Oh my, now that I think about it, I haven’t posted for a very long time – definitely some months if not years. I really don’t want to check the time stamp on my last posting but I know that I took quite a hiatus from writing. To sum it all up – I got so frustrated with people just taking my photos of my work or my museum photos without asking and any reference back to me that the whole thing became a big frustration – if you see parts of your handouts simply copied and used in other handouts, your own image appears on other blogs and you just can fight it – even worse, people are commenting you have less rights on your work and photos than their friends posted cooking recipes… Yes, that happen to me.
My reaction – probably as self-destructive as I sometimes tend to be. I was hurt, sad and angry at the same time. Took down my huge collection of museum photos, deleted most of my posts and started a member only blog… But to be honest, this frustration and pain never fully left me and it definitely didn’t heal in any way shape or form.
Apropos pain and healing… I finally got there in so many aspects of my life. As some of you follow me for a very long time, you know that I started a painful and at times quite terrifying process of the “green card process” as I fell deeply in love with an American and decided to uproot my whole life to live with him in the states. now, 10.5 years later, I can say that it was, though it did not work out in the end, completely worth it. The immigration process was a nightmare – I still want to vomit when I just see the letter head of the agency corresponding with it. To cut it short – a letter never arrived as it got lost in the mail, my first try declared abandoned, got lied to with fake case numbers that never existed by the telephone hotline, my husband had a heart attack, had to raise the money again to start everything back up as every lawyer we knew, said it just makes no sense to try to fight it and it is easier to just go again… Yes, it seemed at times like a never-ending nightmare I just could not escape… We had our up and downs, finally got approved and things started moving into the right direction until Covid/Corona hit.
I think Covid tested a lot of relationships – it definitely outlined what we had in common, and as it was not much besides the SCA events, it made it hard to live in such close quarters for such a long time. After a painful long period of trying to uphold and rescue our relationship, we finally decided for several reasons to separate… I made the decision to work on myself, my pain and my regrets and spent most of the last 2 years in hiatus, mostly working and creating and staying away from the world…
But so much for the past – I am over it and don’t live there anymore.
Let’s take a look at the future and all the positive things in my life. I have a wonderful man in my life who makes me feel like an amazing woman and artist and supports my art. He even made me feel good and was very reassuring while I was suffering from a bad case of burnout last year. Furthermore, he took such good care of me while I was down with influenza A for nearly 3 weeks in January. After about two years of struggling to pay my bills on my own it is such a wonderful feeling to have the freedom again to be creative without pressure. But it didn’t come easy – the moment I felt like I could breathe and step back a little, burnout hit me pretty hard. Hard to get up, to get motivated, to do anything, to even think anything creative… Probably the reason why I really try to keep a good work-life balance now as I don’t want to go through another one of these ever again. And as I heal, my creativity is coming back… I start seeing pictures in my brain again, projects manifesting, I want to write and post, I want to paint, I want to sew, I want to embroider, I want to create again… Thanks to a man who didn’t give up on me when I fell but helped me to rise again on my own time and terms. It seems like the love that slowly starts can develop into the most amazing magic that fuels us.
Yes, I think I would like to take up posting again as I have a lot to say – always – just ask my friends, they can tell you… *lol*
On the other side… squirrel brain… it always thinks of anything and everything and if I don’t just write it down in the moment or act on it immediately, I simply move on to the next point in my life…
Apropos points in my life… I have several interesting commissions coming up – a linen vest from a wonderful gentleman came to me per mail and I hope to turn it into something magical for his amazing Renaissance Faire ensemble – he is always such a joy to work for – more details though when we get the project really started as at the moment, we are mostly throwing color schemes and print ideas around. Then another painted heraldic fighting cloak is in the process – I already have all the measurements and the fabric… Such exciting projects…
…and I also have some fun projects planned, I got two garments from the thrift store I want to paint and/or embroider, my painted and embroidered goth-emo cloak I am still working on which needs some fun flames…
Life, well, life is good. I found my middle and creativity again. I even might post more again as my brain sometimes gets a little bit crowded with thoughts that just need to get out. Most of all I am looking forward to expanding my creativity – take my knowledge and art to the next level by fusing what I did till now with the present… Maybe go more goth, or steampunk or even Manga – just for fun… Play with the expected, put some more romance, thrill or splendor into the presence…. But you know, I still love to do commissions… I just want to see how much I can expand my horizon, an idea which gets me pretty excited.
That gets me to the point why I actually set down to write before I looped around to give you a look into my more or less recent past – creativity… It is so crazy… It can strike anywhere and everywhere… it’s like living with your own little art show in your head that just starts whenever it wants and sometimes makes it difficult to follow a train of thought you had before… However, I am learning… Sketchbooks are great for ideas I want to hold on too… which reminds me… I need a little one for my purse… I am literally sometimes just thinking in pictures, if that makes sense for you, as everyone of us experiences the world in its own way. I always knew that my brain worked differently than others… It might be less social at times but damn, it can take a picture, a pattern or a perspective and just run with it. When I was a teenager, I wanted to become an engineer for underground engineering – one day we had to draw a perspective of a very long school hallway and my teacher looked at me and said that it was a pretty good drawing – however, the perspective was wrong as I drew it like I was sitting at a very different point than I actually did… Yeah, well, that school is one of my several regrets in my childhood as I couldn’t finish it due to the lack of support from my family. But no worries, I am good and made my peace with it… If I had finished it, I might never had started this hobby and line of work and might still live in Europe….
I knew from early on that my view on the world was different than most other people… I wondered sometimes how many other kids dreamed as vivid Cthulhu and Kafkaesque nightmares as I did through my childhood – before I even knew about Poe, Lovecraft and Kafka – years of crazy dreams and nightmares before my brain decided to stop dreaming for some time and give me some rest… Well, I did some pretty dark art and sketches while I was young and developed an intense longing for the light…
Yes, creativity is such a crazy thing… always there, surrounding one but evading you at the same time like a beautiful butterfly flying circles around you… Peace… Drama free living… Finally the butterfly starts to rests on my hand again… Well, squirrel brain, I told you…
Ok, this update and post got much longer than I thought… Might post again, might not, we will see how inspiration settles again….
Love you all,
Racaire
