This installation is inspired by a painting that hangs in my friend Jen’s house. it used to be above her fireplace, but then her fiancé moved in. It’s been replaced by a paper maché bison head.

These are some of the birds I made at the beginning of the year. I actually hot glued them to the branch because I wanted to attach the branches to the wall before placing the birds (my original plan was to sew them on). Slightly tricky, but it worked well.

For some reason (currently called laziness) it’s taken me almost three years to decorate this wall. I knew what I wanted to put on it, everything was framed, and yet I hesitated.

This hesitation/lazy feeling is something I’ve been exploring lately. Is it this feeling that is holding me back?  These birds in particular feel like a excellent example.  I put them on a goal list last year, the actual making of the birds is/was unbelievably simple. I’ve longed for them to be done all year, and the end result? Totally amazing. But somewhere in there I got stuck, and while using the excuses of life is sometimes legitimate, I know myself well enough to seek the therapy angle in this.

It’s not quite the Weakness Fair but it’s got similar groundings. There is a lot of self-doubt involved which I find myself realizing it takes a lot to fight against. With my birthday I used the thought of “socializing in this space” to light a fire under me to check things off the lists.  I think Lucy was right in that comic when she spoke of going to your personal fair to switch out the weak parts for something stronger. I’m going to keep trying that and keep letting myself create beautiful things.