99 Problems.
Originally uploaded by Nix Sidhe
My lack of posting does not indicate that I've not been creating, but it is a reflection of the fact that I've not been taking a large amount of joy in making my Zomb-mes. It feels like work, which is something I always worried about.
Is there a balance between the blissful warmth of creating because you're inspired and filling orders as they come to you? Orders that will pay you. Orders that will get the word out about your creations. I realize that in order for my art to ever support my lifestyle I need to accept that sometimes I will have to sew when it's work and not whatever is popping right into my skull.
I just have to coax myself into believing that even when it's work it's working towards my goal. I have to remind myself of the people in my life like Dan at Commonwealth Press and Lisa at Sapling Press who made their creativity their livelihood.

I'm using Pinterest as a source of motivation for all walks of my life, but especially my creative life. I need all the push I can't get right now.

Face wound.
Originally uploaded by Nix Sidhe

I've been driven to an impasse in the form of during the last two years my photography has dropped off. I thought moving into the city would have had the exact opposite effect, a whole new place to explore. So many more neighborhoods to roam and capture. Yet as my drawing and sewing picked up the photography is fading.

This is something I'm finding inevitable if not a little dismaying. I've always fancied myself a bit of a Renaissance woman, knowing and being good at a little of everything. As I'm becoming truly great at my Zomb-me's and I'm sewing more and more of them, I've realized I can't realistically focus on sewing (Zomb-me's, custom aprons, bags, etc.) AND do comics/zines full time. I don't think I ever really imagined a time where I wouldn't be able to juggle three or four really labor intense creative hobbies.

I sought advice from a comic artist I admire (Jeffrey Brown), and he has provided me some really amazing help in critiquing my work not to mention technique help too. I've never been so impressed by a response by another artist and so grateful for the help. It's provided this swell inside me, this drive to make comics... but then Zomb-me orders come in.

How do you choose? You have these two things you're fairly good at and you LOVE to do, but one of them is never going to get the love and attention the other will.

Which would you pick?

Dready Zomb-me v.4
Originally uploaded by Nix Sidhe

I have been mulling over a conversation that I was/am a part of right now. Someone had made a passing comment on facespace, "Anything I've come into contact with that was homemade either sucked or made me full." Which isn't completely negative in and of itself, it could have just been that he hasn't ever really been around people who create things or surround themselves with beautiful, well made things.

Regardless I still defended people who make things by hand and the things they make. I feel I made a great case and even changed his mind. Further into the conversation another person expressed the same sentiment though. A blatant and unwavering "Home made shit isn't any good."

I'm... well, astonished. There is no other way to describe it. I, of course, take it somewhat personally as I spend a large part of my free time creating handmade items, trying to figure out how to market them, and constantly searching for ways to improve them. I'm more concerned than offended though. What a statement like that tells me is that either:

1. This person grew up with a family who didn't make things. No grandmother who crocheted/knitted/did needle point etc., no handmade afghans on the bed, no homemade halloween costumes, no time spent making things together and fostering creativity.

Or (even worse)

2. Someone who grew up with these sorts of things and just doesn't appreciate them. It's not unheard of, especially in our American culture, to have people with complete disregard to the effort and beauty of items that are made by hand. As much as it pains me to say this, we live in a "throw away" culture. Tupperware too difficult to clean all the time? Here is a cheaper option you can just throw away and buy more, even though when you throw it away it will sit in a landfill for longer than you can comprehend. TV is broken? Just buy another one, no need to repair this one. It's horrible and wasteful. Not to mention how once our culture wanted the cheaper throw away option, we stopped caring about the quality of the things we buy.

I really believe by spreading the appreciation of things that are made with love and care we can beat the throw away culture. We can teach people to appreciate quality hand crafting by providing them with things we make.

I want nothing more than a life where I can make things I love, buy things other people make with love, and spend as little time/effort/money on things that are mass produced/throw away quality.

I really truly believe that the revolution will be handmade.

Also, In the spirit of self promotion and getting my info out there to more people I've changed my blog name and address. While I absolutely adore Vaginal Armageddon, I also recognize that it isn't 100% user friendly while I'm trying to get more traffic and sell more product.

Battle scars.
Originally uploaded by Nix Sidhe

Oh hey there, 2011, nice to see you. I'm glad for another new year and for the deceptively mild and beautiful winter we've been having.

I'm even more glad for the steady stream of commissioned orders I've been receiving for my Zomb-me's and the ability/drive to put a lot of work and effort into them. I've really been honing my skills and testing out new processes. I'm hoping to really bring them into their own this year. I want to see this Zomb-me's become something even more unique and really loved. Don't get me wrong, I love sewing with my machine very very much but these hand sewn plush really make me so deliriously happy. The ability to carry them with me and work on them at my day job and at the new craft night I've started makes them the perfect project. (More on the craft night in a bit.)

I've been eyeing up the competition on Etsy, checking out other zombies whether dolls or plush. (I love seeing other people's creative interpretations on a zombie.) I've also been looking at doing some of what I call "Rotten-made" (think "ready-made") Zomb-mes for events like Horror Realm and World Zombie Day both proudly hosted here in Pittsburgh. I'm also considering doing some other craft shows here if I can get enougPlush You!. I've been longing reading that blog and wanting to apply for ever and this year I finally feel like my plush have come around to something I'd be proud to enter.

Last but most certainly not least, I started a craft night called "Yarn 'N Yinz" at a local coffee shop, The Beehive in the Southside. This happens the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month, so if you're in/around da 'burgh stop down!!!

So far 2011 has been a wonderfully creative year thus far and I'm hoping to keep that going as long as I can. I want to turn this hobby into something really big, fun, and wonderful.

air and light and time and space

"–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,

something has always been in the

way

but now

I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this

place, a large studio, you should see the space and

the light.

for the first time in my life I’m going to have

a place and the time to

create."

no baby, if you’re going to create

you’re going to create whether you work

16 hours a day in a coal mine

or

you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children

while you’re on

welfare,

you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown

away,

you’re going to create blind

crippled

demented,

you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your

back while

the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,

flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space

have nothing to do with it

and don’t create anything

except maybe a longer life to find

new excuses

for.

- Charles Bukowski

Stitch and Destroy.
Originally uploaded by Nix Sidhe

I very very vividly remember a time when I was using the Magic and Wonder of the World Wide Web for creative purposes. To research ideas, plan projects, or get feedback. My productivity was high and I felt really good about what I was putting out there into the ether. Now, not so much.

Lately I've been in a sort of radio-silence mode. No real facespace status updates, no tweets, nothing. To quote the character Joel from one of my favorite movies of all time, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: "Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating." By blathering on incessantly I wasn't really taking anything in nor was I really GIVING anything. I was just making sound for the sake of hearing my own voice. For someone who's main drive in life is to create, that is incredibly counter intuitive.

Starting today: November 14th, 2010 I promise to spend at the absolute very least 1 hour working on creative pursuits. Whether that is drawing, sewing, gifts, the quilt, anything. I'd like to set an additional goal of finishing one entire piece a week, but I don't know how do-able that is. In additional to working for at least an hour each day, I am going to really start keeping track of all the projects I have started this will help me keep from starting things and never finishing them.

I've been lax since 2010 started and I can feel it. I feel rusty in my sewing and sketching. So here's to creating and radio-silence and a jump start on 2011: A Year of Creative Endeavors.

How I've spent my day.
Originally uploaded by Nix Sidhe

Set the scene: A large dark bedroom at 4am. Cool, breezy, nearly silent except for the sound of two small fans and the wind and rain outside the open windows. Corey and I fast asleep in our bed. Arms all tangled together in the down comforter.

Sounds serene, right? Perfect? Yeah, It was until I woke myself out of a dead sleep grinding my teeth with a migraine so intense my eyes were literally pulsing. I got up, splashed my face a bit with some cold water and managed to get back to sleep for just a while. My alarm went off promptly and my eyes teared up at the sound. The thought of punching my phone off the nightstand did cross my mind.

So, my day starts with me laying flat on my back eyes covered with a wet washcloth wishing so very badly that there was any sort of medicine I could take that would assist me even a little. Not only will I miss work and pay, but I won't be able to actually get anything done here at the house either. Waste. Of. A. Day.

Corey is sometimes so much a saint that I find myself amazed I managed to win him over. He laid there with me and very gently and tentatively touched me. Kissed my eyelids and reminded me of how lucky I am. He's checked on me multiple times today. Now sitting here in bed trying to quietly coax the migraine away, all I can do is look around me at this home I have now and marvel.

I can't help but think about where I was last year at this time. How completely lost and confused I felt. How I felt as if I was in an uncontrollable downward spiral and I was terribly uncertain of what my life was worth at all.

Now, here I am sitting in the bed I share with someone I've know for almost 10 years and love very much. I look at our home, the space we create together, and I'm amazed at how quickly this all happened. I may be so very sick with a migraine, but I still know I am the luckiest. I don't need much else. I've got this man who, while we fight tooth and nail sometimes, we work it out. Someone who accepts my apologies and does his best to be patient with me while I figure out what's happening in my head and in my heart. I love my home and sharing it with him.

Luckiest. In pain, but still the luckiest.

This is how my day started:

Get on the bus with my headphones on, being generally unapproachable and quiet. Dude sits down next to me proceeds to tell me all about how he notices me all the time on the bus and how he is Muslim. (Religious people LOVE to talk to me. Just this Saturday on the bus back to Pgh a woman told me she didn't know it before but now she knew she was sent to save me and prayed loudly for me for about 3/4 of the bus ride.) He goes at great length about religion and eventually I have to take my headphones out because it is clear he's not going to stop anytime soon.

Then asks me about 10,000 personal questions to which I give generic answers. The pinnacle though is when he hits on me by telling me that what he likes about me is my hair because I look like that dog from The Neverending Story.. You know who I mean, the BIG GREY FLYING MALE DOG.

As I'm politely excusing myself blocks before I need to get of the bus, he yells after "Next time I'll get your number." which sounds more like a threat then anything I'd ever look forward to.

THAT is how my day starts. I shouldn't be allowed out of the house when I'm ovulating. It's like I have a sign on me. "Creep weirdo dudes, HIT ON ME NOW."

All I wanted to do was listen to The Smashing Pumpkins and think about autumn...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Arch St,Pittsburgh,United States

Thanksgiving.
Originally uploaded by Nix Sidhe

I realize at first glance this picture may seem inappropriate, but this is one of my favorite ways to remember my mother.

My mother loved fun. When she, her four sisters, myself/siblings, cousins, and my grandmother would get together we would do nothing but cause a ruckus. We were unabashed, loud, difficult, and very very inappropriate. These moments of being doubled over laughing, throwing pie, poking fun at other people, and doing horribly stupid and possibly dangerous things is exactly the way I want to remember her.

I don't have nearly enough photos of her, thats something I've decided in the (I can't believe it's been) 7 months since she's died.

Some of the ones I have online though are all beautiful memories of someone who I still think about daily.









This Saturday would have been my mother's 47th birthday. Sometimes I can't help but think about all the things my mother never got to experience. All the events that didn't occur for her and I get so sad I start to feel sucked down and depleted by it. She never got to see any of her children married, she never saw any of them graduate college, and she never got to experience being a grandmother. All things I know how badly she longed for. Being the eldest child I can't help but feel the weight of all of those choices I made.

I have to remind myself that in the end, after years of struggle between us, she was my biggest fan. She drove me harder than anyone else and told me all the time how proud she was of me.

No matter where I am on Saturday or what I'm doing, I'll be thinking about you, Mamma Bird. I miss you every single day. Happy birthday.