Starting From Nothing

Here's the scoop:

I am going to stop being so negative about being jobless and just...   create a job!  I am starting my own "business."

Child of Tree

Art . Photography . Inspiration

Yes, I'm starting from nothing...  but that is an obstacle easily overcome.  I have great friends, people who love what I create, and business contacts who, though perhaps infrequently, sometimes need a little marketing work done.

All I really need is to get just a couple, or a few, or a handful of people to buy some of my work who are willing to pay up front so that I can use their investment to get the stuff printed/painted/created.  

I already have one taker...   Melanie!  I just have to paint a protrait of Olive!  Easily done!  I have a couple canvas boards and a bit of paint.  I'm sure I can turn something out that she will love.  

That will be the seed money to then invest in more supplies.  Then I can put a small collection together to hang in Stella's.

It's all very elementary, I realize.  Friends tell me to do this over and over again.  The problem has been one of confidence.  This problem has been overcome by one much larger...    the matter of finance!

My bills are really piling up!  I mean...   it's ridiculous.  If I listed out all of my debt, I would probably fall into a very deep funk...   and take you down with me!  It's bad.  But why do I keep wasting my time doing cleaning jobs, posting other people's stuff to eBay, and walking dogs?  It would be far more satisfying to CREATE!  

I have to look at this as a "real job."  I can't just piddle around like I have for so long.  I have to employ myself!  I am on my own clock!  I am on my own payroll!  There truly is no need to keep depending on others to provide me with work.  All I really need is me, so to speak.

So, I have created this business.  I have made (free) business cards.  I changed my email address.  I created this blog.  I am moving forward...   hiring myself!

Why "Child of Tree?"  Besides the fact that I've used this as my Xanga handle for several years now, I chose Child of Tree because it inspires me.  John Cage began writing the piece Child of Tree in the first year of my life and had its premier in my home state of Michigan.  The piece is nothing more than a set of performance instructions telling the musician to chose 10 natural "instruments," things found in nature.  One instrument should be a type of seed pod that only grows in my beloved southwest.  The others could be leaves, grass, cacti, pine cones...  you name it.  They simply have to be plant materials.  The times and order of the performance are decided by "chance operations."  Cage was fond of the use of the iChing in his compositions.  

I first heard this piece in college when my percussion professor Dr. Alison Shaw played a video of her performance of the piece for our History of Percussion course.  I was mesmorized!  Nature, chance, music...    brought together in this amazingly moving way!  It called to my very soul and inspired me in a way no other art had.

I also chose Child of Tree because it reminds me of myself as a child dancing in the forest around Higgins Lake in Michigan.  I found, and still find trees to be mystical creatures and intimate friends.  Who doesn't feel like a child when in the woods?  Trees beckon us to climb, to dance, to daydream.  Trees are life giving.

I played with other ideas for the name of my business.  One Divine Spark sounded too lonely.  The Thirsty Fish seemed better suited to a coffee house or dervish studio.  Celestial Tortoise?  Yikes!  Child of Tree is perfectly suited to me and to my creative heart.

So...  here we go!  Off on a new adventure.  Just me...   

... a Child of Tree.