Stress can push you to do something that you've never done but really really should. Stress can drive you to do it again, but better. But stress can also not be so good for you, and your family. How do you decide which is what?
Last fall was my first real Halloween season in open business to the public. The year before, I made a few things for family friends and of course, my kids. And even at that level, it was exciting but a bit stressful. Being pushed for time, I ended up not doing the best on one mask. But being a family friend, he came back afterward and I made it perfect for him. A week is not very long to make a mask from scratch!
But this last fall was the real test. What would it look like? What kind of custom orders would I be approached for? I had already made up my mind that I won't do gore and thankfully, I didn't have anyone ask for anything gruesome until after I was already scheduled out well past Halloween and I was prepared to tell her that she could put the bloody bits on it herself. As a farm kid, blood and gore are all too real. Once you've had to deal with butchering time or scoop what is left of your pet off the road, you have no wish to play with the fake stuff. I just don't see the joke in death and dismemberment. The fact that so many video games and movies are so incredibly gory seems to point to just how disconnected we are to the basic facts of life.
But I didn't have to deal with that last year. I did have two oversized custom heads to craft. Until then, I hadn't done much of that size. Heck, I still haven't done that many of any size yet! That and the always present looming deadlines. Both needed to be done and shipping completed before Halloween! Plus, I had a few pinatas to make in there as well. From the middle of August till four days before Halloween, nobody saw me. I kept my hands busy as best I could and my efficiency increased greatly but I still had to work some very very long days to get everything done on time. Fashioning a base from cardboard and paperboard without using a glue gun really slowed down that process as well. That is a lot of clamping with PVA glue, trust me!
With the holiday season right after Halloween, work kept a brisk pace well into January. I was very thankful but exhausted. My family connections needed some repair work after all that time as well. There is an understanding that you will need to sacrifice a lot of time, in particular, if you own your own business. I don't mind the hard work at all. Kids are resilient and it doesn't hurt them to learn how to pitch in and help out. At 16 and 11, mine are plenty old enough to help considerably, and they do. But they still have needs for me as a parent. That comes first. If I'm so consumed by work that I am completely unavailable to them, nobody wins.
I really appreciate custom orders. They challenge me to step up my game and look at things in a completely different way. Plus, it's a bit of a relief to be able to know exactly what a customer wants. There is nothing quite like making something from your own database of ideas and basically hoping someone else likes the same thing you do. Recently I've been very fortunate to see that most of the non-custom masks I made last year have sold. So it was a marketing issue, not my artistic interpretation or craftsmanship that was the issue.
Although I've known that I need to find a faster way to make paper mache, I don't want to compromise my principles for it. Being an eco-minded artist is a huge deal to me. Just because a different glue dries incredibly fast and stronger with fewer layers, I hesitate to use it. Long-term impacts to the environment, and to me and mine is very important.
While I have no current custom orders open, and after reading a few more books on mask making that I was able to find, I decided to try molding the base for a mask from clay. I've wanted to do this for a while but needed the time to study it properly. I used just straight clay with just a bit of preservative in it. Then I had to figure out a waxy coating to put on it so that the paper mache wouldn't stick to it too hard. The first time I tried it with the Mouse King from the classical ballet The Nutcracker, I tried it without any coating and I had a really hard time detaching the paper mache from the clay. I ended up using plastic wrap for my second attempt, which worked but didn't make me happy. I just started another mask, Princess Mononoke, last week and this time I tried paper towels soaked in olive oil. It worked! It obviously hasn't been long, but I'm pretty sure the oil that soaked into the clay will just help it be a bit more malleable. Being able to use the clay for a base and reuse it again, is making me so happy. The range of what I can do in a timely manner just broadened greatly with no increased environmental impacts. I'm so tickled.
I'm not sure how often I want to do custom orders yet, especially for the upcoming Halloween season. There is a need for it out there, that is for sure. But I do wonder if I'm not quite ready for some of them. I feel that I've done a good job for my clients so far, but where is that boundary? When does it end as a good challenge and becomes an overstepping of one's abilities? I'd hate for a client to bear the burden of my failure. I've noticed this spring how when a potential client starts a conversation with me about a custom order, my stress level rises quickly. People have fantastic ideas! But turning them from a digital world into a paper mache reality is complicated.
I don't like saying no to people, it never feels good. One happy solution to custom order requests that would be pushing my abilities significantly is to pass them on to a fellow paper mache artist, Eric Bornstein, that is vast light years ahead of me in experience and expertise. Last week, I was so thankful to introduce him to a potential client that originally approached me for a custom order that was clearly beyond my current capacity. I would have had to build it in pieces outside! It was a magnificent idea though.
In the meantime, my oldest is going on two trips this year, one to California in a week and one to Europe this summer. Then she has a space camp to attend in August. She's always been a busy kid and this year is no different. And my son's baseball season is in full swing now with a doubleheader this weekend. He also has a busy baseball season in the early fall. My parents live right beside us so our lives are very much integrated. I feel very privileged to have this opportunity to be a continued part of their lives.
Life is busy! It is good. But sometimes I have to adjust my priorities and my focus a bit because it's all too easy to lose sight of the forest among the trees. For now, I'm not closing the door on custom orders. But am de-emphasizing them in my online shop at Etsy.com by not advertising them and lengthening my process time considerably. It makes me feel better. I'm a turtle by nature, so this doesn't surprise me. But is it the right choice? There are 4 months between now and August. I'll keep making masks and putting them out there for the world to see. We'll just have to see how it goes from there, won't we?