Random Updates

We have tons...tons...of new people at Art Awakenings. While in the past our attendance stayed around 6-8 people a day with a busy day averaging 15, now 15+ is the norm. Tuesdays and Thursdays were always our quiet days, but today we had 18 people. 18! Hours have increased, which royally screwed up my schedule. Lately the simplest changes to my schedule have greatly impacted my moods. I seem to be super sensitive to change. I wasn't always so schedule-oriented. I'm not sure what changed and when it changed.

At one point I was thinking I've gotten somewhat "addicted" to Art Awakenings. I'm there every hour it's open. Often when I'm not there I'm not okay. After talking about this situation with a friend I realized that the reason I spend so much time there, the reason I feel "addicted" is because I have nowhere else to go, no one else to spend time with. Why wouldn't I feel lonely and isolated when I'm not there?

Art-wise I've been in and out of a funk. There are days when I just don't feel up to working my clay magic. And then there are days when I'm so excited to try out my new ideas. Last week was one of those weeks when I couldn't seem to motivate myself to make art. I explored a medium that I've always had an aversion to--chalk pastels. I hate hate hate having messy hands and/or clothes, so I would never even touch a chalk pastel. Well, I wore gloves and an apron and I tried it out. Wouldn't you know, I loved it.

I run a crafts group on the weekends for the other PSA program, called SIL/PAH. It's an independent living and housing program. The group is exhausting! I have to come up with at least two projects per group and they never seem to like the projects I find. They don't seem to like doing art at all, in fact. I've been saying for weeks that I just cannot take the pressure of running this group alone. I have nobody to help me and I'm running out of ideas. I've been hinting at quitting, but every time the topic comes up the staff remind me how much the group participants love the group. I feel guilted into continuing. I finally reached my breaking point. I was stressed to tears over this group. I decided to quit. I went in to talk to the supervisor and was met with: Do you know if anyone else would be willing to run the group, because they really enjoy it. Guilt again. And it always works on me. I agreed to keep the group, but only have it every other week. We'll try this out and see how it goes. Perhaps having a week off in between sessions will help.