New Beginnings

So a while back I posted my feelings about my day job and its effect on my happiness. Since then I came to a decision to make change in my life and become the person I really want to be. I want to be someone who spends more time creating artwork and working on projects that are meaningful and/or of interest to me. I want to be less cranky and more graceful about the ups and downs of life.

So how do you go about changing your life? For me, I had to let go of some things that confused my life path. Believing that I should value myself by the salary I earned or the title I achieved was a problem. Driving nearly an hour to and from work was frustrating and sucked up a lot of my free time and energy. Watching people I cared about, trained, and built loyal business relationships with get fired or leave my company, one after another was demoralizing.

So I decided to start over.

I am very lucky to be married to an understanding man, and in a position to be a little flexible with finances. Together we agreed that I would be able to leave my job and focus more on the fine art work that I really wanted to create. I would also take on freelance multimedia projects to supplement our income, and start working towards more rewarding projects with our company Pixel-Artistry. We have created some screensavers and multimedia together in the past, but generally time constraints prohibit us from doing this very often. I have so many ideas for media projects in my head, and now I can make some of them a reality.

It's already been about three weeks since I left the day job to work on my own. It's been busier than I thought it would be. Because of leads from some wonderful friends, I have had a couple of paid projects to work on, and some decent communication about future ones. I attended a fantastic workshop with Annie Silverman at my alma mater MassArt on course design, and am writing a course description that I hope will lead me to some work as a teacher for summer of 2010. I have been doing more painting, and have joined a women's creative group in Providence where I can connect with new people and attend more art events. I have also been brainstorming a special art project involving a family member's charity for children afflicted with heart defects. This is a long-term project that I will write more about later - it deserves its own post, and I would like to blog about the process as it develops.

There's so much more to accomplish! But I am so very, very fortunate to be able to work like this. I am feeling happier, more at ease with my daily routine, and that I am on the right path to the future I want. I will have to give up some things to keep my life more cost effective, but the tradeoff is so worth it. I'm home with my husband and our animals, I am more engaged in artwork and the artistic community, I'm meeting and working with new and exciting people, and I laugh more. It's wonderful.

So I'll do my best to increase my posts and show some of the art I am creating. Here's to new beginnings!