Shelley's Year of Affirmations

Those who followed my lovely and talented sister on Instagram in 2015 (@turleyshelley) or on Facebook may have seen her densely layered yet exuberant daily affirmations--small watercolors of hippie freaks, boundary crossers, truth seekers, paper figures in need of consciousness raising paired with often deliberately prosaic inspirational quotes. The project, which kicked off on Thanksgiving Day 2014, ended on Thanksgiving Day 2015. I interviewed Shelley about her year of affirmations on New Year's Day 2016. I'm finally posting the interview four days after Shelley's 50th birthday. I'm very lucky to be related to someone so talented and interesting. I mean, just look at Shelley's painting below:

This interview took place in the fabulous Rose Establishment in fashionable downtown Salt Lake City.

Here: 

How did this project get started?

I had all of these paper figures from other projects, paper dolls in bins. I wanted to do something with them. So I made cards. And then I thought, what if I posted the cards as daily affirmations? Posting a drawing a day is a thing some artists do. But I thought it would be more interesting as a project if there was a theme. 

What was the theme inspired by?

I had seen these affirmations--the text I used for each daily art piece--in a book. And they seemed to be connected to my work, which  has always been about the evolving spirituality of middle-class white Americans, and how spirituality inserts itself into mainstream American culture.

How did you start it logistically?

I started off the first da with a surplus of about 30 figures. And then once I ran out, I had to churn them out, often several days ahead of schedule. It felt good to have art be a grind, sometimes. I needed to just produce. It was beneficial for the project to really feel like work. It took the anxiety and preciousness out of art making. 

Tell me more about where the text for each day came from? 

I gathered some from affirmations from Pinterest actually. I tried to use text already in circulation. Then I started making up my own. 

What kind of feedback did you get?

People told me how much they looked forward to them. My friend said she had a really hard year and these affirmations really helped her. I felt like if I was putting this out there, I wanted to take it seriously myself. 

What's next?

I really want to do some paintings. Some of the ideas I generated over the past year, I'd like to make a lot larger. I feel like I have a big sketchbook now.

To see her affirmations (as I wasn't able to download any for this post), find Shelley on Instagram @turleyshelley and scroll back!

habit schmabit

guilt trip

i got one thing done today.
actually at 3 a.m. during an episode of insomnia.
the rest of my day was taken with various obligations, some commitments i had made, some unforeseen little family crises.

at 3 a.m. i got ravished by an uninvited muse and wrote a new poem, and it was a sweet, sweet moment.

so i won't complain about the thwarting of my plans, because in sum, it was a difficult day and also a better day than i could have predicted.

a stanza from my muse:

i was young then,
and that was all.

more later, when time has passed and i can vet the whole thing with some distance from the newly birthed verses.

also, this pesky chart and analysis showing the relationship between the time an author arises and how productive that author is.  i still want more proof of a cause/effect relationship between early rising and excessive artistic prolificacy.

nonetheless, barring proof, i will continue to fret that i will never be as productive as the compulsive 4 am risers.

what i wore & a report

weird picture.  sorry.  i wanted to show you that i cast off my mom clogs in favor of h&m booties (see clogs in background), my proustian bed desk (i must work on making it more sumptuous), and that i'm still wearing tons of leopard.  also, i must get rid of that hideous red polka-dotted phone case. 

today, on thursday 28 august 2014:

• read most of section 2 from charles olson's call me ishmael
• read eula biss' essay "the pain scale" from the best creative nonfiction, vol. 1, edited by lee gutkind
• read chapter 17, "the ramadan," chapter 10 "a bosom friend," chapter 4 "the counterpane," and chapter 11, "nightgown," from moby dick.

here's what olson says about melville, and i find it highly applicable.  if you're a writer, you might also find resonance here:

he [melville] was a skald, and knew how to appropriate the work of others.  he read to write.  highborn stealth, edward dahlberg calls originality, the act of a cutpurse autolycus who makes thefts as invisible as possible.  melville's books batten other men's books.

• wrote the poems "we are all dreadfully cracked. . . ", "but what is worship?",  and "there you lie. . . ."
• wrote blog post
• re-submitted to rad journal who asked for more work
• submitted to new journal, work never before submitted

not done

• manuscript editing on the lapidary's nosegay.  the fourteenth day in a row this has been on my list and has not been touched.  

p.s. in addition to wearing this outfit to blog in, i'll be wearing it to a parent-teacher conference in which we discuss the issue of my child drawing a mustache and beard on his face with marker at school yesterday, to neylan mcbaine's women at church book release at zion's books, and to the opening of tamarack, a new provo restaurant, which i will review if all goes well.  and finally, to watch the dita von teese episode of project runway later on tonight.