now where was i....

last we heard i was heading upstate to my house for the summer. god that was fabulous.

why did i wait all these years to find out how great it is not to be employed?

i have a few regular freelance gigs. would like one or two more, but i am equally excited to have the time to paint. it's a tricky balance, because i want to take both seriously. though you won't see any of my paintings for at least a few years. it's hard! but i totally love it.

it was delicious to be completely unselfconscious... barely looked in a mirror, let my hair do it's own thing, ate tons of corn and peaches and even ... god forbid ... pie (i will remember that mixed berry from Sunfrost in Woodstock for years) So now, back in the city, i suddenly feel fat and a mess. Need to cut hair, go back on hard-core Atkins, get back to Pilates (even if my hip's screaming) Somehow the city culture demands this. Maybe out in the country the beauty's in the surroundings. Here in the city all we have to look at is each other. 

I don't know how i'll like being back here. may be taking some long weekends this fall... i miss my hot tub!!

the upsides of outside

Looking at the magazine industry from a slight distance can be enlightening. 

Things are looking a bit desperate now, aren't they? Here's a sentence from a WWD piece about InStyle's redesign (a year in the making):

"....The new look is more modern, with a bigger focus on fashion and beauty, demonstrated through bigger pictures, bolder headlines..." etc, etc.

Yeah, yeah. Someday i want to read about a redesign that has decided to use smaller pictures and lighter headlines and look less modern.  I know InStyle's not the Atlantic but if every magazine just decides to 'stand up in the movie theater'... get louder, essentially, well...

yuk. Style should be more stylish. not just bigger. Of course i haven't seen it yet so this is totally unfair. and not the fault of the designer. It's just a very nervous industry. and that doesn't lead to very good art. 

Had a great time the last week or so doing cover concepts for PN at RD. I had an immediate reaction to the disparity between her brilliant mission statement and the clean, cool cover design they have. Spent the last two weeks coming up with concepts, doing photo research, (miss you Natalie!!)  and even doing some snazzy photoshop effects. (yes to layers, finally!)

The upside of working at home: listening all day to my ipod on the Bose and singing at the top of my lungs when the spirit moves. in my husbands underwear. 

But the real upside of outside is: I'm leaving the city.... getting to spend the summer truly outside, at my beautiful West Shokan home. Am continuing my education as a painter at the Woodstock School of Art. We'll see how i deal with being up there by myself, having always fantasized about it, from the way-too-busy life i was leading. 

why i changed the name of this blog

I've been worrying about the name for this blog lately, though it suited me well when i first started it. Though in many ways i am even more interested in a freelance life than i was at first (those first weeks were whistling in the dark a bit) I am now equally open to the RIGHT job. And what will make it right is very different than what i might have thought three months ago. I only want to work in situations where i feel a connection with the editor, and a sense of freedom to try new things and stretch myself. It may not even be a magazine. And it will have little to do with the job's 'status' .... or even salary... i could care less.  I am feeling amazingly open right now, like i could do anything, creatively. And if it doesn't come along for months... or ever... i feel sure i will be using my talents in some way or another. 

I'm working with two magazines on their covers and beginning to think this is an area i should find a way to focus on. I've certainly done enough in my day to qualify as an expert. And i have a new-found distance that allows me to see the overall issues for each magazine. It seems so obvious, but so many magazines don't think about what the underlying message of their images says about who they are. So many just copy their 'category' without taking the time to really choose how to distinguish themselves. If they can't, then how can the reader? Or maybe they only think in superficial design terms...'white backgrounds pop better', etc.. etc.  What hooey.

I hope after this frenzy of work (frenzy? two weeks?) i will be happy being in the country and painting. I think so, but i will need to set up some social scene there. And i must get an internet connection (need a satellite unfortunately) so i can keep blogging, emailing, etc.. I am hooked.

my very good excuses for not blogging in weeks

excuse # 1: 

i actually worked. not for money, unfortunately, but i did a test for a gig that would have been interesting. i didn't get it, but lost to a terrific guy, and my consolation prize ...a summer.... ain't bad.  I am doing some actual work for money, too. Two former bosses, both brilliant and very supportive, have asked me to do similar projects. My husband asked me this question: what do these women know about you that other editors you haven't worked with don't know? And how can you help them know, in an interview? that i am collaborative? a good manager (help me, all you former staff reading this) i need those clever little anecdotes that get this across in an interview. eeewww. interviewing is so.... so..... self involved. (this from someone sitting here writing her everyday details and fleeting thoughts.)

excuse #2:

i went to a mindblowing workshop at Omega..."Awakening the Creative" run by Stewart Cubley (http://www.processarts.com). The Omega experience alone was like grown-up camp. if i could spend all summer there, i would. (except for the food. they actually served us an entire meal of raw food... not the elegant refined dishes like those at Pure Food and Wine... really really raw. 

this may be a case of TMI, but let's just say i had a bonus high colonic irrigation, no extra charge.) But i digress. the painting workshop was thrilling. 31 people, mostly middle-aged women... smart, interesting, from all over (my roommate was from Fayetteville, LA and had lots to say about Katrina/New Orleans, etc) and we were just let loose for five days to paint....

anything, as long as it was something we had 'energy' about. Abstraction, surrealistic figurative scenes, anything that 'spoke' to us. He (and his two assistants) had an uncanny way of coming by and just gently poking you towards making your work more 'true', alive, connected to your core. at one point, after a five minute consultation, he had me sobbing. thrilling. OK, i know, sounds very touchy-feely. but let's face it. everything we do creatively is... out there... as an extension of ourselves. it better be honest. Made me more excited than ever to paint, and oddly, also made me see a way to be in my work life that is more brave. Oh, and a very powerful detail: we were not allowed to comment on each others' work. and he suggested we might not want to show our work to loved ones at home, either. very freeing, but also very hard... for those of us who feed on approval from others (and that really is the crux of the 'job habit' i'm trying to kick, too) wow, heavy shit, as we used to say in my youth.

may be falling off the wagon...

Just when i am starting to have fun and get into this life... jobs possibilities are popping up to lure me back to the intense ego-drug of  work. the good news is that if i get either one, fine. If i don't, i'm starting to get excited about having a life without it. at least for a while. but these opportunities are too good to pass up, and may not happen for another loooong time.

Meanwhile i've been playing in Photoshop to create images that i will use as guides for my paintings, and having a blast. (tried to add images but they must be too big) 

And have had breakfasts, lunches, coffee dates, museum dates, at least one or two per day, with great friends. Brenda, who has two 6 years olds in Connecticut and is just getting her life back. Sharon who moved to SF to work for a wine business, but still has a yen for NY and magazines. Hilary, working for a small book publisher from home and is in love/living with the cutest guy with a gorgeous antique store. Went to the Jewish Museum yesterday with Lois, recently laid off and getting into the swing of the non-working life.  saw the Action/Abstraction show...great paintings. check out early willem de koonig and grace hartigan. lunch tomorrow with Vicki, who i've known since 1970s, then coffee with Leslie who i've just met. 

when you work every day you totally miss the variety of great people you can know here in NY. you love the folks you see every day, and that consistency makes the relationships very strong. But it's great to reach out to the dozens of folks who are all great, and all have different stories to tell, and all see you through a different lens.

i have a new sense of how precious this freedom is now, since i may lose it!

both sides now

every thing i do lately is a two-edged sword. 

Went to SPD gala friday night and it was great to see everyone. my team, and others. 

A guy who sat next to me at dinner actually said, "you're maxine davidowitz!" in the tone reserved for minor celebrities. handed out my new cards like a madwoman. felt like i still belonged in this crazy industry. then.... got wind of who's probably going to replace me, and–shit–she's terrific. i can't even bemoan the ruination of the magazine after my departure. in fact it will probably win awards. will tell you more about the tender exchange we had after it's official. but it really brought me down.

when i turn away from the work stuff and actually go out and play, it's delightful. went to the botanical gardens with an old friend who is getting a horticultural certificate as her reinvention. drinking in the nature (i know it's a cliche) really does do something for your psyche. even more important was her confession that even though she 'retired' from her job with glee, she still needed a year to get over the sense of loss.

another friend i sing with said the same thing. it's her 1 year anniversary of her retirement (makes me very queasy that i have friends who are retired. Let me get one thing straight. I am not retiring. NOT YET.) and she's just starting to feel comfortable with her identity. 

But when i spend too much time 'playing' i start to feel out of the loop. In some ways it might be easier if i knew i didn't want to work anymore. But darn, i love the magazine business. and i am good at it. 

finally started to put together my pdf presentation. and when i started i realized why i'd been postponing it. it's painful to look back at what we did. A friend sent me a list of things to ponder... some good cheerleading. my mantra for the day became number 22: Make peace with your past so it won't spoil your present. so after i put in a decent day's work on it i went to the park and painted a watercolor. and felt happy again, in the present.

love, love, love, hate, hate...

 I love my friends, i love the business i'm in  (even though reports of its death are greatly exaggerated) i love my country house, i love my garden, i love my pool, i love my neighborhood in the city, i love my apartment, i love my new kitchen, i love my husband, i love my son, i love my hair, i love my family, i love my nail polish color, i love my laptop, i love my new scanner, i love lowcarbu.com, i love facebook, i love my ipod, i love my new blackberry, i love starbucks by the pound, i love my synagogue (sometimes), i love the art supply list for my painting course, i love the fact that i am now able to stop and notice all the things i love.

i hate:  people who say i will never get another major job in the industry, the fact that Atkins is failing me this time around, my aching knees and hip, my husband's aching knees and hip, the pimple i just found on my chin, the crepey skin at my cleavage, the occasional dip into shoulda-coulda-woulda about my career, the fact that my son is 2,000 miles away and way too happy there, the fact that most of the people i want to play with work ALL DAY.

as long as list two is shorter than list one, i think i'm allllright.