Balancing act

One thing that all artists face is the tight rope of life. Many of us in the world of lampwork do not face the same restrictions of regular folks. There is no one to scowl at me if I am not at work, there is no time card to punch, and there are no co workers to hold us accountable. We also get few of the benefits of a "real" job, such as knowing how big that check will be when pay day rolls around.

As many of my readers already know, I am a house husband. Not only do I try and work a full week in the studio, I also do the cooking, school drop off and pickup, and the house maintenance. I am the first to admit that I am about the worst house cleaner out there, but my family is well fed, no kids are left outside the school, and more importantly, my kids are still in one piece( so I must be doing something right).

Here are a few of the tasks that I am responsible for in any given week.

Cooking
Cleaning
errands and school stuff
Making art
Selling art
Promoting art
Teaching art
photographing art
ebay sales
etsy sales (or lack there of)
grocery shopping
emails, taxes , scheduling classes and various other assorted computer time activities.
sleep

Now I am sure I am forgetting something is this list ( like something fun ), but you can see my problem. Which ones are priority, and how do I decide. First one to go, to my wife's dismay, is always cleaning. I can live while a few socks hang out on the floor, I can not live with out food.

I try and schedule three days in the studio, one to teach at the Visual arts Center, and one to work in the office. Here is the problem: Life gets in the way.

Let me give you and example. Two weeks ago my son got a very minor fracture in his foot. This started a huge avalanche that impacted two weeks of careful planning.

First I had to cancel class to take him to the ortho doctor. Which led into the next week when I lost a day in the studio to make up that class. Which led to two days out of the studio. I can not even remember all the ways in which the universe conspired against me, but I have not set foot in the studio in a week and a half. All of my scheduling and good intentions, gone out of the window. Next week we will try again.

Now I know a lot of my beadmaking buddies out there are in a similar situation. So come on and give me your solutions.

I do gripe a lot, but I would not trade anything for my ability to be there when the family needs me. The glass can wait, even if it gets a little impatient every now and then.

And here is the pay off, one of the new marbles from before the broken foot issue.