Category: makingart

02Apr

Trying to decide on a side hustle

In our current culture, side hustles are seen as a way to monetize your hobbies. I’ve always wondered if I had a side hustle in me. I do love to make things, but I’ve always been kind of indifferent about the whole prospect of entering capitalism on such a direct level. Also, my “makes” changed over the years. For awhile, I’d be drawing and painting, then switch to clay crafts.

A few months ago, though, I started making felt flowers. I can’t even remember why I started—was it Pinterest perhaps? I just decided one day that it might be fun to try, and next thing I know, I was getting boxes of felt and glue sticks on the regular. My first attempts were amazing to me at the time, but now seem laughable. I think I’ve even thrown some of them away.

Some of the very first felt flowers… before I even knew there were different types of felt.

The felt that I’d ordered was a pack of multi-colored pink 8.5 by 11 inch sheets, thin but firm. I didn’t realize yet that felt also came in thicker more flexible varieties that would make more supple and pretty flowers. I also had pretty poor control of the glue gun, often ending up with glue blobs in the most in opportune places and burning my fingers trying to wipe it off. I’d soon learn more about felt—and even more about glue gins. Did you know that you can get low-temperature glue guns? Oh my word, what a revelation (and a fingertip saver!).

Round 2 of my flower skills. More flexible felt, new designs, and experimenting with embroidery floss, chalk, and colors.

I thought I was getting pretty good at things, and that my failures (hello weird pointy random flower) were good learning experiences. And at this point, I was amassing a small army of flowers, wondering what I’d do with all these creations.

More experiments with shapes, different centers, pinking shears edging, and more.

It was around this time that I started to think that some of these were cute enough to be appealing to other people—maybe as something like pins or hair accessories? As you know, Amazon will always provide a quick fix, and so my first pins were made. I even found someone at work who liked them enough to wear them. He claimed that they would be perfect for covering up stains on his favorite shirt.

My early adopter, modeling a few flower pins.

Around this time, I started wondering if maybe I could sell these pins. I began to feel like making the flowers was so fun & relaxing that I could actually see myself enjoying the side hustle, as it would be mostly a relaxing hobby. My sister also supported me in this, saying she could be the business brains behind the creator.

I’ve kept making flowers since then, even creating more than pins—things like flowering tree sculptures, photo frames, wreaths and embroidery hoop wall hangings.

Just a few examples of wall hangings, a frame and some new pins.

As the idea of an actual business starts to become more real, I’ve also been messing around with trying to make myself a logo. Maybe you’ve noticed the rotating header images on the site here. All just random ideas I’ve been testing. Now though, I think I’m on to something. I posted a new header logo that I really like. It has flowers, retro colors, and a simple font. I’m going to try it out for a bit to see if it feels right.

I’ve even started doing research on ways to get into e-commerce as easily as possible… Etsy vs. Instagram based stores vs. a private platform here on my website. Things are honestly pretty exciting right now. My sister swears that my flower creations are cute enough to sell, and some of my work friends agree. What do you think? Would you buy or gift a felt floral item like some of the ones posted above?

15Jan

This Is Not a Gun

Police violence is a topic (a cause? a tragedy? a travesty? a crime?) that not only captured our national attention this past year, it angers me to my very core. I believe it to be so widespread as to be a public health crisis, one that especially affects black & brown Americans. In Los Angeles, artist Cara Levine is putting on a show of handmade representations of items that police mistook for a gun, thus leading to an unnecessary and often deadly civilian police shooting–items like a toy truck, sun glasses, a soda can, a hair brush.

She has worked in wood, but over the course of her project, she has invited other activists and co-artists to lead events where members of the public could make clay versions of the items as well. A book has been made from the experiences of this project as well.

But this past year, and the death of George Floyd in particular, has led her to question her place as a white woman in the Black Lives Matter movement. A fascinating project. If you’re in LA, you can make an appointment to see the exhibit, as described in this Guardian article. The artist Cara Levine’s website describes all three parts of this project. And the book specifically is available here.

12Dec

Feast or Famine: Taylor Swift and Coping with the Pandemic

Has the knowledge that a vaccine is on its way to all 50 states changed the way you feel about living in lock down during our 3rd major Bay Area covid surge? Are you more hopeful?

Or perhaps your mood has been buoyed by the SECOND surprise album release of this year by Taylor Swift? No? Must just be me and her hoards of fans… who I’m assuming have all listened to the album dozens of times by now, at least.

There is a dark side to Swift’s prolific creative artistic pandemic growth, however. According to a perspective in The Washington Post by Danielle Campoamor, we are all coping with the pandemic in our own way–although Swift’s variety of coping through work is often seen as inspirational and morally superior. Campoamor argues that other mechanisms for getting through the darks times–like binge watching tv or ordering takeout instead of learning to cook–are seen as failures, both morally and personally.

I do understand this argument to some extent, since the basic tenets of productiveness versus laziness also underly other important topical debates about depression stigma (and mental illnesses in general), chronic and invisible illnesses ranging from diabetes to Crohn’s disease, even the hilariously oversimplified judgements about working fathers vs. stay-at-home moms.

But ultimately, Campoamor know that the oversimplification overlooks some important details. Taylor Swift is able to work hard during this dark time by making music, by using her chosen art form to help process her emotions and turn pain into beauty.

Most of us are not that lucky. We might be stuck doing office work from home, or out of work entirely. Or maybe like me, an essential employee. Maybe you never get a day off from the grocery store where it’s a battle to get customers to wear their masks. Maybe you lost your job entirely to the poor economy.

I’m a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at a busy, urban tertiary hospital in the Bay Area of California. My job has both remained exactly the same and changed forever. One thing I can tell you for sure: nothing about my job feels safe. It is not a place for me to process my emotions about covid, or the sickness and death I see daily.

I wish I could be as productive as Taylor Swift in 2020, releasing 2 major albums–real breakthroughs that seem to anchor her during this time of trauma and chaos.

But unfortunately there are days where the only thing I can do in the face of everyone’s overwhelming mortality and poor choices. And that is: go to sleep. Take a nap. Sleep in. Tuck in early. There are days during this pandemic when the only thing that made sense to me was the idea that by sleeping, I could just while away time and hopefully wake up in a new place, a new healthier planet without masks, where we could travel and be together again.

22Nov

Why I wake early

This week  my days off, I’ve been waking up between 2 and 4 am. Not so unusual for me, since I work night shift and my body clock is completely reversed. In these wee hours, given how cold and quiet it is, I often find myself want to do quiet but active things. Reading doesn’t quite do it for me. But making art does! In the last few days, I’ve been making these…

Mixed media, a classic form including the collage (which I’ve been calling the fancy name decoupage I just realized), has always been a favorite of mine. I often like to incorporate paintings into mine as well, so a whole canvas might be combined with small objects such as plants or screws or beads or fabric or basically anything that inspires you. There is almost always paper involved as well, whether it be cut up magazines or (gasp! books) or other paintings, etcetera. One of my recent decoupages has an acrylic painting topped with watercolor paintings, handwritten song lyrics, and magazine parts. Pretty typical for me.

That one, which I’m calling Blackbird (for obvious reasons) also demonstrates how inspiration and process come together. I started this morning with several old watercolors–mismatched & different sized flowers, and a red-winged blackbird. My table was also covered with snippets of magazines from a few days of culling. I grabbed a canvas & first decided to work dry, finding my pieces and layout before gluing anything down.

The blackbird was first to roost, taking center stage on a canvas that I chose specifically to highlight his placement. Next, I laid down some flowers, unsure if I would use them all (I didn’t) or where. Then, I had an aha! One of my favorite songs is Blackbird by the Beatles (or any of many other cover versions that has been made). So obviously I had to listen to it.

And here is where the materials I started the project with (a blackbird painting) led to a moment of inspiration (the song) that led to a cascade of moment-memories, thinking about the times when I’ve listened to Blackbird before, what it’s meant to me, and so on.

Did you realize that you can just type “Blackbird cover” into Amazon music, and you’ll get pages of different versions of the song?

Of the many times I’ve listened to this song on repeat, most have been in dark times in my life. Times when I’ve been lonely &/or alone; times when I felt like a small blackbird in the night with broken wings, unable to escape the night. Just darkness in & around me.

But in the past month, my light has returned more powerfully than ever. And this song is so different now. Hearing it now makes me realize that despite the broken wing, the blackbird can still fly. It is a different and hopeful place that I really want to share with you.

And so I dove into my cut up magazines, finding phrases like “giving thanks” and “incurable optimist” but maybe my favorite is just a snippet of a thought–but it is a snippet that I want to define my next year with:

humans at

our most ambitious, our most inquisitive, our most engaged,

our most eternal, our most creative

–“Blackbird” mixed media by Heather Brossard (

post-script: the title of this post is stolen from the title of a Mary Oliver book & poem. Did you know that you cannot like copyright a title? Well, that’s what they told me in grad school anyways. Here is a link to the poem “Why I Wake Early” in GoodReads; it is delightful if you would like to read it.