Pan on image of Margot Potter looking wistful amongst the magnolia blossoms followed by a photo montage and a video excerpt of Margot looking introspective and thoughtful on a large stairway to an official looking building.
Announcer's Voice: Tired of lifestyle experts who make you feel like a total spaz?
Wondering why your muse is no longer amused?
Has your creative fire sputtered out like a dollar store tea light in a hurricane?
Are you stuck in a crafty funk of funkitudinous proportions?
Looking for a leader who can bring you change you can bedazzle and hope of a brighter glitter glue, a leader who can help you turn your craptastic crafts into creative fertilizer?
The kind of crafty genius who can turn a dumpster find into a tantilizing treasure?
Impatient, Irreverent, Imperfect and Impetuous, Margot Potter is a design expert for the rest of us.
Forget those craftier than thou candidates, it's time for a crafter who gets your frustrations, your limitations and your fears. It's time for a crafter who says
View of Margot crafting in her studio.
Margot: "Hey, who cares what it looks like underneath as long as the top looks good."
Announcer: Who reminds you that...
Margot: "There are no mistakes, because that big splodge was intentional. No, really. Okay maybe not but...that's not the point. What was the point? Oh crap, I splodged again!!"
(Music Stops. Crickets.)
Announcer's Frustrated Voice:
Where were we?
Oh yeah, Margot Potter.
(Music resumes) Images/Video of Margot looking confident and down to earth.
She's the Guru of Glue, the BQOTUTM, a creative dervish, a down to earth design diva and a Rennaissance Woman or a Jill of all Trades.
It depends on which day you ask her.
As for those nagging questions about her experience,
Margot responds with total candor (Margot:) "I'm a quasi marginal pseudo craft industry celebrity...so I've got that going for me."
And she's not just a quasi marginal pseudo craft industry celebrity, oh no, she's a quasi marginal pseudo craft industry celebrity...with that certain touch of joie de vivre and je ne sais quoi.
(Insert erudite French music here.)
If you're looking for a lifestyle expert who will help you reach deep inside and find your creative voice and let it sing...really loudly...and perhaps even off key...
Well, look no further, you've found her in The Impatient CrafterTM Margot Potter. The crafty candidate of real change, and not just the kind you can get at the local mini mart.
Congratulations to all of you! Please email me your mailing addresses so we can get your prizes out to you asap! Thanks to everyone who participated, as far as I'm concerned you all kicked some crafty booty! HUZZAH!
On a related note...I have made an executive blogging decision. It seems that I have two distinct audiences. Those who like my essays on whatever comes into my mind on any given day and those who prefer my crafty posts. In order to keep both audiences happy I've decided to create a second blog and to alternate posts on the two blogs daily. Stay tuned for the most auspicious and upcoming debut of The Impatient CrafterTM blog! Coming soon to the Blogosphere! If you'd like a product, event or book reviewed or announced, this is where I'll be doing that. If you'd like to advertise your products, events or books, you can contact me about sidebar rates. I'll also be posting free projects, product giveaways, craft tips and some of my better craft columns from The Impatient Blogger.
I Did It My Way I've had a lot of opportunities in my lifetime that arose that just didn't feel right in my gut at the time, even if they sounded amazing. When I was 19 I was in a talent contest in Sacramento California and I won. One of the judges was a local news anchor and she approached me privately after the contest. She thought I'd be a good potential candidate for Miss America. She wanted me to attend a specific college with their assistance and to basically spend a year grooming me to enter the contest. At the time I was a burgeoning punk rocker who was feeling a deep seated need to rebel against anything that felt like the establishment and I surely couldn't see myself in a beauty pageant. I didn't want to be what other people wanted me to be, I wanted to become myself. I graciously declined her offer.
Several years later I was fronting alternative country and rockabilly bands in the Cow Punk scene in the Bay Area of California in the 80s. A fan of my band and good friend of mine was friends with Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janice Joplin's band) and they were looking for a new lead vocalist. They had an audition pending and she'd recommended me. I belabored this opportunity for the better part of a week, and then I decided that it would be impossible for me to build a career being compared to or attempting to emulate one of the greatest rock and roll singers...ever. So I again graciously declined the opportunity.
I left graduate school after one semester. I had spent seven years working to support myself while I attended undergrad and managed to graduate Magna **** Laude with a BA as the Outstanding Theatre Major. It turned out the head of the grad program I was attending lied to me to get me to attend their school. I had declined another prestigious school based on her lie. On top of that I was being used as a scapegoat in a multitude of weird ways to divert attention away from a faltering theatre department. I knew if I left, that my dream of an MFA would be crushed, but I simply couldn't stay in a toxic environment. So I mustered up my intestinal fortitude and I left.
Then I took a sharp right turn and chose to get married to my husband and to build a family. I loved him, he loved me; we had a shared vision of life and a common hope for making a difference in the world. We opened a retail business and for five years we tried to sell fair trade products to the wrong audience, in retrospect we realize we should have been on the internet. Finally we had to close our shop and as some of you know at the same time I decided not to sign a contract that cost me 50 grand in lost income that year. I think a lot of people thought me pretty foolish for making that choice, but I can tell you that it felt damn good. It also resulted in the discovery of my current career.
In every lifetime we have a multitude of choices. Some of them are big, some small. Every one of them impacts us in ways we'll never be able to quantify. I actually do believe in regrets, I think a life without them is a life not lived deeply. That being said, I don't regret these decisions I've made. I trust my intuition. Anytime I've not trusted it, I've been terribly disappointed. I can't do things just because they're what I'm ‘supposed' to do, I have to do what I feel in my soul is right for me. Sometimes that means saying no to the obvious choice and instead picking what's behind door number three. Often it leaves those around me scratching their heads. So be it.
I believe that these 'roads less traveled' I have explored in my lifetime have been more difficult, but most definitely more rewarding. I've discovered things about myself and the world around me I'd never have known had I skated across the surface or taken the safe route.
At the end of the day, each and every day, I can honestly say to myself and my daughter that I did, indeed, do it my way. I can encourage her wholeheartedly to do the same. I have a vision and I think it good. I trust that it will lead me toward the success I've earned by not taking the obvious pathway. I trust that it is leading me to amazing new adventures I'd never explore if I made the safe choices. Every moment of every day we are making choices and every choice impacts our journey. The only person who can decide what choice is the right choice...is us.
The Impatient Crafter Happy Cute Make Kewpie Doll Challenge 2008 Entries! The Kewpies are here! 50 tiny naked kewpies went forth into the world and ten fabulous kewpies were bedecked in some amazing formations. As for the other 40 who are naked and cold somewhere in a drawer or a shelf or a studio table...well, I feel for them. I do. I hope they'll eventually find their way into an art project. I think the challenge was daunting as these are seriously diminuitive dolls, but these ten artists rose to the occasion and came up with some incredible art. Kudos to each of you! Not the granola bars, the congratulations! Woo hoo!
So without further adieu I present the entries in The Impatient Crafter Happy Cute Make Kewpie Doll Challenge 2008. Three of these entries will be bestowed with prizes and accolades but all of them deserve a hearty round of applause. The judges will review the entries this week and make their decisions and next Wednesday we'll announce the winners. Huzzah!
xoxo Madge
Sharon Scanlin Kewt as a Button Kewpie Copyright 2008
Email Schmemail Jean Yates Goth Kewpie Angel in Tutu Copyright 2008
I promised to reveal the kewpies that were entered in The Impatient Crafter Happy Cute Make Kewpie Doll contest today. Unfortunately I'm having some issues with my Yahoo business email account and it's making downloading the images to my desk top painfully slow. It's making the entire process of email painfully slow. I feel like I have dial up again.
Have I mentioned that I'm impatient?
Incredible time sucking pain the arse email!
I did manage to get this one photo of Jean Yates' Goth Angel Kewpie on my desktop. So creative! I'll effort to get the rest downloaded and uploaded to FlickR asap.
I found out today they're trying to move up the release date on one of my new books. That's a good sign! There's going to be a special display in a major book chain for it! I can't wait to see that. It's coming today for first author review. I'm madly in love with the cover.
Oh wait! I just heard a loud thump on my front porch...either a small farm animal just expired there OR it's my book for first review...
...must...go...see! Yes, I'm leaving you with baited breath...
"The suspense is killing me...I hope it lasts." Willy Wonka
xoxo Madge
(...okay I'm looking at it now and it is AMAZING! A-MA-ZING! I LOVE THIS BOOK! YAY!)
Pan on image of Margot Potter looking wistful amongst the magnolia blossoms followed by a photo montage and a video excerpt of Margot looking introspective and thoughtful on a large stairway to an official looking building.
Gail Friend
Hali Chambers