The wild coast of Bohemia

http://www.virtualtravel.cz/national-gallery-in-prague-schwarzenberg-palace/2397.html

It's not brilliant (and you need to hit the button that stops the automatic rotation as it goes far too fast - on my machine anyway) but it does give a good overall feel of the place.

I just liked this one very much. Good frame too.

Well. Alright. I suppose I have to admit here to being totally irresponsible because the usual advice is always, DON'T give up your day job until you have everything in place. And that's right - you can do a lot of preparation and planning while still bringing in a regular salary - and then when you do make the leap into independence it will be easier.

However... I just know so many people who put off that moment of going out on their own, taking the risk, pursuing the dream. And finally, they utter those fatal words, "You know, when I retire I think I will..." and you know they most likely won't. Because it will be too late.

Alex has a belief - blunt and maybe not all that ideologically sound - that there is such a thing as "too old and too late". And it creeps up on you.

When I was very into Transactional Analysis - I recommend it - I had to answer one of the classic TA questions, "What do you want to have written on your gravestone?" My answer was very obvious to me - "She was never boring." But I wonder if what I really meant to express was, "She rejected boredom."

Have a look at that poem (below) again. If you keep clinging to your boring, deadening job as though you are clinging to some flotsam in a shipwreck, what's going to happen? You won't go down with the ship, but on the other hand, you won't actually do much except cling.

Anyway, there is my piece of advice number 9 and I'm aware that it's not sensible and that, if followed, disaster could strike.

But... at least you would have tried. And I just have a hunch that following the dream is actually easier than it seems and more likely to be successful - once you let go of that seeming security (and it's usually illusory nowadays in any case) and begin to strike out on your own.

Okay, on that note I am off to eat some of the chocolates we've been photographing. In a salaried job no-one would ever decide that I had to photograph a large number of high-end, gorgeous chocolates, would they? So risk can bring its unexpected rewards.

In some of the rooms I found it hard to look at the paintings because I was too busy with my head back, gazing at the ceilings. Here is one of the ceiling paintings. Scenes of metamorphosis seemed to be popular in Prague at the time the palace was built (Renaissance). I suppose these metamorphosis myths provided good, dramatic subject matter.

A good article on the renovations is here:

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/92879


Anyway, on to the girls turning into trees. I would quite like one of these on my ceiling. Or something similar would do. Ah well.



I assume they are the Heliades?
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Phaethon.html

Interesting how the seated girl looks only mildly pissed off. Perhaps the restoration is to blame?

Another one from last Saturday evening. I'm afraid I know nothing about this angel except, well, it's Baroque - which is pretty obvious.

Okay, just one more for now (and I think I want her as a new avatar - I need some new avatars for this journal). She is a personification of "Summer". I love the way the marble seems as though it really is fabric wrapped around her - it looks so translucent and delicate. And there's something touching about the crispness of her face and hair contrasted with the crackled and broken marble. Beautiful.

This was our conversation this last Saturday night -

Alex Oh! I've just realised that tonight is "museum night" in Prague. Let's go at 12.
Alex Eh Darling? (actually, more like "WHAASSAT?")
Alex You know, the night where all the museums are open and they're free.
Me Ah? Really? And you want to go at midnight? Are they open at midnight?
Alex Er, not sure. Er, hmm. Maybe we should check.
Me (after much googling). *****y H***! It finishes tonight at midnight and it's ten now.
Alex Quick, quick, quick!
Me Hang on, hang on, need to find a jacket.

And off we went. As we'd left it so late we only got as far as the Schwarzenberg Palace http://www.prague.net/schwarzenberg-palace - which is more or less next door (well, up a hill). But as it's newly restored and opened it would have been my first choice anyway.

It was packed with excited people and there was a bit of a queue to get in. But after just ten minutes or so, we were let loose in the rooms. They are SPECTACULAR - in fact, it's hard to know whether to look at the architecture (complete with ceiling paintings) or the sculpture and pictures. So - I'm going to be posting lots in the next few days, but for now here is the first thing I saw in the first room. And yes, I actually did say "OH!" out loud when I saw her/him - but then I had had a Kir Royale after supper so was perhaps not as reserved as possible.

The photography is not wonderful by the way, as it was night-time and flash was forbidden (as were tripods). But still, I want to show you:


This angel is roughly a metre and a bit high and made of painted wood I think (sorry, that sounds pathetic - blame the kir and my lack of a notebook and reading glasses). It's from the Wallenstein Palace, one of my favourite places, and it's pretty military-looking. Pretty much the whole of the Wallenstein art is about war and death - oh, and metamorphosis. Which, come to think of it, makes it odd that I like it so much.


I do like his dimple - nice touch.

Now, this one seems very obvious. But it's hard.

I'm serious.

It's actually hard work - and hard to motivate yourself sometimes - to step back and really think about how things are going - and where and how you want them to go. It's easier to just continue with what you're used to, especially as that's what anyone who has worked in a large company has been trained to do - to carry on, to of course discuss "innovation and creativity" but at the same time to understand that you mustn't actually do it. The message from most large companies is that beyond everything, for ****'s sake (and for the sake of your promotion), don't rock the boat. And thinking tends to rock boats rather a lot.

I used to work in the biggest telco research lab in the UK (actually probably in Europe) and each day to get into the main lab block, we had to walk under a large sign that read, "Research is the doorway to tomorrow." But the reality was that mostly the attitude there was conservative beyond belief and it would have been truer (and better advice for getting on in the organisational structure) if it had read, "Whatever you do, don't think." It was the dullest, silliest place you can imagine - with huge amounts of money being poured in the dullest silliest "research" it was possible to dream up - very little of which ever lead anywhere. Those who did think got out - quick.

In fact, one of the most interesting people I knew there was - quietly and on the side - using the powerful mainframes we then had in order to run his own business distributing gay erotica around the world. Nice guy (I was actually at uni with him) - and it was erotica, not porn, as he had some ethics. For all I know he is still there and still sitting calmly in the basement of that awful lab block successfully running his own thing. He was certainly someone who could think creatively - and see the funny side as well as the opportunities.

So - even if you are in a situation or job that's labelled "research" or "creative" or "academic" - there is no automatic guarantee that you'll be encouraged to think. You need to make yourself take some time to just draw back and ask some questions about what you're doing - and imagine some possibilities.

Right now, these are the things I'm thinking about:

- What happens if the world economy really does implode? Is anyone going to be buying decorative design? Assuming yes, then who and where is our market?

- How do we need to change? How do we make the work continually better value for money? Or do we focus more on making genuinely enjoyable bits of escapism - is that what people need now, some escape, some laughs and some comfort?

- Assuming that there isn't going to be a meltdown (and the fact is, that even when times are hard, people still do buy nice things) do we want to be more in "New Age" shops or in design shops? Which way feels best for us? We feel as though we are at a cross-roads and we need to think carefully and decide which way we want to go now.

- With all this worrying about the economy and turnover and whatnot, are we in danger of forgetting that this is all about doing the work WE want/need to do? How do we make space for the less commercial things that develop our own ideas? As Alex says, how do we make sure we don't lose ourselves?

And many more thoughts follow on from these. The trick is not to try to tackle all this in one day - if I did that my brain would probably give up and tell me to go and eat sushi - but to put some time aside once or twice a week and just sit and think. It's vital (in both senses) to notice what's going on in the world, and also closer to home in your own field/market. Be honest with yourself about the realities, and think about how to respond. All sorts of things will become clearer, and you'll also feel more in control.

I think I'm up to point nine. But first, just a reminder to myself and to anyone reading this of just one more reason why it's worth going through a lot to start up your own business/studio/endeavour.

_________________

The BBC on "business speak" there's a lot more and it's all wince-makingly familiar if you've ever worked in a reasonably large company. I am so GLAD that I now longer leverage anything (except when opening wine and the leveraging involves corks).

9. "Until recently I had to suffer working for a manager who used phrases such as the idiotic I've got you in my radar in her speech, letters and e-mails. Once, when I mentioned problems with the phone system, she screamed 'NO! You don't have problems, you have challenges'. At which point I almost lost the will to live."
Stephen Gradwick, Liverpool.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7457287.stm

I'll say a lot more about my relationship with Monicka when we get to point 11.


You start dying slowly


You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.


You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;
When you do not let others help you.


You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths...
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don't know.


You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.


You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice...


Pablo Neruda

First I knew of it. And I briefly saw my in-box and there was something in it, and now I can't find it again. I have visions of mails saying things like "Help me, help me!" piled up from months back. Oh dear.

If anyone knows how you check the email here - i.e. how to find the in-box - I'd really appreciate it if you'd tell me how to do it. Thanks!

This is probably the BEST explanation of the subprime mess I've ever seen. Horribly funny too.

I really like this review. Take a look - it just feels so authentic compared with the usual slick stuff. Plus it's wonderfully funny - some real attitude!

Whenever you make a significant step - or even a great big jump - towards what you want to do next, you have to leave something behind. There just isn't time and energy for it all. Sometimes it even involves moving away from the way you identify yourself - or the way others identify you.

For many people, I suppose I am "that woman who does those tarot decks". But right now, we are thinking seriously about whether we will do any more decks, after the couple that are in the pipeline already. Oddly enough, we always intended, when we began, only to do ten in all, and somehow that still feels right.

You know, I actually want to do more of the Bohemian Cats work - but in a much weirder, wilder way. And that means really focusing on it for a while, finding where it needs to go next. I have a feeling that this means that in another few years I'll be, "that woman who used to do those tarot decks". In a way it makes me very sad. I love tarot, I enjoy all sorts of aspects of it, not least the people we've met through it.
But I want to get back to the Cats - and so does Alex.



If you try to hold on to everything you're good at, or simply love doing, you'll probably end up scattered and unable to focus sufficiently on any one to really bring it to its highest possible level. Decide what you want to do for the next period of time (it doesn't have to be forever) and acknowledge that it might involve giving up something else that's dear to you. Be willing to make that decision.

How ironic. This week I've certainly let the list go. It's the need to sort out the websites (they all pointed to the old shop and that was causing chaos as we've moved to this Virtual Private Server thingie) and get out a newsletter.

So - I will start again today or tomorrow once I've replied to the comments - deep breath!

Just about the best special offers we've had on bags I think. Well, it's summer and so summery new bags are particularly nice.

And if you haven't yet subscribed via the new shop PLEASE, please do - all you need to do is enter your email in the field on the right-hand side of the home page, http://www.baba-store.com - it's much more reliable so I want to move everyone over asap. The old software, like the old shop, was great in its time but just got very creaky in the last 18 months or so. It's good to have something a bit closer to state of the art - ish!

All our sites are down. It seems to be because when we moved to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) this week the host forgot to update the DNS files etc. Really annoying. Anyway, if you need to buy anything please use the Etsy shop:
http://babastudioPrague.etsy.com

We've been firing off emails to the host support team so hopefully they will actually get this sorted. The fact that they are in LA so only have a very thin staff on during night hours has not helped. Arrgh!

UPDATE - sites are back up. Phew. In fact, several phews.

HAH! This is a hard one. I do moan, I do blame, it's true. I moan when I'm still at the computer at two in the morning because there's some snafu to sort out and it's not my fault - whine! I blame my insecurities and anxieties on being brought up in a household in which I was seen by my mother mainly as an intrusive expense. When I got pregnant while still in my teens I was kicked through the door (and off to a small, damp house with asbestos sheets lining one room, no heating and a hot water system driven by a coal fire which I had to get up and light each morning) with great glee and not even a moment's hesitation. It's hard not to look back and feel angry and full of accusations.

But - life isn't fair is it? As we all - yawn - know. Personally I've had lots of nasty, unfair things happen to me - and some very nice, generous and unexpected ones too. I've had some sheer luck - for instance I was for some years "adopted" effectively, by Jean Stockdale - an artist - when I was in my twenties. She was kind and cheerful, she'd also been through an early motherhood and had to struggle to even get to the point where she could find any time to paint. She showed me things. She encouraged me. I'm not sure if we were close exactly - but we were friends and she certainly put plasters on some of the more raw wounds I had emotionally at the time. She gave me a lasting love of Alice in Wonderland - the White Rabbit features in many of her paintings, always as a slightly fey young black man in a foppish cream suit. Which to her was the most obvious depiction. She also gave me hope.

Jean didn't actually become a full-time painter until she was forty-seven. Up to then she had done things like work on the assembly line at a button factory, in order to support her child. Having been a single mother in 1950s Southern England, she'd experienced being ostracised and ignored. But she just kept going - on and on and on in pursuit of that dream of being an artist. I have a painting of hers from one of her first exhibitions. It's painted on cheap hardboard, because that's all she could afford at the time. It's called "A Dream of the Fair".

She could be bitter on rare occasions, but mostly she wasn't. She got tremendous pleasure from things like just walking around the town in Kent where she lived, and a mischievous laugh from seeing the reaction of the neighbours to the huge hedges and sexually-explicit statues (made by Norman, the husband she eventually married) that made up the garden of her suburban bungalow. She wanted to be recognised as a serious artist - and in most ways, and God knows against all the odds - she managed it. One regret I do have is that I lost touch with her when I went to the good old Royal College of Art - of which I feel she didn't quite approve ("the establishment" and all that).

To really make something of your art - whether it's writing, design, painting, music, whatever (cooking? I forgot cooking) - you need to find some calm and optimism at the heart of things. I get terribly angry and resentful at times and it just tires me out. I get caught up in remembering the misery of my twenties, all my plans just taken away from me almost overnight. Feeling hurt and betrayed constantly - for reasons best not talked about here.

But then I remember that during that time one kind man met me in a bookshop and invited me to come to his lectures on fairytales - which I did - and eventually arranged for me to meet the admissions tutor at Kent University. I remember three years or so later another equally kind man - the careers advisor - sent me a beautiful postcard with an Erte illustration on it wishing me all luck with my post-grad application to the Royal College - an application that the day before I'd told him was useless and impossible - and which I also told him was the one thing I really wanted.

For all the blame, then, there seem to be things also to be thankful for. Sometimes even amazing things - events and people and opportunities that just appear at the right moment. I can't find an uncliched way of saying this. But I think that gratitude and pleasure and hope usually gets your art further than resentment and hurt.

I perhaps ought to insert the Obama video here again - but I have some shame.

Hints and Tips - oh look, they're back!
Don't get pulled down into thinking too much about all the reasons, and all the bad luck, maliciousness or sheer wrong decisions, that have stopped you getting where you want to be. Things aren't predictable, and maybe some of those things had to happen to get you, not where you want to be, but where you are now. Making strides forward and getting there, even if it's by a route that doesn't feel ideal.

There's a strength and energy that comes from letting go of a lot of the blame and anger.

5. Forget the “exit strategy”. If exiting is that important to you, maybe you shouldn’t have gone into it in the first place.

It's become conventional wisdom - hardly even questioned - to tell anyone starting a business of any size that one of the first things they need to think about is the "exit strategy". Some advisors say that this should be done when you do your initial business plan. You're supposed to decide if you plan to sell the business, give it to your children, IPO it or simply close it down. Then you're supposed to focus the business towards that eventual exit. Of course.

My reaction? How the **** should I know what my exit strategy is? Look, it takes five long hard (see post below) years on average to even get a business to the point where it makes a profit. Another five probably to establish it to the point where anyone would remotely want to buy it. Another five - at least - to get it (assuming it's big and ambitious, which most non-IT, non-financial services businesses are not) to gear it up for going public. I once had the reality of IPOing explained to me by a very likeable client - who did indeed sell and make a lot of money eventually, but who said that the years leading up to it were at times hellish in their sheer stress. Okay the truth is that I was very impressed and a little intimidated to find him on the front page of the Financial Times around the time we were having this conversation. I assumed that for him the years of hardship were worth it. And the exit must have been welcome. But then again, he was in one of those classical IT businesses that does this kind of thing.

The reality of the world right now is that things are changing - and changing faster, less predictably and in a more volatile way than ever before. In the six and a bit years I've been here, the Czech Crown has moved from being only 42 to the US dollar to being 15. That alone has shifted a lot of things hugely. Flats in the centre here have moved from being cheap to being - even in the trendier outskirts - at not that much under London prices of a couple of years ago. They now look like moving back to relatively cheap again. Streets that used to be quiet are now choked with traffic. Little local shops in the centre are vanishing and being replaced by chainstores. Marks and Spencer is everywhere and Starbucks (OMG) is moving in.

Those are only local changes. In the bigger, badder, wider world look what's happening. In 2000 did you read constantly in the media about Islamic fundamentalism? Did you imagine oil heading towards $200 a barrel? Did you expect to find out that we've killed off 25% of our world wildlife in a few short years?

I'm not trying to be doom-laden about this. In fact, on good days I feel perversely optimistic about the world. But I find the idea of planning what I'm going to do with the business when we want to get out of it (and as Alex is considerably younger than me this is indeed a long way off) just a waste of time and effort. Exit strategy? I am in this business because I love what we do and couldn't think of anything more fulfilling than doing studio work. Even if I wanted to think about exits, I'm in no position, until I learn to use my crystal ball a good deal more accurately, to imagine where an exit might be in years to come. Exit? I'll plan it only if and when I can see that the need for it is both imminent and clear.


Hints and tips

No, I'm already bored with that joke - and you probably are too, so let's do it a different way. Please post here if you started a business in something you love and actually DID think about the exit strategy. Because if so, I would love to hear why and how you did that.

"Now I think the other thing we need to recognize is Picasso's tremendous ambition. And it was coupled with what his biographer, John Richardson, calls 'a reasonably gifted person.' A person who had a phenomenally visual memory and could then ransack art history, drawing from all sources, especially Spanish sources, and turn that through hard, hard work into his own style."
http://picasso.thinkport.org/practiced.html

__________________________

I don't want to advise (even if I could) about how many hours a week you should work. Alex and I work around 70-80 hours a week, every week and would doubtless be diagnosed as workaholic by most. However, our work situation is unusual: we work mostly from home, so anytime we feel like stopping to watch the news, make some food, even have a bath or fifteen minutes on the treadmill (yes, we have one - I think it's probably an essential if you work at home) then we can do it. The flexibility and relaxation of the set-up stops it from being as stressful as those hours would otherwise be.

But what my point four is about isn't so much the hours you put in each week, as the persistence and stamina you show over time. Time matters. Some things just don't happen fast, or mature fast or come rapidly to fruition (fruition is a good metaphor here). I talked about beginning small and often not as good as you'd like - because that's just how it is when you start something new. And if you look at that small achievement and feel so disheartened that you stop there, then that's where things will end - more or less where they began.

W.B. Yeats (who produced some of his best work towards the end of his long life - his command over what he did and his willingness to take risks grew over years) wrote:
Poet and sculptor, do the work
http://www.csun.edu/~hceng029/yeats/yeatspoems/UnderBenBulben

Your work is nothing if it stays in your head or remains only part of your plans or hopes. You have to DO it, get it out there, accept its limitations and then develop it further. Keep going because steadily (well, fairly steadily, there will be ups and downs) it will get better - and more true to you. Put in the time and effort and keep going even at the times when you don't really want to. Making a living from your creativity demands a hard, determined attitude - be hard, work hard.

Hints and Tips
See your work as a work-in-progress. Don't look at each individual piece so much as the progression and the sum total. Let each new project build on the one before and feel good about even small improvements. At least once every three or four years stop and look at what you were doing at the beginning of that time period and compare it with what you're doing now. You'll be surprised.