few years you have to choose a path and GET TO WORK.

I choose the tools before me- a camera, some paper and some glue.
And I focus on WHAT I KNOW TO BE TRUE- my daughter, myself and my family.

So when I say I'm an artist, I'm thumbing my nose at convention AND taking what I do seriously.
Because I'm done pretending I'm "just a Mom".
I'm done calling what I do a "hobby" because I am so passionate about doing it I want to make it my career.

And so the need for the Second Floor Challenge.
I loved Nathalie Kalbach's Gold Paint post .
Using gold paint is the first challenge and its supposed to make you pause, freak out and think.
I love gold paint, gold glitter, gold thread but I have very little knowledge on how to use them effectively so this was a good chance to flex my creative muscle.

Here is what I came up with:

Toddler scribbles on water color paper painted over with gold paint. I sat on this for a
week. I tried a second page with Crafter's Workshop cloud stencils. I hated both.
So I combined the projects by cutting the clouds out and adding a sewn black border.
This could be more meaningful but for my first try at making something more abstract
 I can live with this. 

The Gauche alchemy punchinella is embedded in some Modge Podge.
The swallow chipboard is from Scrap FX.
I kinda wish I had added more of that black thread trailing from the clouds. 

A step in a long series of steps where the work isn't everything and the process also matters.
But I've never been very good at staying serious for long.

MuChOs SmOoChEs!
Michelle