My siblings and I have been kicking around the idea of starting a business together for a few years now. We’ve talked about it. We’ve mentioned it in passing. Every now and then we’ll actually start to make some plans to do it. However we’ve never really committed to it before because we weren’t all in the right stage of life at the right time to make that kind of commitment. I think we might be there now.

I’m excited about the possibility of doing something crafty and entrepreneurial with my siblings. Smart people love to work for themselves and I’m not sure if I could imagine ever working any other way again. Being able to do that with my smart siblings would be even better.

However I do know that there are pros and cons to working with your family members. On the positive side you have a built-in support system within your small business, a willingness to stick things out together because you know you’ll still be family when it’s all over and a lot of different potentially-compatible traits that can be assets in a group endeavor. On the other hand you have various conflicts, issues because of sibling birth order and a desire to do your own individual things away from the family.

I think what is going to make this business work for us is that none of us are overly invested in it. We’re launching slowly, starting to plan and aiming to make this a side project to the other things that we’re each doing on our own. This approach feels like it will maximize the benefits of working together while minimizing the problems that can come up as a result of working with your family.

Does anyone here have experience working in a family business? What were the most outstanding pros and cons for you?

Tags: family business, work

This morning I woke up earlier than I would have liked. It was one of those mornings when you’re still too tired to get up and do anything but you’re not quite tired enough to actually go back to sleep. I tried reading for awhile (am almost done with The Knitting Circle) but decided that wasn’t feeling right so I switched over to watching a documentary on Netflix instead. The documentary was called Naked States and was about the work of a photographer named Spencer Tunick. Thought-provoking little piece of art.

Tunick had a goal of going around the country and taking photographs of nude people in public spaces in ever single state in the continental United States. He didn’t seem to set any specific goals about how many people would show up to be photographed or where specifically he wanted to capture his images. Some of the things he did seem to establish as goals or parameters for himself included:

• The nudity would be total nudity and wouldn’t include things like shoes, jewelry or hats in the images.
• He would get the people for each shoot by going around the area when he arrived and asking people to participate.
• The shots would be done early in the morning in public spaces. Some of these would be famous spaces (like the Boston Public Library) but many would be random, urban, industrial spots that he found. He didn’t want to do “pretty” shots or a lot of nature shots.
• The images would provide a lot of contrast in them. He poses large people with small people, black with white, etc.
• At some point he did seem to want to get a lot of people involved. He achieved this when he shot at a Phish concert and had more than 1000 naked people participate.

Naked States shows how an art project goes from an idea to a gallery show. It shows how you have to believe in your own artwork, go out there and create it, promote it while staying true to the vision of it and then eventually network it into a show. It shows how people who are helping you may get frustrated with you, bicker with you, doubt you. It shows, in other words, what it’s like to be a working artist today. It’s a cool flick. I’d Netflix it again.

Tags: art documentary, documentary, naked states, photography, public nudity, smartchick

Over Thanksgiving weekend I decided to try to learn how to crochet. My mom had taught me how to do a basic crochet stitch when I was a kid and I really enjoyed doing it but then I never did anything with the skill. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to learn how to do this again. And indeed when I first started trying to understand the language of crochet on Thanksgiving I felt fairly certain that this was yet another hobby that wasn’t quite right for me. Boy was I wrong! I have fallen in love with the art of crochet.

I’ll be honest in saying that I can’t do much yet that’s complicated. I only know really basic stitches. However what’s cool about crocheting is that you only need to know basic stitches to make a lot of items. I’ve already made a pillow, a scarf, a purse, some jewelry and the beginning of a blanket. What I’ve learned is that it’s easy but also complex. You can add many different stitches and tricks to make different items. You can use so many different combinations of yarn type, color and crochet hooks that it’s unbelievable. It’s creative and fun.

I’ve already got my eye on a bunch of stuff that I’m hoping to make in the near future. Five different items that I’m hoping to try my hand at in the near future (and which you should check out via the links to them if you’re into crochet) are:

1. Three Strands Crochet Headband with Flower Add-On. Cute little headband that looks really simple to make although I’ll have to learn to make crochet flowers if I want to dress it up.
2. Crochet Flower Necklace. Same great idea but this one is a necklace.
3. Crochet Mary Jane Slippers. I didn’t even think about the fact that you could crochet little around-the-house shoes. Love the idea!
4. Crochet Apron Soap Bottle Cozy. I don’t have a link to this one but I saw it in a pattern magazine from the 1970′s that my mom had around the house. It’s a little crocheted apron that goes over your soap bottle to cover it up. It’s shaped like a cute little apron. How fun!
5. Crochet Neck Cowl. Interesting alternative option to scarves.

Tags: crochet, crochet projects, learning to crochet

I try to read books that cover a diverse range of different topics and styles. Mostly I choose books that are relevant to the topics that I am currently most interested in or most affected by. However, sometimes I find myself picking up books that are not related to anything that I’m doing or dealing with it right now. And sometimes those end up being the most important touching books that I read. That seems to be the case with a book I just read called Comfort: A Journey Through Grief.

This is a short book that can be a quick read if you want it to be. It’s the true first-person account of a woman who lost her five year old daughter to a sudden illness. It is about what it was like to live through the three years following her daughter’s tragic death and to come out on the other side of that, wounded and forever changed but still alive and ready to live again. It’s a tough read in the sense that it is highly emotional but it’s an easy read in the sense that it unites the writer and reader through common human emotions.

There are many things that I love about this little book but I think what grabbed my attention most of all was the writing style that was implemented in it. The author uses primarily short sentences and also uses a lot of repetition of the same facts. Sometimes these facts are repeated in the same way and sometimes they are a little bit different. The combination of repetition and short sentence structure ends up being really powerful

One of the things that happens when we lose someone is that our lives become limited to the bare minimum of things that we must get done to survive. We don’t do any extras; we barely even shower or eat. The short sentence structure of the book reflects this minimalization our lives go through during this time. And something else that happens is that we go over and over events in our minds. Sometimes we replay them word for word, again and again, trying to gain some meaning from them. Sometimes we see them through a new lens, repeating them in our minds with a new level of understanding or a new perspective on what happened. The author doesn’t actually come right out and say that these are the things that she is going through but the structure of her story reveals this side of grief.

I am not currently dealing with a major loss. I am not currently struggling with the family issues that arise when such a loss occurs. However I was still touched by this book. I can only imagine how powerful it would be for someone who was going through a tough time. This one is highly recommended!

Tags: ann hood, book recommendation, book review, books, comfort, grief books, reading

One of my favorite things about social networking is that you can learn about stuff that you might never have discovered on your own. Case in point – someone I know posted a question about lomography and I got curious about what that is so I started looking into it. It turns out that it’s a form of photography that got popular in the 1990′s and actually looks like it’s really cool.

What I’ve learned about lomography so far:

• It uses a specific, unique type of camera. In this way it is kind of like Polaroid photography where the camera itself helps make it fall into the niche that it is in.
• It is astoundingly colorful. I don’t know if this is because of the camera or the film or the way that the film is processed or what but the pictures are always really colorful and I love the look that they have because of this.
• It’s all about spontaneous shooting. It’s not about figuring out specific shutter speeds or waiting to capture the ideal moment. It’s about “shooting from the hip”, photographing people who might not want you to do so and playing around with what you’re doing. I love this idea!
• Lomographers love close-ups. This is a very human art because the best pictures are pictures of people taken as close to them as you can get.

Tags: 90s fads, art, lomography, photography

I’ve been enjoying a little bit of a twist on instant hot chocolate lately. I thought some other people might want to enjoy it as well. Here’s my recipe:

• Get a package of instant hot chocolate (the kind that you can heat up with either water or milk)
• Fill half a cup with water.
• Add a few drops of vanilla extract. (You can also substitute Torani-style flavored syrups here; cherry is a good one).
• Heat in microwave until water is quite hot.
• Stir in hot chocolate package.
• Fill rest of cup with cold milk. Heat another 20-45 seconds in microwave (depending on how cold it gets after you put in the milk).
• Add a heavy dose of whipped cream. Put back in microwave for another ten seconds. This will make the whipped cream all frothy.

Tags: hot chocolate recipe, winter drink recipe, winter drinks

Note: this image comes from the DeYoung museum’s website (linked to below)

I went to a talk yesterday at the JCCSF about Amish Quilts. There is a collection of classic Amish Quilts on display here in San Francisco at the DeYoung Museum. The collection is a private collection from a couple named Faith and Stephen Brown who started collecting these quilts back in the 1970′s. The talk was from a docent of the museum who wanted to share a little bit of information about the quilts to entice people to come see the display. It turned out, however, that the Browns were in the audience at this small event and answered a lot of questions for the group.

I have to admit that I didn’t learn a lot about the Amish people from this talk which I think is why most people were there. It’s always a little bit weird to me to hear people speak about the Amish. That’s because my father does a big portion of his business with the Amish community and so he has given me a little bit of the inside scoop on this interesting community. I don’t know all that there is to know but I know enough to know that most of what the people in our society say about the Amish isn’t accurate.

That happened at the lecture. For example, the quilts that we were looking at were from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century so the talk addressed the question of whether or not the Amish people still make quilts today. They do and they actually do a lot of business selling these quilts to tourists. A lot of the talk at this lecture about how the Amish aren’t really entrepreneurial in spite of this struck me as inaccurate. So I took all that was said about the Amish with a grain of salt.

What I didn’t learn about the Amish was made up for by the fact that I learned a lot about quilting in general and Amish quilting in particular. We looked at images of the quilts that are on display at the DeYoung. I learned that there are several different quilting patterns that were common between 1880 and 1940 (the period of time considered to be the Classic era of Amish quilts). We looked at different quilting stitches that were common and we looked at different patterns (sunshine and shadow, ocean waves …) that were also common.

It was so fascinating to see how these Amish quilts took these basic stitches and patterns and turned them into entirely unique pieces of art. I guess I always thought that quilts were just kind of old pieces of fabric that were sewn together. However that’s not true. What we looked at today were a series of quilts that implemented really interesting patterns into their design. They were symmetrical and organized and well-planned in spite of the fact that they were made with scraps. Many had amazing geometric designs that looked almost like Tetris-style computer art.

According to the people who were speaking at the lecture today, the quilts that the Amish people are making today differ a lot from the quilts that they made during the Classic period. It’s not just that the materials are different. It’s that the Amish community now creates these quilts in a sort of manufactured way (minus the machinery), trying to get as much completed as possible in order to make sales to tourists. I have a feeling that some of them are still making those elaborate soul-filled quilts in their own homes, though; they just don’t share them with the rest of us.

Tags: amish, amish quilts, deyoung, faith and stephen brown, lecture, quilting

There are a wide range of different topics that I write about on a regular basis. My favorite topic of all is probably creativity. In fact, I try to take a creative slant to almost any other topic that I write about (although I wouldn’t say that I always succeed). I believe that writing about creativity makes me more motivated to be creative in my own life. I hope that it encourages other people to be creative as well.

Several of my recent articles on HubPages were about being creative. These included:

• 10 Fun and Creative Projects to do with your Camera Phone. It was so fun to try to think up different projects that you could do with just the camera on your phone. I have to admit that I haven’t done all of these myself but now that I’ve thought of them there are certainly some in there that I plan to try. I think your camera phone is a great tool for little daily bits of creativity.
• 7 Fun, Free Tag Cloud Programs for Creating Word Art. Tag clouds can be so inspiring. I put this HubPages article together as I was trying to find a good tag cloud program for myself. (I like Wordle best, big surprise). This inspired another article on my own blog about using tag cloud programs to benefit writing.
• 15 Ideas for Using Your Writing to Make Christmas Presents. I believe that your writing can always be used as a gift. Here are some creative and fun ideas for how to turn your writing into affordable and appreciated presents for Christmas.
• 10 Terrific Niche Books for Curious Readers. Creative people are usually readers. These are a bunch of books that I’ve read that are on unusual topics that you don’t normally get the chance to read about. How fun!
• 10 Stunning Surrealist Artists. Finally I recently wrote an article highlighting the work of ten different surrealist artists who are not from the original era of surrealism but instead are putting out amazing works of art today. I’m so inspired by these people!

Tags: art, creativity, inspiration, smartchick, writing

I used to feel a big sense of obligation to make/buy Christmas presents for a lot of the people in my life. It wasn’t that I felt that I was obligated by them. It was that I obligated myself because I wanted these people to know that they were in my thoughts all year long. While I think it’s great to give gifts to recognize the importance of people in our lives, I’ve long since stopped feeling obligated to give anything to anyone.

What I’ve learned over the years is that it’s totally okay if your Christmas gifts aren’t ready by Christmas or if you don’t even give something to someone special after all. Although there are some people in our lives who may feel huffy puffy and hurt that we don’t give them something at the holidays, the people who really know us know that this is nothing to be hurt by. We make sure to give them gifts all year long and de-emphasize the importance of giving on Christmas.

I am actually planning to make a few things for people for the holidays this year. It works out well for me that some projects that I’m wrapping up at the end of the year were intended for certain people in my life. I’ll get out the wrapping paper and have these things ready to go under their tree. However there are some other people I’d kind of like to give gifts to but who I won’t have anything ready for before the holidays arrive. I’ll get something to them when I get the chance.

The trick here is to give yourself permission to not be obligated to give gifts to anyone. It’s to have a talk with yourself about how it’s okay not to give a gift to someone if you don’t have something picked out and ready yet. It’s to remind yourself that the holidays should be more about spending time together and saying the kind things that you want a gift to say than about actually giving a gift to someone. It’s about letting yourself be okay with just receiving gifts from someone graciously if they’ve gotten something for you and you don’t have something ready for them.

A no-obligation Christmas isn’t about being stingy. It isn’t about ignoring the holidays. It isn’t about getting without giving. Instead it’s about putting yourself first and letting yourself know that it’s okay not to give something to everyone on your list right now. You’ll get to them. You’ll let them know that you care about them. It’s okay.

Happy holiday season! Be kind to yourself this month!

Tags: be kind to yourself, christmas, holidays, no obligation christmas

I just returned from a really great trip home to Tucson. The point of the trip was, of course, to visit my family. However I ended up actually doing a lot of fun things during my stay. I went hiking in the desert with my mom, sis and the dogs. I went to a terrifically unique book reading by Sausalito author Richard Polsky with my dad and sister. I saw not-so-great-but-still-unique Aztec dancers. And I got a chance to get a new look at a place I’d been before that’s a Tucson attraction of sorts: Old Town Artisans.

Old Town Artisans is a set of stores that are all grouped together in Downtown Tucson. In the center of them is a courtyard where there are live music performances and other things to see and do. I had been here before because there are musicians featured there every year during the Tucson Folk Festival which I used to attend frequently with my dad. I had checked out some of the shops in the place before but never explored the area in depth.

It turns out that the shops are all housed in what used to be a large home. I learned this because my sister got to talking to a vendor in the courtyard who makes Native-American-style pottery using the clay that she digs up herself from the local riverbeds. It turned out that this woman used to work for the place and was very interested in Tucson history so she knew all about the building. She ended up giving us a little tour of the shops to show us about the way that it was built.

The tour ended up providing us with a lot of little tidbits of Tucson history that I didn’t really have much awareness of before now. The building was constructed in the nineteenth century. At the time it was the home of a single extended family – housing great-grandparents, great-grand-children and everyone in between. Our guide walked us through the building and pointed out things that I never would have noticed on my own – like the areas of the roof that were built from old wine barrels, the packing crates that the family arrived there with and ribs from old saguaro cacti. We learned that the pine used to construct part of the building was taken from Mt. Lemmon but it took about six weeks to go up to the mountain in a horse and buggy and bring that wood back down. These days we consider Mt. Lemmon a short drive up to see a nice scenic view of the city. How different it was back then!

The woman that was giving us the tour even had some old pictures of what the building looked like over one hundred years ago. At one point it had been turned into a general store complete with a root cellar in the bottom and a canvas painting on the outside. We saw these pictures and got to stand in the store that exists there today which is, of course, quite different from the old general store. We learned that this place had been everything from a distillery to a brothel. It was almost torn down not so long ago but was then saved by someone interested in preserving Tucson history and is now the home to artists working in the Southwestern style.

It’s not that this place is particularly fascinating exactly. It’s not that the art here to see is stunning. It’s just that this is one of those little Tucson gems that I’ve been to but never actually paid attention to before. It goes to show that there are new things to be discovered everywhere that you might spend your time even if you think that you already know all that there is to know about a place. Keep your eyes open, talk to other people about the places that you visit and be willing to learn something new every day!

Tags: old town artisans, smartchick, Travel, tucson