Giving and receiving
I should be working on a grant application right now.
Image credit: shescraftyllc/etsy.com
The best I can tell you is "I'm approaching it... sideways." I know it's possible for a foundation to award me a grant. I'm still (!) thrilled that earlier this year, a group of people decided it's better to give (me money to continue making art) than to receive (a polite rejection letter instead).
Everyone receives more rejection than gifts, of course. It's just hard to focus on a new application when you've recently been notified that the last one was turned down. The check is not in the mail. Ugh.
Can I just go holiday shopping instead?
Work-in-progress: engaging your ghosts
These little people don't exist anymore. Neither does the landscape where they sit.
They're not dead, of course: that's me and my brother as preschoolers. But Halloween reminds me of my fascination with stories and lives that might have been.
The little girl in these family photos was scared of almost everything: monsters, getting lost, upsetting someone or not being liked... the list was endless. Right now, I'm living through the scariest presidential election season I've ever experienced. But I've also lived long enough to know the outcome will not signal the end of the world. (Probably. I could be wrong this time.)
Halloween is supposed to be the time of year when 'the veil between worlds is at its thinnest.' I've always loved the idea of reaching other worlds, real or fictional, and I realize there may be some horrors when we get there. But I suppose I can stand some of the horrors, as long as I get the magic too.
Happy Independence Day!
On this Independence Day, I wish you the freedom to be who you are, and the support we all need to make that freedom a reality. Celebrate!