• How To Include Nudity in Your Everyday Life

    April 30, 2022 /

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hey friends, welcome to another week of talking about nudity. Yeah, so this week I’m going to talk about how to include nudity in your everyday life. So last week’s video was how to be more comfy naked and this is going to kind of be an extension of that because the way that you usually get more comfortable with things is by practice and actually having the experience. So, yeah, if you want to put more nudity in your daily life, let’s talk about it.

    Like I said in the last video, it’s really good to start small and maybe just start at home by yourself. So, some things that you can do in that regard would be maybe sleeping naked or going topless when you’re alone in your room. Maybe if it’s possible to do it safely, maybe do some chores naked, maybe doing some mirror work while you’re naked. One thing that I personally love to do is to take self-portraits when I’m naked that uh… you definitely can do that. If you have a cell phone, you already have a camera so you can take self-portraits. One of my favorites. I have so much to say about self portraits. We’ll get more into that in another video. Yeah, self portraits naked are like super fun and you have full control. If you hate the photo you can delete it. If you love it, you can share it or just keep it to yourself.

    So other ways to include nudity in your everyday life, if you have friends or family that are cool with nudity, maybe you can invite them over and hang out and have like a naked dinner party or something. Maybe you can have a naked book club or naked game night or naked “let’s hang out by, I don’t know, my backyard”, whatever things you would do normally with your friends. Maybe just do some of them naked if that was available to you.

    More ways you can include nudity. You can have a naked party at your house like invite a bunch of people and, you know, give it a theme. I don’t know, what would you do at parties and just make it naked. You can go to a nude yoga class. So people are doing them online. Some people are doing them in person. Those are a thing, naked yoga, so maybe you could go to a naked yoga class. You can attend a nude gathering virtually or in person. I host those on a semi-regular basis. I’ve been doing the virtual ones much more than the in-person ones since the pandemic. But, yeah, you get, you can do one of those. You can host one yourself.

    You could go on a naked hike, so I think there’s like an actual day. It’s like national naked hiking day or something. I need to look it up. I don’t remember much about it. But there are some places where you actually can be naked in like a public outdoor setting. You might need to check the laws in your area and see if you have any clothing optional spaces near you, but that could be an option. Also, there’s World Naked Bike Rides that are happening around the world at certain times of the year, so you might enjoy one of those. Sometimes there’s even like nude retreats and big and nude events. Like Sentient Fest is happening, I think it’s early August and that’s a clothing-optional festival that’s like pretty big, I believe. I’m hoping to be there. I really hope. We’ll see. So there’s a whole bunch of things that you can do to include nudity in your everyday life. I hope it helps you. Have a great one. Love you. Bye.

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  • How To Be More Comfortable Naked

    April 23, 2022 /

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    Hey friends, talking about nudity, some more! Yay! This video is about how to be more comfortable naked. I’ve had a bunch of people ask me about this. So I’m just going to share some thoughts I have on it. This isn’t really super cohesive and it’s probably not comprehensive either, but this is just something I’ve been thinking about recently and I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

    So if you don’t feel comfortable right now, being naked and you want to start to feel more comfortable naked, what I would do would be to start small, like this is a process and we all have a lot of like bullshit that was taught to us by society and a lot of people around us about the way that we’re supposed to be and how bodies are supposed to be and how like sex happens and like what nudity means, and it’s hard to brush off that like societal bullshit and like say “I don’t really care about what that society thinks.” So this is a process that should happen over time. Nothing is going to be immediate and you’re probably not gonna have like a lightbulb moment of like, “oh, suddenly everything’s fine. And I’m totally comfortable being naked.” It’s probably gonna be a gradual process over time, and that would be different for every person. So there’s no like rush to get comfy naked. This is just some things that I can offer you as ways to maybe start and see how you feel.

    So when I say start small, I really mean start small, like maybe you don’t even get naked yet. Maybe you seek out content that is nude that is non sexual, that maybe also includes people that have similar bodies to you, if that is something you can find. Just seeing that other people can be nude and be just like, a normal everyday thing can be really helpful for us, even if we’re not personally ready to get naked. Just seeing that that’s a possibility in the world can open our minds to like, “oh, okay. This actually does exist. Maybe maybe that can be for me too.” So yeah. Seek out nude non-sexual, you know, normalized nudity and super bonus points if you can find people that have a similar body to yours. That would be super extra great.

    If you want to actually start doing some naked things, maybe just go topless in your room for a while. Just you, by yourself in your room without a shirt on, or without pants, or without one article of clothing that you usually wear, like, start really small. You don’t have to do everything all at once. You just do bit by bit. And do that maybe a few days a week, whatever feels right for you and your schedule, starting out small like I said.

    You also could… one thing I really like to do is dance naked in the mirror or just like talk to myself in the mirror or yeah, just like, look at myself in the face. So maybe you could do that with one less article of clothing. Just be in the mirror slightly less clothed than you usually are and maybe say nice things to yourself or maybe a listen to a love song and imagine you’re singing it to yourself in the mirror, instead of singing it about someone else, sing it about yourself, sing a love song to yourself. That’s like super powerful to me.

    You… if you would like to be more comfortable naked and include other people, maybe reach out to some friends and see if they might be comfortable hanging out with you naked or topless or something. Having the actual experience of being nude around other people and it not involving sex is a really empowering and like affirming experience. So, I hope that everyone gets a chance to do that. 

    If you want to include more nudity in your everyday life, I’m going to talk more in depth about that in the next video, but I wanted to give you a starting point of where to start, maybe if you’re feeling really insecure about being naked but you really are curious about it and want to try but you’re just like, “I’m still scared.” I hope that this video helped. Yes, okay. Thank you for being here. I love you and I will see you next week. 

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  • How To Get Someone Naked

    April 16, 2022 /

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    Hi friends. I have heard a lot of questions recently from people regarding nudity. So I’m going to kind of dive into that for the next couple of videos. And this one, this video is going to be about how to get someone naked. And I chose that title for a reason because it’s kind of misleading. It’s more like click baity than anything. But this is true. I will share with you how to get someone naked… if they already want to get naked.

    So number one, consent is the most important thing. If they want to get naked, they’re going to get naked. If they don’t want to get naked, do not force them. You can’t just get someone naked. That’s why I titled it this because I’m hoping that someone that needs to hear this is going to find it. 

    If you want someone to be naked and they don’t want to be naked, that is their choice. Not yours. They get to choose what to do with their body. If they don’t want to get naked, you have no control over that. All you can do is accept it and say, okay, cool thanks. Period. 

    So if you are around someone who you’ve discussed things with and they are consenting to be naked potentially, but they’re not ready for it quite yet, but they’re open to the idea. Here’s how you do it. We are never going to, like I would never encourage someone to coerce someone into something. That is not what we do. That is not consent. Coercion is not consent. Asking someone over and over and over again until they say yes is not consent.

    If someone is already curious and excited about the idea of getting naked and they’re just not quite sure when or where or how yet, you can create an environment that makes them feel safe, and give them the space that this is a clothing-optional environment. This is a clothing optional space. And then maybe they might decide that they want to get naked.

    So, a couple ways you can do this, to create a space that’s safe and comfortable for nudity. It’s usually best to start off with a place that’s private,  somewhere in your house, a room. Maybe if there’s like a private backyard, if you want to be outside, privacy is pretty important. If you’re going to be doing something that someone is not used to doing, I’m kind of used to it, but a lot of people are not, so privacy would probably be my number one helpful thing. If you have a private place where you know you’re not going to be disturbed and where the person is able to feel comfortable and know that they’re in a safe space. That would be awesome. Private safe space.

    You can make that private space more comfortable by maybe regulating the temperature of the space. Is it too cold? Is it too hot? Can you make the space at a comfortable temperature for nudity, a comfortable temperature, for nudity, might be different than a regular comfortable temperature with clothes on. You can have comfy things around like pillows and blankets maybe, so some restful time and space.

    Maybe you… if it’s okay with them, maybe you get comfortable and naked first. If they consent to you also being naked, that way you can introduce them to like being nude in the space that they’re in, in a non-sexual way, in a non like pushy way. Because you’re the one that’s getting naked. You’re like opening that door of like, this is now a clothing-optional space. If you get naked, they might also feel comfortable to get naked if they know that there’s like an even playing field. 

    Yeah, also just give them permission, let them know that is clothing optional. It’s not, “if you’re here you have to be naked”, or “if you’re here you have to be clothed”. They get to choose what to do with their body and how much or how little clothes they have on in that space. Like if you just, if you make that a known thing, if you communicate that with them, that’s kind of… that’s the recipe for success, a good private safe, comfortable space, where clothing optional is a thing, without any pressure or expectation on them and letting them choose what’s best for them. That’s how you get someone naked if they want to already be naked, if they already want to, that’s how you do it. But you can’t force them. I will forever remind you. Yeah, that’s how you get someone naked. If they already want to be naked, make it a comfy safe space. 

    I hope you have some fun naked times with friends, if they want to be naked and you want to be naked. Yeah, you might also… sometimes it’s good to have an activity or something to do like play a board game or something. Because if you’re just like sitting there twiddling your thumbs staring at each other naked it’s a little awkward. But if you have like a thing to work towards or something to like occupy your hands, or your thoughts, that also might make it a little more comfy, so it’s not as much pressure on, like, “oh my gosh. I’m naked and people are staring at me.” It’s more like, “okay, this is just another day, and we’re doing random normal fun friend things. It’s just we also happen to not have clothes on.” That’s how you do it. Okay. I love you. Thank you for being here. I hope this isn’t too long. I tend to repeat myself. Okay, I love you! Bye. 

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  • Resources for Artists: Set Up a Website + Mailing List for FREE

    April 2, 2022 /

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hi friends! Welcome back to my website and this week’s vlog. So I’ve been talking about resources for artists and free things that can help you with your art and your business so far this month. And I think I have a little bit more to share with you today along those lines. So let’s dive in!

    A lot of people think that they have to spend a whole bunch of money on their website, on their mailing list on all kinds of things to make their business, like to get it started. But if you want to do that without paying money, here are a few websites that might help you.

    So the first one, if you want to sell things for free, like you don’t have to pay to create this website and you can sell things from it and get paid from it. I use beacons.ai, it’s kind of like you might be familiar with linktree. It’s kind of like that where it’s one website like one link and it’s basically full of other links, but the cool thing about beacons is they also have a shop section on there where you can put things like digital products in there to sell and you don’t have to pay to create an account. So they might take a small percentage as like a service fee. I don’t remember if they do or how much it is, if they do. But just to like, start off and have something and be able to start making money immediately after you sign up. This is a really good option. 

    So, beacons.ai, I’ll put the link to mine below (CLICK HERE TO SEE MY BEACONS PAGE) so you can see what an example of one looks like, but it’s really simple. If you have like multiple social platforms, and if you have, if you don’t really have an actual website yet, but you want to start selling stuff. This is a really good option because you can link to all of your socials, like, say you have a link to your Instagram, your TikTok, your YouTube, your Facebook, whatever you want to link to, I think you can have that section where you sell digital products.

    They also have a place on there where you can have people pay to like, receive a video from you, or like, a one-on-one session kind of thing. They have several options for ways that you can make money on there without having to pay to create a website.

    Another website that is really helpful that is free. You might… depending on what kind of art you make, you might want to look up for something different. But if your art is not too controversial, not too much like nudity and stuff, this is a really good option. So if you want to have a mailing list where you have a list of people that you can send emails to and create like landing pages and that kind of thing. MailChimp is a really good option. It’s you can sign up for free. They have a paid plan which has more features and things you can do. Like, you can actually schedule your emails instead of having to send them, like, click the button to send. But to me, it’s worth it to have it free. And I can just, you know, if I want to send it, I can draft it and then send it whenever I want it to send, but there’s other things on there that you can get for the paid version, but I’ve never needed to use it.

    We use MailChimp for Going Beyond the Lens. I don’t use it for my personal art because I have a whole bunch of nude stuff. Like, that’s most of what I share. So just in case because of their terms of service, I don’t use MailChimp for my personal, like, email list, but for the Going Beyond the Lens email list, we do use MailChimp. It’s really easy to use. It’s free. It’s great if you’re just starting out. 

    Also, none of these things are set in stone. Like, if you’re just starting and you want to get started and start stuff for free right now. These are great things to do and you can always switch platforms later on like say if you start a MailChimp you have a mailing list. You have like a hundred people on your list and you’re like, okay, this is great. I’m ready to start paying for a different list that can do more things. But I don’t want to stay on MailChimp. You can grab like you can transfer those contacts, your whole list from MailChimp to another platform. So it’s not like you have to be stuck with this one platform forever. If you choose it, it can be a temporary option for you until you find something that fits you better or until you can afford the thing that you really want.

    So yeah, those are two websites that can be really helpful to you if you’re just creating your art business and you want to get started selling stuff and having things for people to look at and sending emails, but you don’t have to pay for it. These are great options. Beacons.ai and MailChimp. Yeah, they’re real great. I think I think beacons does have an affiliate program. So if I might do that link here, but I don’t think MailChimp does. And if they do I’m not going to try to do that, but I might try to do the affiliate for beacons, because I think it might give y’all like bonus thing and me a bonus thing, if I refer you to beacons, so it will be beneficial to everyone. So, yeah, I just wanted to share more of those Resources with you because they’re helpful for me, so hopefully they’ll help for for you. 

    Yeah, I just I want all artists to be able to succeed and do well and I don’t think that we should have to pay a lot of money in order to do that because money is an automatic barrier to a lot of people, especially a lot of people that are already marginalized this society. So the ways that we can support them, that are free, I want to do it. Yay. Okay. So yeah. I hope this helps you. Beacons, and MailChimp are great. I have used them personally.

    Yeah, if there’s anything that you are curious about want to know about want me to talk about, let me know. You can either comment below. You can send me an e-mail or you can respond to you by survey. I’ll put the link below. Thank you so much for being here. I love you, and I’ll talk to you soon! Bye!

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  • Resources for Artists: Free Video Editing Software

    March 26, 2022 /

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hey friends! Welcome back to my website and my vlog, I’m Bunny, thank you so much for being here! I’m going to continue my little mini series on things that I use in my art and my business that are free resources that have really helped me a lot. So I wanted to share that with you in case it will help you too. So last week I talked about canva this week I’m talking about video editing.

    I’m still a very beginner learner. I know that this resource that I’m about to share with you is this huge big powerful resource that can do a lot of things and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I can do with it, but I’m learning more and there’s a bunch of YouTube videos for learning even more about it, and diving deeper into learning video editing. I’ve learned that video editing takes a lot of time. So I may not want to be a video editor for other people or for very long extensive videos because I don’t want to spend like 10 hours on a 10 minute video because that kind of makes me feel depressed. So I try to not do too much, just because I would rather be doing other things than sitting on a screen at a computer and staring at a screen and editing video for hours and hours, and hours and hours.

    So, but if you’re a video editor, And well you probably, if you are a video editor, you probably already have the software for it. But if you want to learn video editing, and don’t know where to start and don’t want to pay for it. Here’s what you do. So Blackmagic is a big-time video company, they make cameras and they have software for video. They’re one of the more well-known camera makers that has like 4K cameras. They also have a video editing software called DaVinci Resolve and it’s free or, they have a free version and they also have a paid version. The free version, I like I said, I’ve barely scratched the surface of what kind of what I can do with, even just the free version, but it’s very powerful. You can do so much with it. So, of course, the generic, like usual video editing of like, cutting splicing moving adjusting stuff. I think you probably get that with any video editing, but they have a lot of controls that I don’t even know what they do, but I know that you can like sensor stuff on there. You can add captions, you can add like Graphics, you can do fancy transitions. I’m still learning, there’s a lot on there that you can do that I don’t even know about. I think you can change like the color stuff in there. Yeah. I’ve just started learning but it’s been really helpful, I know that it’s a really powerful software. So, it is something that you have to download onto your computer and it does take up… some space. I don’t know how much but if you have a decent computer with a decent amount of space, you can definitely download it. It is free.

    I’ve edited a few videos on there and there’s one that I’m not finished with and I’m still editing. It’s a little bit of a longer video that I’ll probably eventually share in my YouTube channel, which is like a cropped censored much shorter version of an older vlog from you guys like for me that are that’s on my website. So you’ve already seen the video technically. You just haven’t seen the edited much shorter version of it, which I will eventually be done editing. I’ve been spending more of my time in the past working on the residency application. So I kind of set aside my video editing project until I could finish the application for The Residency. But yeah, I just I really wanted to tell you about this software that is available to you for video editing.

    And before I finish this video, I think I’m going to tell you about another software that’s for video editing that’s on your phone. It’s an app, and it’s also free and it also is pretty powerful and has a lot you can do on there and I haven’t even touched all the things you can do. It’s not as powerful as DaVinci Resolve, DaVinci Resolve has way more things we can do. But this app for your phone for video editing is still, there’s still a lot you can do with it. You can do voice overs, you can switch out audio, you can crop and move and edit the video of course. I’ve seen that there’s other things you can do on there that I haven’t even touched, like, green screen and, like, adding different things to your video. I just haven’t played with that yet.

    But so this app for your phone, it’s called CapCut. It’s a free app and it makes it really easy to just like upload straight to Youtube. I think they primarily are using that app for TikTok because I have you can connect your TikTok account and like, grab the sounds from TikTok to put into the video and you can upload the video once it’s done straight to TikTok. I just don’t have a TikTok account. But if you do, that would probably be helpful. Yeah. CapCut is the name of the app. It’s really easy to use. Download on your phone for free and you can Video Edit with it. Yay we love free resources. Okay. Yeah. I think that’s all the important stuff want to share with you today. But thank you for being here. I hope that my little mini series of free resources for artists has been helpful! I’ll see you soon, next week! Love you!

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  • Resources for Artists: Creating Your Own Graphics + Promo Materials

    March 19, 2022 /

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hey friends! Welcome back to my website and my blog and thanks for being here with me. I’m so glad that you’re here! Okay, so last week, I talked about the getting your shit together website and ways that I’m helping myself and hopefully helping you get more opportunities as an artist. So, this week, I wanted to talk about a couple of other like, free resources that I use to help me as an artist.

    Many of you probably already know about this, but I’m going to talk about it anyway, just in case you don’t, because it’s like extremely helpful for me and my life as a like an artist and a self-employed internet person. So I mean everybody needs graphics and like visual design things right? For websites, for social media posts, for banners, for all kinds of stuff. There is a website where you can do all that for free and it’s really easy to use and they have all kinds of everything you’ll need basically. They have templates, they have stock photos, they have graphics, they have the ability to make it into a video, like, gifs, kinds of stuff.

    So this website is canva… canva.com. This is not affiliated or anything, I just really love it. I use this website all the time. So if you need to make any kind of like visual content, it’s really easy to use canva to do that. You can make a free account. They have paid accounts too but there’s so much you can do on there even with just a free account. You don’t even need the paid account, unless you want the extra extra perks from the paid account. So I use canva for so much. Most of the banners on my website that you see a lot like the gifs and stuff that I or not gifs. The, the memes that I’ve made in the past, the thumbnails for my YouTube videos, the banners that I make for my events, a whole bunch of stuff has been made with canva. It’s so easy to use. You can add text and graphics, you can add images, you can use their images, you can use your images. It’s, I just, I love it. It’s so useful. And I love that it’s free and I love that it’s online. They also have an app. It just makes everything really easy. And when you download it, you can choose from a different a bunch of different kinds of files to download whatever your design is. 

    They have a ton of templates. So if you’re like, I’m gonna make a worksheet, then there’s a bunch of worksheet templates. I made my resume on there, made it look really fancy. They have templates for resumes. They have templates for like Facebook posts, Instagram posts, YouTube thumbnail. Banners for your website, they have templates for basically everything, and you can either use their templates or you can create it from scratch on your own. You can be like, I want this very specific size, I want a specific color, I want this specific font. It’s so useful and helpful, and I love it a lot.

    Yeah, so that’s a free thing that I use to help me with my business, my art, my lots of things. If you haven’t heard of canva, now you have. I hope you enjoy. Go search and look for it and make an account and do stuff and make, you know, have fun. Make some graphics. Yeah, it’s been really helpful for me. I hope it’s helpful for you.

    Yeah, if there’s anything else that you are curious about in terms of what I use for my business, for my art, put a comment below or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you. I’ll also put the survey below if you want to just answer my survey with a bunch of questions that I would love to hear about from you. Yeah. Thanks for being here. I’ll talk to you next week about more things that I use in my art and business that are free. Yay. 

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  • Resources for Artists: How to Write An Artist Statement

    March 5, 2022 /

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    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hey, friends, I’m here again to talk to you about stuff that I think will maybe help you. So hopefully it does. I’m going to Dive Right In. Because so January/February is talking about goals and ways that I’m like helping myself and ways that I’m finding opportunities as an artist. And I thought that for March, I would talk a little bit about the tools that I use that help me do all the artists things.

    So for this video, I want to talk about kind of an extension from think it was last week or the week before where I was talking about the call for entry website and submitting application for residency. So part of submitting an application for a residency is writing an artist statement, and I don’t know about you, but that was really hard for me to do. I consider myself much more of a visual artist than a writer. So writing an artist statement was a struggle. I feel like I’m not as strong of a writer as I am an artist. And I think that with the way that we are required to submit applications for people to look at our art to consider us for opportunities, we have to know a lot about writing in order to submit those applications. So, I feel like that automatically kind of, like, cuts out a whole lot of people that may or may not actually be wonderful artists, they just struggle with writing.

    So, in order to hopefully, help more people have more opportunities as an artist. I want to talk about the resources that I use to help me write my artist statement, because hopefully it will help you too. I feel like a lot of us want our artwork to speak for itself and most of the time, it does. But sometimes in order for the right people to see it, we have to write the right things too. And not just have the right images or paintings or visual or whatever art is. So here we go.

    This is how I wrote my artist statement. Well, this is the resource I used to write it. Your artist statement is going to be very different than mine. And the way that you write it is going to be unique to you and your art, but the resource that I have found and used to write a lot of these things is the getting your shit together website. They have a book too, I think, when I was in college, they had us buy the book and use the book as part of one of my art classes. And then I learned later on that they also have a website with a whole bunch of resources for artists. So this getting your shit together website is very different from the call to entry website. The call to entry is for artists to submit their applications for opportunities and like to find opportunities. The getting your shit together website is like all of the kind of back-end stuff that artists need in order to be able to request those opportunities. So, like how to write an artist statement, how to write an artist resume, a whole bunch of stuff like that. Like how to find…

    I just got really distracted by a really cute bird out of my window! Okay, sorry.

    So I use the getting your shit together website as a resource for how to write the artist statement, because I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know how to write it. I don’t know what is expected to be in it. I don’t want to write it incorrectly and then they just like throw out my application for this residency. So this website has all the information that you would need in order to write something like an artist statement. Like, for instance, I learned that artist statements are written in first person. So you say like, I me my… that kind of thing in the artist statement. And then of course it has like in the first section, it should say something like this and the second section you should include these things, and the final part you should do this. So it kind of gives you an outline of the types of things you would need in an artist statement, which will help you write your own based on what your artwork is.

    Yeah, artist statements are really hard. So yeah, I don’t make this video way too long and I have told you most of the really important information and in order to not repeat myself a lot of times because I think I’d do that… I’m just going to share the link to the getting your shit together website below, and it has a whole bunch of resources for artists in that way. Like, writing artist statements, writing your resume all that kind of thing. So, yeah. I hope it helps you, it definitely helped me. Yeah, I hope you have a wonderful day. I’ll talk to you soon. I love you! Bye! 

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  • Resources for Artists: How to Find Opportunities as an Artist

    February 26, 2022 /

    Click here to watch video in another window

    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hey friends. Thanks for coming here again to my website. So happy you’re here! Excuse me. Hi. So, in my last Vlog, I talked a little bit about this residency that I’m applying for, by the time this video comes out. I will have already applied, but as I’m recording this I haven’t submitted it yet. I wanted to follow up about it because I think that, or, I’m pretty sure that a lot of people would like to put themselves out there in that way, for opportunities as an artist, but they don’t know where to freakin start at all. And don’t even know how to find these opportunities. So I wanted to share with you where I find them and how you can do it too.

    So there’s this amazing website called CaFE or call for entry. I believe it’s call for entry dot org. And what this website does, is it connects artists with a bunch of opportunities, things like residencies, things like workshops, public art, exhibits, grants, awards. All kinds of opportunities that are geared toward artists. So if you’re an artist and you are like, I really want to put my stuff in the gallery show, but I don’t know where to start you go to this call for entry website and sign up as an artist and then it’ll… you can search through all of the calls and you can search for certain kinds of calls, and if you only want to look for exhibits or if you only want to look for residencies, or if you want to look for anything at all that is potentially available to you. They have all kinds of stuff on there and there’s, it’s constantly being updated. That’s where I found both of the residencies that I’ve applied for. I applied for residency last year that I did not receive, which I was sad that I didn’t get it, but I also can’t expect myself to get everything that I want always. Especially if it was like my first time applying for a residency ever. But that experience applying for residency last year really helped me with applying for one this year because I already had my artist resume created. I already had a lot of like generic kind of responses written out for the kind of questions they would ask for residency. So this one they did have more questions and different questions, but it didn’t take me as long to complete this application than it did for the one that I did last year because I already had a lot of stuff already figured out and put together and I already had kind of figured out a system of how to like figure out what I’m going to even say. So that helped me a lot, just doing it last year, even if I didn’t get the residency, that really helped me to be able to do it this year a lot quicker and easier, and with less stress and less time.

    So back to call for entry. If you sign up as an artist, you can search. And you can also sign up for their email list, which is really helpful because they’ll send out like new opportunities to your email that they think might work for you. And they also, I think it’s the… it’s either the most recent things or the things that are about to be due, like expire in terms of like you have until this date to apply but they’ll send out a whole list of like, here’s a whole bunch of potential things that you could apply for that are due in the next two weeks, or month, or so. Or here’s a whole bunch of stuff that is brand new that you might want to apply for. So you can get emails sent to you of all these potential opportunities and then you can just scroll through your email be like, oh, this one sounds cool and click through and do your thing.

    Another cool thing about the call for entry website is the applications to all of these things like the residencies gallery shows, exhibitions, like workshops all the things, you apply through the website. So not only does it help you find the opportunities, but it also helps you like put yourself in the running for those opportunities. When you apply and say you submit images or something for your portfolio, it’ll have those images in this website already so you can just reuse them for different applications. If you want to use the same photos. So it’s helpful because everything is all in one place. Yeah. It’s been really helpful for me. I think it would be harder to find the opportunities if I was just searching randomly and I probably wouldn’t be able to see as many all in one place if I was just on the internet somewhere else.

    So this website is call for entry dot org, that’s spelled C-A-L-L-F-O-R-E-N-T-R-Y-(dot)-O-R-G. This is not a sponsored post or anything. I don’t think they do affiliates, but I just the site has helped me as an artist do I just wanted to share it with you. Yeah, I hope I get the residency we’ll see! And if not, I’ll take another failure because each failure gets me closer to a success and I learn with each one.

    So, yeah. Hopefully this helps you as an artist. If you’re wanting to get yourself out there. If you have any questions comment below or send me an e-mail, or you can like submit stuff through my survey. I’ll link that below and yeah. I hope you have a wonderful day! I’ll talk to you soon! Bye!

    Click here to check out the Call For Entry website!

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  • 5 Steps to Produce Ideas / 5 Steps for Being Creative

    December 11, 2021 /

     

    (Click here to watch video in another window)

    CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

    Hello, good morning, or afternoon, or evening… whatever time it is where you are! I’m glad you’re here. I think this month I’m going to talk about creativity. I’ve already talked about creativity a bunch, but I feel like there’s a lot of things to say about it. So I’m gonna keep talking about it because so far in the survey that y’all have answered. Some of you have answered.

    Most people have said that they’re interested in…

    How to be more creative? How do I get inspiration? How do I love myself more? How do I…. Ah what were the other things that yall have said? How do I be more confident in myself? How do I embody my true self? How do I… How do I make friends? How do I… be happy?

    So I feel like a lot of the answers to a lot of these questions are kind of similar or along the same vein, or like have threads that go through a lot of them. And I think most of us struggle with the same things. Like I want to be creative. I want to be inspired. I want to be myself. I want to make friends. I want to be happy. And I imagine most of you also do. 

    So I recently shared to my my email newsletter that y’all may or may not be on. Hopefully you are. If you’re not I’ll put a link below if you want to sign up for it is free and I share stuff, occasionally. I try to do something at least once a month, but I recently shared on there a really quick blurb about this article that I found a couple months ago, that was kind of like a mini overview of a book that was written by James Webb Young in 1939, and it’s his like technique for producing ideas, which to me is kind of the same as like, how to be creative. It’s a five step technique, five. And I wanted to share some of that with you today because I think it’s really helpful, and I think a lot of us don’t really think about it in this way. So, yeah, I want to share that with you.

    CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR MY EMAIL NEWSLETTER

    So, if you already saw my email with this little thing in it, you might be like, oh okay, I know what you’re talking about but if you haven’t, I wanted to make a video about it.

    So the five steps to produce ideas / 5 steps for being creative.

    Step number one is gather your materials and resources, like gather your inspiration, gather stuff. So like if you’re like working on a project that has to do with trees, of course, you know, I’m thinking about trees all the time, then maybe you’ll gather books about trees. Maybe you’ll listen to a podcast about trees. Maybe you’ll take a walk in the forest to be among the trees. Maybe you’ll sketch trees, Maybe you’ll find some books about trees. Maybe you’ll see if there’s like some movies or documentaries about trees just like, gather all the information about whatever it is that you’re wanting to do or work on or like be inspired by. So just  gather all those materials that step one is gather.

    Step two is digest the materials. So that means read the book, walk in the woods, listen to that podcast, sketch those trees. You know, I’m just going to keep with this tree theme. That’s step two is like actually digest the material like absorb it and play with it and do some stuff with it. And I think number three is the most important part, most important step.

    So the third step is to have unconscious processing, which in other words, is set it down and forget about it and do something else. And I think this is, Both amazing and also really difficult to do sometimes because if we’re like really excited about something we really want to like I want to figure this out and do it. Like I don’t know how to draw this branch perfectly, so I’m just going to try it 5,000 times. Sometimes, the best thing to do instead of like hyper focusing and like forcing and like doing doing doing making it go, go go, sometimes really, the best thing to do is just be like, okay. I’ve like done a bunch of this. I feel like I’m getting frustrated, I feel like I’m getting kinda stuck, so I’m going to set it down. 

    And do something else for a little bit, and that little bit can be a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, a few months. Only you know what a little bit is for you and what that works best for you. So, unconscious processing, let your like rational conscious mind, let go of it for a little bit and let your like, subconscious like instinctual primal mind mull it over in the background while you’re doing other things. So like not consciously thinking about it. This is unconscious, this is most important but also the hardest! Do all those things and then just let it go, and don’t do it. Just do nothing about it or just like set it aside for an amount of time. That’s step 3.

    Step 4 is actually the aha moment, because while you’re in that do nothing step three, step four will naturally come. The, aha moment is when, like things like somehow like click together while you’re not thinking about it and you’re like, *gasp* I know exactly what to do now, or like, I just had the best idea!!! Your mind, and your brain, your body, like, everything’s always doing stuff behind the scenes even when you’re not really thinking about it. So sometimes, once you give it the space to like, not be stressed about it and just, like, doing something else. That’s when that aha moment comes and you’re like, Ohhhh I have this realization. Oh, now I know what to do. Oh, that tree, it just told me it’s story, The aha moment will come if you’re able to release that like force and do. So that’s step, four. Is that aha moment.

    And then step five is when your idea meets reality. So once you have that aha moment, step five is like, okay, now that I know what to do, I’m going to do it, Now that the tree has spoken to me, I’m going to write it’s story. Now that the image of this perfect branch just appeared in my mind, I could now sketch it. When this idea just appeared out of nowhere after mulling over for a while, now I’m going to do something about it. That step five is doing something about it, like, whatever that aha moment was, allows you to get to the space where you could do the thing. 

    Yeah, I think in this society was like capitalistic white supremacist colonialist imperialist, like, all of the shitty systems of oppression that like most humans have on them. It kind of makes us think, in this society kind of makes us think that like, we have to force things in order for them to happen. We have to constantly be going doing in order to be like, worthy of making stuff or anything like, this society makes us feel like we’re not good enough and we have to be constantly producing in order to be worth anything and that is not true. 

    It in a material way, sometimes feels like it might be true because we live in capitalism, like it…. How do I say this? We live in these systems of oppression, and they make us think that we’re not good enough, and that we have to constantly be forcing and doing and going. But in reality, when we allow ourselves to slow down, and to do what really feels best in our hearts and our bodies and our minds, our souls, but really feels best to us, and what really actually works for us, which includes rest and doing nothing that unconscious processing. Then that’s when we can be our most creative.

    When we’re not stressed, when we’re not freaking out, then we can be more of our true selves, which, in my opinion, out true selves are like infinitely creative. That’s like, a part of being a human, is the ability to be creative. So next time you’re feeling stuck and like you really want to do something creative, maybe you just doodle. Just like get a piece of paper and a pen and just do a lot of this and don’t think about it and just be like, what is, what feels good? Let me just scribble a whole bunch and just get some energy out. Like, it doesn’t have to be anything and lets your brain kind of turn off and just be like this feels fun to make shapes.

    And see what comes from that. And if it’s nothing, that’s totally cool. You just like rested your brain for a little bit, awesome. And if you have some epiphany that that’s also cool. And you can do something about it if you want, but it’s not necessary for us to be constantly doing stuff all the time. And sometimes the rest and the doing nothing is just as important. So, if you want to be creative, there’s your five steps for how to be creative and produce ideas from James Webb Young from 1939.

    CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE ABOUT THIS 5 STEP TECHNIQUE FOR PRODUCING IDEAS

    Okay. Yeah, I think that’s all I have to share today. Thank you for being here. I’m going to add the link to the survey below if you want to tell me what kinds of things you want to hear from me. Yeah, I love you so much. Thank you for being here. It means the world and I couldn’t do any of this without you. So thank you so much. I love you. I hope you get some down time and doing nothing time sometime soon or today or tomorrow also.

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  • HAPPINESS / FREE ARCHIVED BLOG & PHOTOSET

    August 18, 2020 /

    I originally wrote this for Patreon on May 13th 2017. I no longer use Patreon and have replaced it with my website (here) but thought I would share some of my old blogs with you for FREE to show my appreciation for you visiting my website! <3

    ———-

    I know this is kind of obvious but honestly it’s easy to forget about taking care of yourself sometimes. I need to remind myself occasionally, which is partly why I’m even writing this.

    The first thing you do in the morning after waking up, the first thing after getting home from work, and last thing you do before you go to bed should be something for YOU and your happiness. Or if that schedule doesn’t work for you, then choose at least 3 times throughout your day that work. Start off with those 3 times daily and add more whenever you can! It doesn’t have to be something big/major/elaborate.

    Part of my morning ritual is to pull 2 oracle cards for the day and pick out 5-7 small(ish) crystals to carry with me all day. It takes only a minute or 2 but starts my day off right and on a positive note. It’s something I can easily do every morning that’s just for me. I have a bad habit of getting home from work and immediately starting dishes or laundry or some other kind of housework. (EDIT 2020: I have since realized that house care like dishes and laundry are honestly self care too.) I’ll be working on doing things for myself after work along with you! Something that might count for me is driving home with the windows down. It makes me so happy to have the wind in my face and hair and to hear the wind and nothing else. See? These things can be very simple, but anything that makes you smile, laugh, or lifts your spirit is worth doing as often as possible (as long as you’re not harming anyone else, of course).

    My end of the day happiness/thing I do for me is shuffle my oracle cards and put away my crystals. It’s a nice mindless and almost meditative activity to do right before bed and helps me pick the cards and crystals quickly in the mornings. At night I also like to read or spend time with AD if he’s home. (EDIT 2020: My current rituals are very different than my rituals from 3 years ago. Everything shifts and changes over time, and that’s wonderful! Experimentation and novelty is nourishing for our hearts. I hope your rituals have the space to morph and grow too <3 )

    What is something simple you can do for yourself every day?

    What makes you happy that you can incorporate into your everyday life and routine?

    Your happiness is SO important! Make it a priority and your whole life will change. <3

    ———————

    Check out the videos folder for 3 hula hooping videos! The weekend I took these I was in such a wonderful mood the entire time and I was spending it with my family. My dad even hooped with me and my sister Gemini in one of the videos! =D He made these GIANT hoops that are as tall as I am.

    All members have access to this complete 49 image self portrait photoset by clicking here.

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