Focused on Opportunity

I’m feeling surprisingly motivated and attentive as I feel out what I want to do with my time. From joining a lovely skate group to going to my first protest, some new opportunities have presented themselves to me in ways I could never imagine. I’ve decided that they are still a secret but I also want to speak them into existence. There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about many things, that applies to life and to art as well.

I went out to the Raynham Flea Market and I was able to score some expired 120 Kodak film from WW2. I desperately want to play with and share to explore whatever I get and work it into a collage or some other project that yields itself to me. Other projects I’m working on is making gifs for instagram for playing around on my stories and for others to use if they like. It’s underrated and fun. It’s also a good step in the right direction if animation is my next goal in the digital area. Block printing is still on my radar though so I went ahead and redecorated some stained jeans with the stamps I made. It was relaxing and made me aware of the fact I could design prints in that way for myself without a manufacturer. The hands on process is the most important part to me or else it feels like it’s not my work.

I’m focused on building myself and those around me and now’s time before it gets too cold, before people lose steam (though many have already), before it’s not our biggest issue anymore. I’m taking a lesson from my cat to just do, and ask questions later or as I go along. He gets in trouble for it way more often than I do but it’s paying off. I’m considering it personal and professional development. Anyway,

Hoping for greatness ahead for all of us,

Erica ✌🏾

Going Outside of My Comfort Zone

Creating Content and Opening Opportunity

I just want to say thank you to those who have been keeping tabs on me during quarantine, I appreciate it and I see you. Being able to stay inside and just restructure my life and my attitude towards reaching my goals has helped me tremedously and improved my creative process in a lot of ways:

1. I learned how to schedule myself AND not overbook myself

   This for me was hard because I’ve had a very regimned life. I grew up going to private school and eventually public school with multiple extra-curricular activites. Even going to college I spent my freshman year in a transistions program with a very small group and they created our schedules for us to relieve us of some of the hassle of having to choose.

   By getting an empty dotted notebook in a beautiful sunshine yellow, I was able to set up my planner almost like bullet journal and gave myself 4 slots per day to assign major tasks, appointments and due dates. This worked for me because it forced me to have to take the time to see and write down my month’s plans, my week by week per page and each day’s goals. (If you want to know more about how I organize my week, let me know and I’ll run through it in my next post!) it keeps me from trying to do too much at once and overwhelming myself but I can also see 2 weeks at a time, what am I doing and how much am I doing all at once.

2. I started treating myself better during quarantine because I had to (I wanted too but I NEEDED to too)

   As someone who works in the beauty industry, it’s crazy to me that I didn’t take care of my body the way that I should have been but let me tell you, I almost ran out of masks during all of this mess. Hair masks, Feet masks, Face masks, body scrubs, all of it and MORE! I took the time to eat better knowing that I didn’t have to leave my house. I had all the time in the world to cook and now is as good a time as any to whip myself into shape. Chloe Ting and skating in my kitchen also whipped me into shape too! 😂 When you are in more harmonious mind set, everything feels more intentional and prescise. I realized that my internal body and external body weren’t on the same level and things needed to be balanced differently.

3. My creative self felt free to pursue more as I adjusted into who I want to become.

   This is still ongoing but I want to acknowledge the changes that I’ve made to my art as time passes and how I’m choosing to expand myself. One of my goals is to become a creative director, to design and model products, and to create whatever I envision and that includes the content on here. All of us have dreams to do and be more than what we are at the moment and that takes time. I’ve grown so much since this year has started from learning my boundaries with myself and others but also trying new things from modeling for local brands to really making sure my website and things I sell are of high quality. I’m working on making that even better and even more consistent but for the time being I hope I’m doing alright by y’all.

   Over the past few months, I’ve really challenged myself to become a new person with an even higher work ethic than I’ve had in the past and really filling a void in myself and the world around me.

   How will you challenge yourself to be an even better you?