We’re consumed here.
Every time I get a little momentum in the art practice, things seem to go topsy turvy.
Just as I was getting going making more tiny art and listing it. Copper, my Shiba Inu/American Eskimo mix, started experiencing some weird symptoms a few months ago. It started with disorientation. Shaking. He fell down the basements stairs. And I’m not going to lie, I sincerely thought it was over. Not because of the fall, but because of how he was behaving. The vet was less worried, I guess, for his age.
Something was definitely not okay, though, I don’t know if an abscess was tickling a nerve. If it was mercury poisoning from the tuna steak I accidentally fed him (honestly, I don’t know where my head was, but I totally forgot about mercury. Like, believe me, I’ve beaten myself up about it a lot, so you don’t have to). If it was doggie vertigo like the vet spotted, it hasn’t returned, thank god, because he spent two days in the tiny bathroom, unable to move, and the doggie Dramamine is fugging expensive.
He just turned 13. Things are more okay than they were, but still not what they were before that. Every day is a navigation in his abilities. Can he do the stairs today? Mostly he has been able to, but this weekend I had to carry him up a couple of times just to get him outside to go potty, I think he ran into the wall toward the top, and he was too afraid to do them again.
He’s super far-sighted and struggles to navigate. His back legs are a bit wonky probably from when my uncle and dad were outside building stairs and uncle let him out. Copper went straight for a set of unfinished stairs that led to a deck he normally used to get into the house. He fell 4.5 - 5 feet landing on his back. That put him out for a week or more, nothing was broken, but I can only imagine the damage it did to his spine.
He needs a teeth cleaning or some natural solution that actually supports gum health, antibacterial, and the reconstitution of failing teeth that isn’t just brushing, it’s too late for that, I’m afraid. A couple of his teeth are just loose and I think he’s in a lot of pain.
We’ve got him on a kelp supplement, which research shows does help with plaque, and I think there has been some improvement. I give him a doggie mushroom supplement daily. And coconut oil, which reduces bacteria. He’s also on regular pain meds. I’ve got some bee propolis coming and have heard a thing about White Oak Bark, both from natural vets.
I am absolutely devastated.
Honest to God in May we were taking 20 minute walks, now it takes us 20 minutes to go around the block, he does circles around me (I think because he’s still fit, but doesn’t feel safe navigating, NOT because he’s losing it. Though when he first started doing this, I thought that’s what it was), and otherwise struggles to walk alongside me even when I’m keeping a tight leash, he’s bumping into my leg or trying to cross over in front of me (intentionally or not, I can’t really tell).
And let’s not, he’s a good walker. In fact because I moved from the woods where he had free rein to roam, to town, I let him bum around on a retractable leash, so he has some space to sniff around. I never had a problem with him pulling even when I did keep him on a short leash, but we may have to go back to one, just so I can be his seeing eye human.
I have cried several times. I have blamed myself. I have fatalistically predicted he must be close to death. I struggle to concentrate. And some days I can’t do more than meet our basic needs. Some nights, I hardly sleep. We are finding our pace, but it’s been so so so ugh. How many times have I scuffed him in the face with my shin as I’m moving around in the kitchen because I didn’t realize he’d come so close to me and he doesn’t see me moving until it’s too late?
Everything has to slow way down.
And for awhile after the worst of it, every time he made it to the top of the stairs all by himself, I swear to God, y’all, he turned around and looked at me, like “See, Mom, I’m okay! I did it!” Then two minutes later his little body would give a shudder and I’d think, no we need to move into a single level home, STAT. This dude is never climbing another stair by himself again!
He’s back, the last couple of days, going up himself, but he hesitates, and I keep a hand on his butt or he’s in the harness. I know it may be weird, but I don’t want to make his world any smaller than it has to be. I don’t want to take away unnecessary autonomy and agency. I think it will age him faster.
I want to keep him safe and get him the best care I can. I want him to be outside as much as possible, because I think it’s healing.
He’s just a bb, after all. And so spry and strong otherwise.
Which is why I’m asking for help. A big help.
I know it takes time to attract art collectors and grow as an artist, but I have no other income, and everything I’ve tried to do part-time, is either not accessible to me without a working car (my car needs a repair that makes it unsafe to drive, as well as tabs and insurance I haven’t been able to afford) or fills me with so much rage. My perimenopausal neurodivergent self, is just like, efffff nooooo. Not capable, she never really was, which is why I never did manage to have a job longer than a year or so.
So this is it. Anarchist, meditative artist life. Or, I don’t know, we’ll walk into the woods with the hammock and see if we survive? Start selling feet pics? I mean. Let’s see how the next couple of months goes?
Which I know, in the inverted matrix, is a huge gamble. At least that’s what we’re taught, right? Artists are always broke?
I see so many everywhere who are not, actually. Some even make bank.
So my slowness in listing and sharing has been my own fears and programming. But it’s dire now, isn’t it. I need a massive financial shift, very quickly. And I can’t do it alone.
Will you help me launch / grow this wild dream I’ve got going on to something my nervous system probably can’t handle?
To get my dog the care he needs. To get our basic life business handled. (My yearly phone bill is due today, got the text while I was writing this, haha. Guess it’s just Wi-Fi for now). To wow, I mean, to get a campervan by November?! What? Seriously, I can’t even imagine that becoming a thing. But I’m throwing it out. My obstacles are money and having the capacity to list and market myself as much as is apparently necessary to get the money.
I know my art is cool. I don’t suffer from hating everything I make. I just need my audience and my collectors. Are you one? Could you possibly know someone who might be?
Let me apologize
This newsletter as a publication, is totally unsustainable for me. It was meant to be a consistent publication, but I stopped having so many words awhile back on this journey and flopped over into the visual. I don’t run on schedules or deadlines. They cramp me hugely. And I’m still unlearning the I must always be working loop that runs in the background of so many of our neurospicy brains that prevent us from ever fully relaxing.
So this is my intermittent artist mailing list. I am truly very sorry to anyone who signed up under false pretenses. I have been very inconsistent. Frankly, I don’t love email, or the internet that much, but it’s where we all live now, and I love the people I meet and interact with. So I’m figuring out when it feels good to send a message with new work or a spicy thought.
For the handful of paid subscribers (I love you. I heart you), your cash is supporting my being an artist. The emails I send here will show new work and speak a bit about what I have going on, my practice, my feelings about the world, and will sometimes be meditative or offer a reiki. I may start offering reiki via YouTube. I’m still working out what pieces are sustainable for me and where they go. I’ve been active on IG, shorter posts, even some videos, have worked for me.
If you upgrade to paid, you may receive discounts on prints. But largely you’re supporting my making work and sharing that life.
Secondly, if you’re into supporting this momentum, it could look like purchasing art:
I have largely been making and selling ACEOs (Art Cards Editions and Originals) on eBay, but that felt icky, y’all, I’m an anarchist socialist energy witch. That felt weird (for me, absolutely no judgment on anyone else). And I have to listen to those weird vibes or things just feel much harder than they have to be. So I’ve started listing in my Ko-Fi shop, which doesn’t take money from us as artists, along with the few larger works I have. And it feels so so so much better. Both shops are operational and open for sales.
I’m democratizing owning original art with my ACEOs in Ko-Fi listed at Pay What You Want base price $5.99 (in eBay auctions most ACEOs go for $25 - 45, some more, some less). Like I said, I’m an anarchist socialist and I’m building a reciprocal ecosystem, not an ecosystem of extraction. I don’t even like calling it a business. I prefer to think of it as something akin to busking. Maybe a community forms around it.
That said my larger works take ages and therefore are priced accordingly (I’m working on sorting out prints).
I give these ACEOs and artworks, titles based on where my head is at or what they remind me of, and then I write them little narratives or little essays. It’s been such fun. I imagine people collecting many of them and displaying them in a tiny art gallery wall in acrylic or wood frames. Oh, yeah, and I infuse them all with Reiki.
Here’s a mockup of one of the few medium sized works. A pencil drawing at 11 x 14 inches. It comes unframed. I don’t think it has a name yet, so it may not be listed, I’ll get to that tomorrow.
Helping could look like donating to win art.
I’ve created a sweepstakes ending 20 September (four days before my birthday!) for one of these 5, 4.5 x 6 inch paintings. Each dollar donated lands you an entry up to $25. Place a donation to enter here. Check out the Terms & Conditions here.
Helping could look like forwarding this message to any art loving friends
I really appreciate you all, especially the long term folk who have stuck by my neurospicy inconsistency in showing up here. Honestly. It’s been really hard. These last five years. Emotionally, logistically, physically. A little over a year ago I spent most days in too much pain to climb the stairs myself.
Last autumn I shut down completely from the internet and living except to make comments on Instagram posts. I couldn’t even open Substack. There was an energetic block for personal reasons.
I’ve been feeling generally lighter since December. I committed myself to making art and I have been, making stuff and listing stuff, but sometimes it’s like trudging through quicksand to do all the different things to sell works and tell people about them.
I’m moving through old programming over what I feel allowed to do and who I feel allowed to be every day. It’s deep, yo. Like, “I’m totally cool with everyone else starting businesses and prioritizing their mental health, but not me. I must work harder. I must always be working harder.” Or the “whatever I choose it’ll be the wrong choice,” spiral. Paralyzing.
I’m overwhelmed with ideas and things I think I SHOULD be doing to make a sustainable life without abandoning myself, all while feeling like “who am I to want a life that doesn’t hurt so much when so many other folk suffer in so many different ways and for different reasons.” I’ve been EFT Tapping and journaling my out, again.
But up until now, I’ve been too ashamed to admit how bad things are financially and emotionally. (I got myself into this mess after all, I must get myself out, magically, I must magically HAVE money, before I am allowed to sell art or do anything that might earn me money… honestly, y’all don’t want to get up in my head, it doesn’t make any sense up here.) And too afraid help wouldn’t come if I asked for it. So, I’ve just been doing stuff and hoping it changes and it’s been v. v. v. slow.
So here I am.
I swear this box of ephemera has been siting here for months now. Addressed, sealed, and ready to go. Some have gone out when I’ve had cash, but I’ve needed to eat.
I don’t even feel like I can tell you how emotional this all has been, because in the world I once existed in, that’s manipulation… but I do actually need financial help. Anything you can do is helpful. Even sharing. I reckon I have to grow at a speed I’m uncomfortable with in order to find more of the people my works sing to in order for this to be sustainable.
But I’ve got about 50 ACEOs that haven’t been listed, and a whole stack of fun unfinished patterns I’m still playing with. A large project I started last week.
I’ve been scanning things as I go to create prints and use some things for POD sites like Red Bubble. The only thing I can promise is that I move at my own pace, and I encourage you to do the same. Build a life that feels good for you rather than contorting yourself into, and chasing a life that hurts only to believe that something’s wrong with you, rather than the structure around you.
If you made it this far, thank you. I feel like a vulnerable newb saying some of this out loud and like it probably scared everyone away. Like legit gaslighting myself in my head right now, “it’s not that bad Libby.” Ugh. Don’t worry, I’ll do some Tapping. I don’t know how bad things would have to be for me to not think that.
As the Sweepstakes goes until the 20th, and it is my birthday month, I will be posting/emailing a bit more. I want to make sure folks see it. <3
Love,
Libby
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