Living a Juicy Life! - If life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
Every set back in life is just preparing you for your big win. As you experience your way through a challenge, you build the skills to accomplish whatever it is you came to this life to do, even when you might not know what that is and it often doesn’t seem like it at the time. If you’ve been through a lot of rough patches and setbacks, and then take the time to look back you might be surprised to find your life was leading you down the path you meant to walk the whole time. Like, if this didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have gone here and met so and so. I wouldn’t have the compassion to help someone else make it through something similar. You might even save a life and not know it. Look for the blessings and you’ll find them.
I didn’t realize I was born to be an artist until much later in life. If you had told me back when I worked in promotional advertising that I would one day have an art show with the artist standing on scaffolding in the warehouse where I worked that was painting a massive canvas, I would never have believed you. I had a great career in the promotional products industry, I wasn’t an artist. I did always have my hands in some kind of artistic pie, taking classes or trying out some new DIY project. My coworkers and the owner of the company saw it, people gifted me hints about what the medium was going to be, but it never dawned on me that my calling was to actually create art for a living.
It wasn’t until I got divorced, left my career in advertising and was in the middle of selling my house in an attempt to downsize, clear debt and figure out what was next (aka completely stressed-out time) that I dove in and gave art a real chance. During that time, a psychic intuitive friend of mine called and said she had message for me, “go do something you love for 1 hour a day and then go ahead and worry your face off the rest of the time” I was like, I can do that, add one more thing to my to do list, sure! and so it began. I used to yammer on to others about do what you love and the money will follow. I also wanted to be the best example I could be for my son and I wanted him to go for his dreams. After a couple visits to the local glass fusing shop my fate was sealed.
What does this have to do with lemons???
Just because I made the decision to jump in doesn’t mean everything went tickety boo smooth. It took years to hone my skills. There really isn’t a school to learn glass fusing. It falls in the self-taught/mad scientist at heart category. So there I was with a dream and a prayer and visions of lemony master pieces dancing in my head. There was this cool textured glass that, if you cut it just right, looked like the flesh of a citrus fruit. It is often the glass itself that inspires the creation. Supply and colors are limited unlike when painting and you can do anything. I spent days and many firings creating a subtle speckled outer rind section with multiple shades of frit (tiny glass particles like sand/fine gravel) then I fused cream colored glass to it for the pith part and carefully laid all the flesh cut glass on top in sections and dusted it with glass powder. It fired up fabulous. I was so excited, only one more firing to go and I would have my lemon bowl. Unfortunately, or so I thought at the time, another kind of lemon came on the scene -it cracked! I didn’t have my own kiln yet, didn’t know the firing schedules needed for deep slumps and the studio I fired at didn’t know them either. A cracked bowl is not salvageable. My poor beauty became a reminder of what not to do.
On to other projects.
I moved on, still with lemons on the brain and made a shallow serving platter of slices on a bed of ice. While carrying it out to my car for transport to the studio, it slipped off the tray and hit the ground.
Sufferin Succotash! Now what?! (did I mention that I believe questions are seeds that give birth to the answers?)… It came!
A little back story:
when I first started fusing, I joined a glass guild. They’d meet for coffee and bring their latest projects to share and discuss fusing. Sometimes we did classes together and shared skills. In one of those classes the instructor took out her hammer and said ‘ this is the most important tool a glass artist will ever need, except for Jeweliyana, she doesn’t even know what a hammer is for! (It was a compliment and tease because my first show and tell projects were apparently pretty good)
A little more back story: Lemony snickets, a series of unfortunate events was a popular book around this time.
Lemonade anyone?
I took out my hammer and frustrations on those precious creations.
Lemony snippets, a series of my unfortunate events was born. I call the technique Pizza Mosaic fusing now.
There’s always a blessing when you look for it. Perspective is everything.
So even when you can’t see the blessing yet, just be kind to ourself, keep going and one day you will be able to look back and see how sometime things turn out even better than you could’ve imagined.
If you want a fast-track tip, try asking “How is this for me? What did I learn? What is the blessing in this? A step farther….. Now that I know this, what might my future hold that is better than I can possibly imagine? The point of asking these questions is to plant seeds. You’re not supposed to know the answer immediately. We don’t plant flowers that bloom instantaneously. Let it go and watch your garden of answers grow.
The lemony snippets garden is still growing, yours can too.
The lemony snippets garden still grows. You can now own your own coffee tumblers, aprons and tote bags with this cheerful lemony motif. Happy reminders to keep going and great cheer someone up gifts. Click the images to get more deets and shop.
There’s a Lemony snippets story unfolding for you too! Jeweliyana
  
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