Starting a new business

I finally stopped talking, and took the plunge today, setting up an Etsy shop. I've been batting the idea around for a few years now, never getting to the point where I actually made the effort to put my words into action. It was always something I'd do "someday," or "when I have the time," or whatever. I had plenty of excuses for why NOW was never a good time. It'd come up in conversation, and I'd list out my ideas and plans, brainstorming as I went....but it never led to anything concrete.

I'm really good at making work but not much selling it. I've probably got over 50 paintings and collages sitting in my parents' basement right now (and another dozen or two stalled works-in-progress). I had a full time retail job for four and a half years that sucked away too much of my energy and focus. By the time I'd get home from work, I'd be too tired to do more than poke around in my studio for a bit. I only had time to work in bits and pieces. I was actually pretty productive, but just didn't have the mental energy to focus on setting up my art as a business.

And then last year, I totally fell off the art making wagon. I barely made anything of consequence in 2012. I wasn't feeling very motivated artistically, and it didn't help that my job was taxing my energy levels more and more. You only have so much to go around when you live with chronic health issues. Then, I started dating Colin, which was absolutely life changing...but I had a decision to make. I had to decide where I was going to focus my energy. Art? Or my relationship? I wasn't going to commit to both and then half-ass it. I knew I had to really commit to one and let the other slide (for a time). I chose Colin. Which turned out well:

photo by Steve Coleman

So, we got married in February, and I quit my job right before our wedding. I didn't have a plan for what I would do next, but I knew I couldn't keep working in retail. I didn't have another job lined up, but after talking with Colin at length about it, we decided that would be the best course of action. My knees, legs and feet were hurting all the time. On my days off, I always had to ration my energy and turn down doing anything that was too draining.
When I quit, I suddenly felt amazing. I felt so energetic and alive--it was quite a dramatic change!

After settling into married life, getting our new apartment in order and just adjusting to a new life, I started job hunting. I've been applying to jobs since February, landing a few interviews here and there, but no solid leads. The market is still competitive, especially for the entry level office positions I've been applying for.

In my free time, I've been getting back into making art more regularly again. But living in a one bedroom apartment, I have less art creating space and need to be more intentional about my projects. I've already finished one street art project in the last couple months. It was a simple, small series and didn't take long to make and distribute. I wanted to settle into my next big, long term project, but didn't want to clutter up my apartment with artwork collecting dust. And I was ready to transition away from the assemblages I'd been making since college. I had started feeling like I was just repeating myself; my work didn't feel like it was evolving or going in any new directions. Being without a job and a lot of free time on my hands, I'd been feeling a bit directionless over the last couple months.

And then my older brother sent me over 50 small boards (about 4inx6in) as a wedding present (art materials are always a great gift!). A small germ of an idea started growing, and I realized now would be the perfect time to finally create that Etsy shop. Here was a chance to challenge myself to work in a more simple and pared down style so that I could make paintings with a more affordable price point.

So I've spent the majority of the day setting up my shop and listing items. I feel really confident in what I've done so far. It's time for me to stop saying, "someday" and starting putting my ideas into action.

You can check out my Etsy shop to browse through more pictures of what I have for sale: http://www.etsy.com/shop/AbstractAmbience

History Detective pt. 3

What an adventure today from one old journal! I just got in touch with Diana Wolfe, Dave Warden's mother. Apparently, they've been trying to track down more information about the history of the Warden family. Diana just e-mailed me a few minutes ago, sending me a few pictures as well.

So now I have a lovely face to go with the name:

Blanche Warden

This is probably from right around the same time as when Blanche was writing in her journal. She actually mentions having pictures taken during June, so perhaps that's what this photo is from.

I finished reading her journal this afternoon. During the summer of 1910, Blanche and her family went to the lake. She writes about how hot it was, going to the yacht club for parties and dances, and hanging out with friends by the beach. Since there was still plenty of pages left to fill, my theory is that she must have lost her journal somewhere while her family was vacationing.

How cool is this whole thing?! This is what I love about the Internet: I can find an old journal and within a few hours discover who the author was and get in contact with descendants of the family! I'm hoping to get Blanche's journal back to them as soon as possible.

History Detective pt. 2

In my last post, I told you about my discovery at work of an old diary owned by Blanche Warden who lived on 21st and Humboldt Ave S in 1910. I shared what I assumed about her based on my knowledge of Minneapolis history and what she wrote about herself in her journal. I've only read up to page 40 so far, though Blanche wrote about 95 pages. In this post you'll learn about what my brother, Andrew, uncovered after doing some detective work online.

First, he Googled Blanche's name but got far too many results from all over (also, we couldn't read that her name had an E at the end of it at first). He narrowed the search to her name and Minneapolis, noticing a hit for descendants of Alexander Warden on Ancestry.com. Someone was looking for information about his family, listing different names and birth dates. One name was Blanche L. Warden born March 20, 1892 in Minnesota. Could this be our girl?

If you read further down, another user posted some interesting information, some of which I will re-share here:

David Charles Warden, lived at 2112 Humboldt Ave. S. in Minneapolis in the home that he built. He and Ida had 6 children. I believe he was a land developer and built many mansions that are in the Kenwood area, Lake of the Ilse areas of S. Mpls. He and Ida lived there until their death in 1937, Ida in 1940. His son Lee Meredith Warden and his wife Olga Sand Warden moved into the family home, Lee was a grain broker and Olga was a famous interior designer, famous for doing the architectural interiors of many private clubs in the Minnitonka area and her clients were the Daytons and the Pillsburys who also lived in the area. 

Well, the address is right, so that would make David Blanche's father. She mentions at one point she and friend dressing up in Lee's clothes and playing around. And Marion is a name that I've noticed often. In the list on Ancestry.com, Marion's birthday is January 31st. Blanche notes on that date "Marion's birthday. 16 yrs old." I then flipped to March 20 in the journal, and what does it say? "My birthday. 18 yrs old seems mighty old I can tell you." So we found our girl! And I was spot-on about their family being quite rich and well-connected. Blanche's sister-in-law designed home interiors for the Pillsbury and Dayton families, who are still movers and shakers in the Twin Cities to this day.

As I was reading further on Ancestry.com, it looks like there's only one person left in the family line:

Lee was the only child of David Charles and Ida Belle to have children. They had two children Mary Lee and David. When Olga died in 1968 their son, David Sand Warden, an accomplished artist moved into the family home. David Sand has only one son, the last of this line of Wardens, David Wolfe Warden, who lives in Austin,TX.

The house on Humboldt is still there (I looked it up on Google maps this morning), but it looks like the family has almost died out. It's odd that only one of Blanche's siblings ever had kids.
As I'm doing more sleuthing, it looks like David Warden's mother is looking for information about their family. I'm going to try to get in touch with her to see if she'd like to have Blanche's journal.

Read Part 3 to find out what happened next!

History Detective pt. 1

I have worked at Half Price Books (the one in Crystal MN) for almost four years now, and in that time have bought a vast number of books from the public. The majority of the time it's just run of the mill stuff--mystery and romance paperbacks, the latest Jodi Picoult, Twilight, etc. It's what Half Price calls the "bread and butter" of our stock: we pretty much always have copies on the shelf because there's just a lot of those types of books out there.

There's also a large amount of stuff that's just in very poor shape that gets recycled right away: severe water damage, mold (ick! that's when we don gloves), questionable substances (is that blood?), bodily fluids of various kinds (oh, hello, cat pee), books with no covers, kids' titles that have bite marks and are ripped almost in two, etc. You get the idea.

Every now and then though I get to uncover a real treasure. My hands once held a book worth over $2,000! (it was on Marc Chagall with a series of original etchings by him included; there were only about 1,000 copies ever printed) Another time, I noticed this small book about magic in a stack I was going through and on a whim just decided to look it up on the Internet. It was selling for $300 online! I think we ended up selling it for $150 in my store. Books like these don't pass through my hands very often, but when they do it's always a treat.

Last week, I found this in a box I was going through:

Seems pretty innocuous at first glance, right? You can't really see it in this picture, but most of the spine covering has fallen off. It's a little beat up and worn but still intact. I flipped it open and saw this written inside the cover:

It's a little hard to read in the picture, but it says:
Blanche Warden
2112 Humboldt Ave
Minneapolis MN

Well, my interest was piqued since that's a local address. I immediately knew that this was also a very old book and that the person who owned it was probably quite well off. How did I deduce all that from only an address? The age I guessed by a few things: One, the writing style tipped me off. And two, it was before the avenues in Minneapolis were given North and South designations, so that tells me the city was still small. If it was Humboldt Ave N, I know that part of Minneapolis wasn't developed until the housing boom following World War II. So I knew that it had to be what is now Humboldt Ave S, which is a well-to-do residential area to this day. It's less than two miles from downtown, and that part of southwest Minneapolis is near the Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun with many beautiful historic homes lining the streets. If you lived there during the 1900s, you had money.

That whole thought process took about 5 seconds as I flipped to the pages written on. There's a section at the front meant to be for contact and address information, which sadly is blank. The first entry is dated December 28 with no year.

Turning a few pages though, revealed an entry marked January 1, 1910. So I was right about the age! Skimming a few entries, I quickly realized I was spot on about this girl's socio-economic status as well. I caught a sentence where she wrote, "Henry called on me in his machine." So she had a friend who was rich enough to own an automobile in 1910 (the Model T had only just made its debut two years prior). I read snatches of this or that person calling for her while she was out, so this girl's family had their own phone. And mostly what I saw in my brief perusal was how many parties she went to and how late she got up in the morning.

I didn't think the person who is in charge of the Nostalgia section would put this out for sale, since it's just an old diary. But it was local, so I thought it might be of some interest. I put a note on it saying if it wasn't going to be priced up, I wanted it just to read through the entries. A few days later, I got it and have slowly been making my way through Blanche Warden's notes on her social life.

I'm only on page 40 (very glad that it was printed with page numbers) but what a glimpse I'm getting into Minneapolis of 1910. This is what I've learned so far:

I guessed Blanche was in her late teens, because she mentions going to school, doing some studying, writing a book report about David Copperfield, starting a new term at the end of January and skipping 6th period to go to the Orpheum. And does she go to the Orpheum a lot! I'm only into mid-February and I think I've read at least seven mentions of Blanche and her friends going to that theatre. It was apparently quite the social event, because she writes about feeling like the whole town was there for one event. Another time she writes "we sat in an upper box." Yup, definitely rich.
Blanche was quite the party girl, because most of what she writes is the names of the people who came over to visit or whose houses she went to call at or who was at so-and-so's party and how late she stayed out. I know she had well-off friends, because in one entry from January, she notes that they were served pineapple and cookies at someone's home.
Also, one last name caught my eye--the Calhouns were over for a visit one day. I'm guessing this is probably the family that the lake is named after.
Blanche also notes offhandedly in early January that, "We got a new cook today," and in another entry that, "We only have one girl now," which I'm assuming was a servant.
Also, when she writes of riding in a "car," it's not an automobile but a street car. I bet you didn't know that Minneapolis and St. Paul had a very extensive street car system back in the day (and then they tore it all up, because buses were the wave of the future, and now we're paying tons of money to put lightrail in, but I digress).

Streetcar map from 1913

From this map, I realized that Blanche had a street car line run right by her house, which she could take straight downtown, which she mentions doing on a number of occasions.
Usually though she would get a ride with her friends, either in a carriage or the aforementioned "machine;" a couple times she's given a ride home in a "limousine," which I'm guessing is a bit different than what we think of today.
Blanche writes often of feeling tired and getting up late in the morning (I wonder why when she stayed up so late partying), though in mid-February she comes down with typhoid fever! She doesn't write from February 24 through March 16 because she was so sick, mentioning she had a temperature of 103 at one point!
That's on page 39, where I stopped reading last night.

I've written so far of what I deduced from my knowledge of Minneapolis history, and what I've learned from reading what Blanche wrote, but in the next post I'll share with you what my younger brother, Andrew, uncovered after doing a little sleuthing online.

Church, tattoo convention, work party

That was my Sunday yesterday in chronological order. It was an interesting day to say the least.

10:00-11:30am
I love going to church. I've written about that before on here--how much I appreciate being able to go when I don't have to work. I don't know, I guess when you can't go (and not simply because you decided to sleep in) you realize how much you actually like it. My pastor just kicked off a series on generosity, which is always a needed reminder to not hold my possessions too tightly. To be honest, he could talk a lot longer and I would be happy to keep listening. He's low key and not over the top, but you can totally see his deep love for preaching God's Word. He's got a quiet yet intense passion for sharing God's Word. My week is always good if I can start if off with church.

2:30-5:30pm
My sister, Leah, and I went to the Minneapolis Tattoo Arts Convention, which wasn't as cool as you would think. My tattoo artists asked me to go and enter a contest for best female back piece. I've paid $20 to get into the MN Renaissance Festival, so I was expecting a little more for my money. This was the first tattoo convention I've ever been to, but Leah and I both weren't that impressed. It was kinda dingy, smelled like cigarette smoke (even though we were in a hotel), and there wasn't too much going on. It was definitely cool to look at all the portfolios--there are just some amazing tattoo artists out there! Unfortunately, the idea of good presentation was lost on some: Leah had one album falling apart in her hands as she turned the pages. I'm sorry, but if you don't care enough to present your work well, that reflects poorly on you as an artist and makes me question your care when inking somebody. I may be a bit biased but Beloved Studios, in my opinion, totally gets that. They had lovely look books for the three artists that were there.

So, I entered the contest...and did not win. But the pieces that beat me out were AMAZING! The lady who won first place had this fantastic full back tattoo (I'm talking from the tops of her shoulders to just above her butt). It was a tiger with a Japanese inspired landscape behind it; the thing looked like a painting, it was so rich and vibrant. She just looked like a an average middle aged Minnesotan, and then, bam!, crazy amazing tattoo. Kudos to you, lady!

Leah did find a vendor who sells some awesome earrings of the kind she likes.

It was cool to see all the awesome tattoos that were being shown off for the contests, but the announcer had such a foul mouth. I'm like, "Really?! This is a public venue--you're not sitting around drinking with your buddies. A little professionalism would be nice." It just amazes me the derogatory things directed at them that women will laugh at. But apparently that is the prevalent view for the types of people who were there. It saddens me that so many women accept that as normal and okay.

I wanted to show off my back without being immodest; it took me quite a while to find a shirt that covered me completely in the front. I'm proud of my tattoo and want people to see it, but I'm not going to walk around half naked to do so. Unfortunately, I seem to be in the minority. I respect myself and expect others to treat me respectfully as well. I'm also not going to go out scantily clad either. Part of getting respect is dressing like I deserve it. Anyways.

The best part of the whole thing was that I found an awesome birthday present for my other sister, Hannah. It's something you would not expect to find at a tattoo convention at all, yet it fits her to a T. And yes, her birthday isn't until October. What can I say, if I find something I know people will like, I just buy it and hang onto it.

So, I can say I've been to a tattoo convention, but I definitely won't attend that particular one again. It just wasn't worth $20 to get in and then pay $10 to enter a contest. Mainly I just went to support Beloved and show off their awesome work.

And part of me is like, why would you want to get a tattoo in that environment? You're only going to be able to get something small, because you have limited time. It's a loud, distracting, crowded place. At least for me, if I'm going to be getting needles stabbed into my skin, I'd prefer it to be somewhere more private and less chaotic. If I really like a particular artist and want to get a piece done by them, I'll save up my money and travel to wherever their shop is.

7:00-11:00pm
Yes, it was a Christmas party in January. When you work in retail, there's no way you could close early in December to throw your employees a holiday bash. It's actually pretty nice to have it now: the holidays are over, it's not so insane at work, people are more relaxed and in the mood to have fun. Half Price rented out a banquet hall at Grumpy's in Roseville. I thought it was nice and had a great time. I rarely see my co-workers outside of our job, so it was great to hang out and not have to talk about work related stuff. No grumpy customers, no bodily fluids to clean up, no massive book buys to sort through....just food and good company. I invited a former co-worker to come as my guest, and it was so awesome to see her! It was a great evening of hanging out and laughing a lot. I really am blessed to work at a place where I get along with all my co-workers so well. There can be so much drama in some work places, but at my store we tend to laugh more than anything.

It was a very full Sunday to say the least!

Fa la la la BLAH!

Make it stop, dear God, please make it stop!

I'm no Scrooge, but there should be a law against Christmas music being played before Thanksgiving. I work in retail and it's audio abuse during the holidays. I'm there 40 hours a week, and we're supposed to listen to Christmas music the majority of the time between Black Friday and December 24. Even if you really, really like a certain genre of music, I don't think you'd want to listen to it 40 hours a week for over a month straight. And the customers don't like it anymore than the employees do. Seriously, what makes stores think that people want to linger in a business with "DECK THE HALLS WITH BOUGHS OF HOLLY!! FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAAA!!!" blasting overhead? Nobody likes it, and yet stores keep playing it every year. It's not nostalgic, it's annoying. That does not encourage anyone to shop. That encourages me to get a headache. That's why online shopping is awesome. Seriously, if stores want me (and people like me) to give them business: no loud stupid Christmas songs; silence would be much preferable over having to hear yet another lousy cover of Jingle Bells. Otherwise, Amazon is getting my money. It's quiet, fast and I can shop in my pajamas without leaving home.

And it is NOT "the most happiest time of the year" for those of us who work in retail wonderland. I don't know what it is, but people feel like it's their right to treat the person behind the counter like dirt. Like I want to be here anymore than you do, angry psychopath grandma who thinks a rock painting kit is a great gift for a teenager (just buy them a giftcard). I don't want to be at work until 10:30pm on a Friday night, collecting empty coffee cups from the bookshelves (which is not a garbage can, in case you didn't know) and cleaning poop off the bathroom walls (and yes, that is something that has happened at my store...more than once).
I'm really hoping that at this time next year I'll be in grad school and won't have to deal with this anymore.

The only thing that I'm looking forward to about this holiday season is that I get to wear this to work:

That's what will make all the crap I go through worthwhile: I get to don a hat with elf ears and it will be awesome. You know you're jealous