Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

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©Katherine Dunn.





Saturday, October 16, 2021

Are you shifting?


 I feel like I am in a shifting period but I can't explain to my conscious self what that shift is. I feel unsettled. I think part of it is I have put my heart and soul into the non profit and I feel out of balance with my art and studio time, and 'me' time. I love my non profit work and it does combine creativity and my soul and spirit so is creative in its own way.

But I've been having trouble for a long time now carving out time for art, and with art, for me anyway, I need chuncks of time to ponder, explore in my head with out thinking of everything else I have to do.

I feel I'm shifting into my art raggedy dolls too, frustratingly. I say frustratingly because they take a lot longer to birth than a painting. I am also limited in certain skills like using methods to make them stand as I want and I fumble along.

Then again, I have written and created four more illustrated books since arriving in Maine and I seem to forget that.

Ack. 

Anyway, autumn is full on now, it's pouring out today and I love it. I am determined to keep my November through April more open for me and the studio. I will not abandon my elders at Cove's Edge but am going to focus on them as far as elder visits. I also take care of the business side of things here, completely–the books, taxes, bills, truck and tractor work, repair scheduling, groceries, feed stores, vets, furnace and fireplace, doctor appointments. It's amazing how much time is eaten away with that. I think of my mother-and all mothers-who had kids to haul around and how they said their day felt like it was in a car. Mine is often at the computer.

Anyway, the shifting thing. I think in my life there are clear, distinct shifts that have happened. They seem to happen overnight but I think I  gather information in my head for months, years even, and then one day wake up and say to myself, "I'm moving to Maine," or "I'm going to make books now." And I feel my spirit guides want me to shift, but I keep false starting into it. Maybe I'm afraid of losing what I have. But if I look back on any shift I've made, it always brought more abundance into my life.

Or maybe I just need more cat naps, something I've started on a rather regular basis.