songs that stop me in my tracks: Open Heart Zoo by Martin Grech

Go in the direction of your fears

go in the direction of your fears, originally uploaded by creating in the dark.

These blog posts have resonated wildlly with me recently:
http://swirlygirl.typepad.com/swirly_girl/2010/08/five-things-especially-for-you-yes-you.html

http://ruthannharnisch.com/the-coach/i-come-for-the-one/

I've been thinking a lot about about identity and honesty since yesterday's blogpost ... Last year a friend of a friend said to her "the thing about Helen is she's fearless." That really couldn't be further from the truth but (having read Ruth Ann Harnisch's blogpost) I'm starting to think I might be able to be fearless for 'the one' ... we'll see.

Me and my aspirations laid bare

To some of you this might come as a bit of a surprise, or perhaps it's pretty obvious to most already but I have spent most of my adult life battling to overcome a sometimes cripplingly low self confidence. When it's come to taking opportunities to progress I have mostly relied on being in the right place at the right time and/or the encouragement of others to make me go for it. My natural inclination is to wait for someone to tell me that I stand a good chance of succeeding or to let the opportunity pass by ... usually because I feel that I'm not ready, or I don't have time to put together a decent application, or that I wouldn't deliver if I did get through, or whatever other paper-thin excuses that my monkey mind has dreamt up. All too often I've taken myself out of the running rather than risk failure or rejection.

The reason I'm telling you this is that I want something big and I want to ask for your help to make me brave enough to go for it ... This seems like an utterly ludicrous thing to be typing but I'd like to apply for a place on the TED Fellowship scheme ... madness, total lunatic madness right? As soon as the little hopeful voice inside me thought 'ooh, that would be *amazing* ... I wonder if I could apply' it was swamped by a tidal wave of self-doubt rushing in the other direction. That wave of self-doubt boils down to me struggling to see what I've done that is remarkable enough to justify putting in an application ... basically a huge big, resounding, tuneless chorus of 'I'm not worthy'.

So here's how you might be able to help ... if you can think of anything that I've done that seems remarkable to you or has inspired you in any way then please leave a comment below (or send me an email if you'd rather not do it publically). If you are kind enough to share your thoughts with me then I'll happily and gratefully reward you with a doodle in return ... that's not meant as an inducement or a bribe, I just know how much effort it takes to put time aside to do stuff like this.

My gut feeling is that I should wait another year (or two or three) until I have done something bold and outstanding but maybe you see things differently? All views welcome but be gentle if it's a 'don't be so flaming daft' comment :)

A rose by any other name

today she was a rose, originally uploaded by creating in the dark.

For nearly a year I've been grappling in the back of my mind with the question of whether it still made sense to have two separate twitter accounts. Last month I came to the conclusion that there is so much convergence in my art life and my non-art life that it would be better to drop one of the accounts. In the process I confused myself and just about everyone else who noticed something had changed. In the interests of (hopefully) clarifying things and as a cautionary tale for anyone else who finds themselves in a similar position.

Here's a timeline of what happened:
Back in the summer of 2007 I joined twitter, and @helenharrop was born.
My twitter account sat fairly dormant until later that year when I started meeting other people in the real world who used twitter.
Many moons later I decided to change my twitter name to @iamhelenharrop which seems a bit crazy because it's 3 characters longer but it matches my email address and I liked the quirkiness of it.
In December 2008 I made the fateful decision to set up a second twitter account, originally as a safe place to hide, which became @iamcreative and was where I posted about arty and creative things rather than more geeky stuff which was usually connected to my work life.

When I made the decision to drop one of the accounts I was faced with a conundrum ... my @iamhelenharrop account had a longer history and therefore would reflect my cool geek status as a fairly early adopter of twitter ... but I really liked the @iamcreative name and felt that it better expresses what I'm about ... so I came up with a cunning solution ... well it seemed cunning at the time, in retrospect it was ony ever going to cause high levels of confusion.

Here's what I did:
Step 1) I renamed my @iamcreative account to be @iamelsewhere
Step 2) I renamed my @iamhelenharrop account to be @iamcreative
Simples! ... except that the result was mild to extreme confusion for my followers (particularly those following my @iamcreative account originally).

I had thought that renaming the account I was dropping @iamelsewhere would flag to folks that I had moved to a different account but I don't think people have largely realised that's what it means (and I'm still getting new followers thanks to the new 'Who to Follow' feature on twitter). The confusion was greatly exacerbated by the fact that I was telling folks who followed me as @iamcreative to switch and follow me as @iamcreative ... a few people replied saying words to the effect of 'eh?! I'm already following you as @iamcreative' and then I had to try and explain in 140 characters what had happened.

Effectively what I've done is to move my arty twitter id over to my work account without a clear strategy for getting my arty followers to move with me ... fairly big fail there! I've been thinking a lot about how I can remedy the situation and have decided that:
a) I'm going to post a link to this blogpost a few times over the forthcoming days and weeks on my @iamelsewhere account

b) I'm going to change the @iamelsewhere account to 'protected' in a few weeks time so that new folks are put off following me

c) I'm going to go through the 300+ folks I was following on the original @iamcreative account (which is now @iamelsewhere ... keep up!) and follow them as @iamcreative (using the account that used to be @iamhelenharrop ... is this making any sense yet?!)

So there you go ... how to confuse several hundred people and lose 700+ followers in two easy steps ... next time I try anything like this I think I'll storyboard the process first!

In conclusion if you were following me as @iamcreative before July then you need to follow me again at http://twitter.com/iamcreative :)

Inspiring Women Project

Inspiration from UK Handmade

I feel like I barely need to add any words to this - it's awesomness is self-evident - but I should at least credit Emma Seaton (aka @amoebababe) for bringing it to my attention :)

Behold:

Click to launch the full edition in a new window
Publishing Software from YUDU

Give Blood ~ Get Art

Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust, originally uploaded by creating in the dark.

In the spirit of sharing I am going to tell you something shameful ... The last time I gave blood was about 10 years ago ... at least ... (where the heck does the time go?!!). At the beginning of May I decided that enough was enough, I swallowed my shame and took myself along to a local blood donor session. This story should end with me saying how lovely and understanding the nurses were (true) and how I skipped off home with my head held high, one pint of blood poorer but one cup of tea and one biscuit richer ... unfortunately I was in for a bit of a nasty surprise - my blood count was too low for me to donate so I skulked off back home without my free biscuit and without the feeling that I had done something amazing

It turns out that I'm anaemic ... nothing serious but I won't be able to give blood for another year :( ... I've come up with an idea to encourage you folks out there to give blood on my behalf. It's simple ... go and give blood ... come back and tell me about it ... I'll send you a little hand-drawn doodle (a 'bloodle'!) to thank you for being awesome!

A few of you might be thinking 'Dang! I'd love to get my hands on a doodle but I can't give blood ... boo! not fair!' ... worry not! If you can persuade someone you know to give blood then I'll send you both a doodle ... happy days!

I've had a go at creating a form for you to fill in once you've given blood (or once the person you've persuaded has given blood) ... I'm not going to put an expiry date on this offer (it took me 10 years to get round to going after all!) but obviously if everyone steps up to the plate and gives blood then I might need to have a re-think :) ... but for now, go forth and do something amazing! {beaming in anticipation of how proud you're going to make me}