Just finished grouting these.

Now I have about 4 more to go. Not sure if I like that brown grout so much, tomorrow I want to try the black one. I think the black should work more less like the white one, creating nice contrasts and making the pieces pop. Problem with the brown is that it blends in and needs to work with the pieces by blending with them not contrasting, which doesn't always work so well.

Very hard to figure out if what you have to offer is something that somebody else is missing. Is your little world makes a diff in someone else's little world and in the big world as well... I guess we are lucky if it does, but how do I find out?

so the big question is —"WHY"

why do we do what we do?

why do we want to create the art that we create?

why do i have to make my art????

.............................................................

maybe because I know that no matter how dark or overwhelmingly fantastic my day is, no matter how dark or bursting with joy is in my heart might be today, i should always have that bird. The bird of my heart and my soul, who wants to come out and sing her song.

And I should let it sing!

WE should let our birds sing. Because we each have that one and only bird, and no birds are alike ...and ...... at the end of the day that's what we are here for ...??

tonight one of my friends had a BD get together and there was a chocolate cake, it was really yum, however one of my friends wouldn't touch it, she said she had stopped eating chocolate because she had an addiction to it, which resulted in all kinds of physical symptoms, when she just got near chocolate, never mind eating it... So addictions were the topic and I realized that even thought I tried many things in my life I never developed an addiction, or rather was always able to break it as soon as it started to resemble one. The only thing I NEVER tried are drugs.

I was always afraid that that would be an addiction I won't be able to break thus I won't be in control.

When we create, when we are in the process of giving life to our ideas, dreams, yearnings don't we have to, at some point, be able to relinquish control and give ourselves completely over to the process ?! Don't we have to be able to let go in order to access the deepest parts of ourselves where there's no rules or reasons to constrain, but only the essence?!

seems to me to have an addictive personality might be a plus, or in my situation, the luck of it might be a disadvantage! hmmm

at the farm

going strawberry picking with my daughter's class... and my creative biz will have to wait!

my creative biz, incidentally, has to wait a lot, while I make dinners, pack lunches, fold laundry, go shopping... I squeeze myself into this tight ball of functionality and try not to forget to breathe from time to time. So I find my function being void of any creativity at all and if I'm being creative it's a totally different activity all together. I'm in awe of mothers, who make beautifully creative lunches http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/dining/09bento.html, paint murals in their kids

rooms, sew adorable clothing and make awesome birthday cakes (well I kind of - sort of do that)

maybe that's the reason I never called myself an artist. To create art I actually have to leave the "room" I'm always in— my life, and go into another one "my art room" and only than and there my art happens ...

off to pick strawberries I'll look for art there, note to myself— I won't get bogged down by running in search for a bathroom for my 4-year old

here's work in progress — tulips mosaic—I'm thinking black grout...hmmm

this is some of the design stuff

old and really old

so I'm dealing with my computer today. Second cup of coffee in hand I'm off to "conquer the computer" quest! Really scary stuff! We'll see who will get who.

Too bad can't find my camera — kids! Really wanted to share some of the stuff I make. That dancing red girl is sooo old, it doesn't even live here anymore. Sold.

I'm still trying to find myself in all this art I produce. It's kind of like —I can do it all, so what DO I DO?

so.... here I am...

in the last few days I've come to a very shocking (to me) realization — I've spent most of my life trying to "run" away from placing a label of "an artist" on myself...

Here's why it's shocking— I've been doing art since I can remember myself and yet yet every time I had a choice to make — I would get myself into places where a title I received couldn't possibly be read as an "artist" even by chance (architect or a graphic designer couldn't possibly be confused with an artist!).

well it's a pretty shocking discovery to me, and I have to still figure out a "why" here, but for now the credit for this discovery goes to Kelly Rae Roberts, whose ART Biz e-course I just signed up for ....

so ta-da, I'm stating here, that you've entered the realms of my art & DESIGN room, and here you'll find Tatyana [Tanya] Cohen, who's going to be trying to get comfortable with the fact that she, actually is ........ an artist