Doing something scary...
because it's my birthday (10/20)
Trickster, collage. 2023.
My dad tells a story about me as a 5-year-old. He came home and I was sitting on the curb with a paper bag that said, “Put nickels and dimes here.”
“Caroline,” he said, “you can’t ask people for money without giving them something in return.” He looked in my bag. I had $1.25.
He suggested it would be more upstanding if I decorated envelopes, so I made a stack of them, which I sold at 5 and 10 cents each, door to door on our street.
Selling artwork came early for me. Still, it sometimes feels as if it’s a great trick, charging money for something that just comes out of me. At the same time, it’s like I’m deciding my own worth. It’s sticky.
Embracing the trickster helps. What we value and how we enjoy spending money (if we enjoy it at all!) doesn’t make sense. It’s emotional, existential, visionary. It’s part of our identity.
Every year around my birthday, I like to do something that scares me. One year I sang on a stage before an audience, another I got to perform drawing in the atrium of the Blanton Museum. A few years ago, I said yes to having another child (yikes!).
This year, I’m going to offer a paid subscription for this newsletter.
Let me be clear, I am happy to have any and all of you stay here as free subscribers.
After all, this is also where I advertise my art shows and events. You don’t need to pay to keep up with me, in fact I’m honored that you read these letters at all. I never want to discourage that.
High Fashion. Acrylic, flashe, pencil and ink on canvas. 38x46”. 2023. Come see it during EAST, Nov. 16&17.
I started writing email newsletters in 2009. Fifteen years ago!
Through online business courses and creative writing classes, writing with friends and writing to you through the pandemic, pregnancy, election cycles, wet and dry spells, I’ve gotten clearer on what I’m doing here.
It’s one of my art forms, weaving together story and image. Thoughts come clearer, and I learn that the most vulnerable thoughts are not what separate, but what connect me.
It makes me feel like I belong.
My worst fear: That those of you who know me personally will feel obligated to pay, but not really want to do so. You’ll stop engaging with the posts out of a subtle feeling of guilt and distaste.
My greatest hope: I will see that the time and thought I put into these letters is valuable. It will galvanize me to write them with more regularity and grow a bigger audience.
We’ll see which comes true! Probably a mix of both. But for now -gulp!- I’m going to ask for your support, be it monetary, verbal, or simply by continuing to open these letters and read them to the end.
Thank you! For reading, for writing back, for being in my community.
