I'm pretty excited and scared about what will happen in the next few weeks. Hopefully I will be up for the challenge...I must remember to keep myself cool, calm and collected. Meditation will help, yoga will help, laughing will help and not taking myself too seriously will help too. Well I suppose there must be a lesson in this all somewhere...
"If we go down into ourselves,
we find that we possess exactly
what we desire."
Simone Weil
So here's too getting down and dirty and finding the deepest part of ourselves.
As some of you out there know, I am about to leave my full-time benefits filled job in a month or two (timing having to deal with a possible layoff), to work fulltime a freelance illustrator. In other words, my life is about to go through some major changes and challenges. It has been 7 years since I began working at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and I tell ya I am ready to go.
It has been a crazy seven years... I do want thank the museum for the fact that I was able to save up some money and do some traveling over the years, I was able to go to Paris, Laos and India, which opened my eyes to the world more than you can imagine. I was able to go back to school and study graphic design. I met the love of my life and got married.
I'm very thankful for the fact the museum was the first place to publish my illustrations. Thank you Stacy for giving me a try. Hopefully I will continue to do more illustrations for the museum and in the upcoming years as a freelancer.
Things that I am not so thankful for, are learning how easy it can be to get stuck in a dead end job and get seduced by the call of being a city employee with great benefits. I hate the fact that I lost so much confidence when ever I told people what I did for a living. (I work in Visitor Services selling tickets and memberships, BTW.)
Truthfully, I am ready and terrified about this upcoming year off. I'm scared I won't be able to do it. Jumping into a highly complex and competitive freelance world is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done. I will have to be a kickass business person as well as a confident and talented artist. You know, I've always just gotten by some how. This is a year that I have to prove to the world and myself that I am actually the artist/illustrator I've only dreamed about being.
This next year is a time to rejuvenate and find what I am really all about.
Have you ever seen any of the TED talks? The are very inspiring. This is one of my favorites by graphic designer Stefan Stagmeister in which he talks about the year long sabbatical he takes every 7 years.
