It's ok to be afraid.

“Making art is showing your insides.  

Sharing art is asking the world to like your insides. “ 

~ Kal Barteski

Life overwhelms me at times.  

It leaves me raw and vulnerable and without courage.

It’s an emotion I’m rapidly becoming accustomed to.  No matter the frequency of the fairs and festivals I participate in, there’s still that moment just before the doors open when I question my right or ability to be there.

I am my own worst enemy.

I’d always thought vulnerability to be a weakness until I listened to a TED talk by one Brene Brown called “The Power of Vulnerability”. 

There were sheep EVERYWHERE .... as far as the eye could see.

According to her we all DO vulnerability ... everyday.  The courage is in recognising it, feeling it and ultimately making a choice on how to deal with it.  Whatever I chose to do with the feeling should reflect WHO I am and what I believe in.

For me that means slowing down, taking a deep breath and repeating a mantra to myself.

Just be WHO you are.  It's ok to be afraid.

Not what you'd expect to find on a run to Hawkes Bay ... a variety of African animal artworks.

At the end of the day success is only built on failure.

These cows were playing KIng of the Castle!

Not that it wasn’t a successful weekend.  It was.  

It’s a marvellous opportunity for networking and exposing ... figuratively, not literally ... one’s work to a wider audience.  I arrive home feeling I’ve left a part of myself behind.  In some ways I guess I have in the form of artwork sold .... and it wasn’t  just my Kingfisher this time.

Just what we need for the domestic warfare that takes place in our abode ... COMBAT PILLOWS!

Participating in a festival of this nature allows me to witness the abundance of talent in this little country I now call home.  There are some amazingly gifted artists and crafters out there who turn the mundane into the magical ... the failures into success.

Would that I could buy all the magic I see!

Magic was in the air on the drive home too.  The significant other is used to my rather frequent requests to stop.  He’d draw the line at calling them requests though.

Even he, philistine that he can be, was blown away by the unexpected magic in the sunset on Sunday.   It MORE than made up for the indeterminable number of times I'd asked him to stop. 

Finding the right spot to photograph it was an adventure of its own, but find it we did, even if it meant high-tailing it to the middle of the bridge in semi-darkness to get the right shot.

I will NEVER tire of the awesome artwork Mother Nature paints in the skies every evening. Some evenings she outdoes herself and last Sunday was one such evening. 

“Fear is the secret ingredient that makes things magical.  

Go out and be awesome.” 

~ Kal Barteski