So I went to my first ThINCubator session this evening.
I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like. I’m excited but still a little overwhelmed. I have homework!! I’m supposed to answer questions about *checks notes*
- What is the hard thing that I need to do?
- What can I accomplish in 8 weeks?
We have been assigned buddies. So there are three of us in my group. Dawn and another woman whose name I forget and I feel crappy about that. *Flutters thinking fingers* Gah! I can’t remember her name! It’ll come to me at 2am and I will wake up and shout it to the cats.
There was a big info dump tonight and I am glad there will be recap emails and a Slack group because it’s all fighting for space in my head at once. I remember Ryan saying something about what song would my art be. I drew a solid blank on that.
It came to me before I started typing this, that the Talking Heads is my art correspondence but I don’t know what song. Now, if you want to know what’s on my studio playlist, that’s a different story. It’s all rock and roll from the 70s, 80s, and early 90s: Eric Clapton, Guns N Roses, Twisted Sister, and Gin Blossoms. No Talking Heads.
We also have to find our artistic niche. Well….my artistic niche is sarcastic Gen X surrealism. Is that a niche? I don’t know. I like to make fun of things, and I like to do it by putting fishbowls on people’s heads. I’ve been calling myself Maritime Mystic Art for years so maybe I should break down and do a few seascapes.
This week I need to answer the question: What is the hard thing that you need to do? And I have to think about what I can accomplish in 8 weeks.
I don’t know what the hard thing I have to do is. There are a lot of them!
So let’s ask the cards:
What is the hard thing that I have to do, for my THINCubator homework this week?
Well, if it isn’t my nemesis, the 8 of Swords and her sidekick, the 9 of Wands. As my one card to tell me what my hard thing to do this week is, the 8 of Swords is all about putting the mental bondage down and walking away from it. 8s are reevaluations and in this card, the 8 vibrational pattern is reevaluating ideas and mindsets. Crowley sees this card as relating to Jupiter in Gemini, a placement that will absolutely destroy dogma or anything that gets in the way of its big ideas. This energy favors collaboration, new ways of doing things and expanding the mind.
The 8 of Swords is also the 62nd card of the Tarot and as such, contains within it the energy of Venus and the Moon. Numerologically, it is about learning to feel more at ease around people and new situations. Although many Tarot readers do not see this as a positive card, one of the better aspects of it is that there has never been a better time to make new friends.
So these are the challenges of the 8 of Swords. Play nice with the other kids and let go of entrenched ideas about how something should be or should unfold.
Now I didn’t have to look at the bottom of the deck, but I always do. The 9 of Wands corresponds to the Sun in Sagittarius. In this card, eight of the wands are crisscrossed in a protective lattice while the ninth wand leads the charge. As the undercurrent, this card suggests being optimistic, adventurous, and open-minded. Now the RWS clones generally show the man in this card behind eight of the wands, while he holds the ninth wand defensively. Here, the ninth Wand is in front of the other eight, indicating that all is well. The fort is secure and it’s ok to move forward, away from the safe zone, to explore.
What else do I need? Because that was something to think about as well.
Oh lordy, where do I even begin?
- I need to learn how to build an email list. All these years of blogging and I still don’t know how to do that. When I had the Shopify site I did send out email newsletters to my handful of subscribers but the only person that ever opened them was my mother. I want to build a mom-free email list of people who will read my emails because I like to think that I make some interesting newsletters.
- I want to keep my internet presence streamlined. I have this blog and a few social media platforms. I am 100% willing to delete my social media if necessary and start over but I don’t want accounts all over the place. I get no reach on any platform so I am game to experiment anywhere.
- I had a ko-fi for a year and then a Patreon for a year, teaching numerology and Tarot. I didn’t know how to build it so I shut it down because I was tired of making all this in-depth content for five people. Not that they’re not worthy but it’s hard to justify content creation for $75/month before all the payment processors gouge you.
- I know nothing about nothing when it comes to doing all these art shows. NOTHING. Everyone I know bombards me with notices about shows when they’re like a month away and I don’t have time to get ready for anything. I know there’s got to be more to it than showing up with a bunch of art to sell. I’m not even sure that I want to do them but I know that I can’t depend on the internet and that I’ll eventually have to leave the studio and socialize with the other humans.
- I know nothing about nothing when it comes to selling anything online. I find this ironic because when I worked full-time as an esthetician in the spa back home in Canada, I busted through all the retail records. What was that? You can’t sell the $300 eye cream? Hold my coffee and watch. But I can not sell my art, my ebooks, a subscriber site, nothing – not online, not in person, not with a fox, not in a box – but I can sell someone else’s products.
- I fall apart on commissions. So far my opinion on commissions is that I hate them and my chest closes up and I can’t breathe when people start making commission eyes at me. I’ve got three paintings in my basement that were commissions that I never got paid for and I can’t really sell them because they are pet portraits…..so I’m also moving away from pet portraits. I don’t know how to properly set up a commission. That I do need help with because I know commissioned work is a big part of this reality and right now they fill me full of OH HELL NO.
- Mostly I need someone who does this to tell me I’m not insane and that I’m a real artist who can do this because I have to tell you, right this minute I feel like I sat down in the wrong room.
That’s all I’ve got for now!! It is late and it is high time to go to bed. Remember! As you move forward in life, let shit unfold and be excellent to each other!
