Tag: Creative

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Why I Am Who & What I Am, & Now Focused on Becoming

carolyncordon

How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?

I’ve had a few life-changing events in my life that have shifted me from what I was doing, and headed me to something quite different.

The first major one of these was the birth of my son, and the post natal depression that hit me when I was stuck at home with him 24/7, when I’d previously been an office worker.

Once I was able to, I took advantage of a chance offered my creative possibilities and began exploring Poetry, something I’d liked at school, then left it behind.

That took me to now being a published writer and poet, which may never have happened if either I’d never had a child, or if things had gone well, and I’d gone back to office work as soon as possible.

This led to a totally different way of life, first as a stay at home mother, then as a community connected volunteer, and sometimes casual worker doing a variety of different things.

The writing is still important to me and has become my major ‘thing’, but the death of my mother last year has given me a new major change in my life. Losing a parent is a tragic thing for sure, no matter what, but given her age at the time, and the way her body was breaking down, it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

What was more surprising was when, once her estate had been looked at and the funds there distributed in accordance to her will, I had found myself to be quite well off … I’d never had that much money before.

I thought about things, and realised here was a chance  to actually really do something with my life, something bigger even than the nine books I’ve published. I was going to go into business.

And not just a boring shop on the internet, or similar, 8 decided to put my best creative ideas together, and go into business as a Creative!

So all of the fun hobby things I’d been doing, I was going to get serious, and expanding all of it, doing my best to make it all profitable!

I’m at the very early Start Up stage, with no money coming yet, but I’m taking advantage of all the many opportunities available, to learn as much as I can about   actually being a business!

This website began because of that, and with some adjustments, and widgets added, I hope and expect to  get things happening. My mum had some idea of some of what I was planning, and I’m sure she would be proud of me for what I’ll be doing!

My younger brother is a businessman, a very successful one, and if I can follow his lead, there’s no telling how far I may fly with my own business!

Arts

What Being An Art Installation Curator Means To Me

carolyncordon

For me, being an Art Installation Curator means thinking about that Installation often, every day in fact. There are a variety of different aspects of that, a main one obviously is having items on display, and the item above is such an item.

My ‘Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation’, in the Adelaide Plains Region of South Australia, is made up of found objects, so I’m always on the look out for items to put out On display, and that lovely battered and rusty Screwdriver is the latest item, and I was certainly thrilled to find it!

I was walking along the road this Art Installation is on, which is also where I live, and a slight deviation from my path brought me to this delightul tool! I quickly grabbed it, then took it along with me as my husband and I and our dog Lenny continued our walk.

it’s been a while since I’ve found an item of note, such as this one, and so when our walk was over, I happily and quickly examined possible options for a good display spot. And then I placed it out, as shown in the photo just there.

This Art Installation is home to a good few such tools, found by myself as I walk around various places. I’m not particularly looking for potential such display items, but am always open to the possibility of finding them!

Life’s like that, I feel – remaining open to good things that may happen, makes it more likely they will in fact happen. If I hadn’t taken that slight sidetrack today, this Screwdriver would have remained in the undergrowth, becoming ever rustier until it finally became a scattered collection of rusty scraps of nothing much at all.

As the Curator of this Installation, a major role is definitely the collection of such material. And the putting these items is of course an important part. Another not so readily recognised part, is bearing in mind possible ways to bring attention of potential visitors to what is on display. This aspect is an ongoing learning experience for me, and I’m glad to have this website where my various Business related interests are ‘out there’ on show!

There are over 700 items on display – tools, horseshoes, old chains, and a varied collection of other items, in various shapes and sizes. They’re found, then eventually put on display, for visitors to view.

I’m keen now though to bring an exciting new aspect of this Art Installation to the fore, and that is as a Tourist site. In the Adelaide Plains Region, agriculture has always been the most important business.

These days though, with ever increasing numbers of residents with no working relationship with agriculture, but only that of being a consumer of such products, there is much more of a focus on other ways to bring interest and so money into our region. My desire is to assist in increasing visitor numbers to the northern Adelaide Plains Region, to the betterment of all of us here!

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What On Earth Is My Brand?

carolyncordon

I’m a Writer, Poet, Editor, Art Installation Collector/Creater/Curator …, Creative Writing workshop presenter. From the first two in that list I make tiny bits of money, occasionally, and for the first, a larger bit of money once a year.

The rest of the items on that list are things I do as a volunteer, or for myself. You could say I’m a Creative, and you would be getting close to the truth, but, but, it isn’t a business, at least not yet it isn’t. The question is though, could I make it a business, and a maybe bigger question is, do I want to make it a business?

These ideas are in my head more right now because I’ve paid a reasonable amout of money to attend a day of ‘small or micro’ business workshops, all in the one place, all with the aim to teach me, and the others attending, how to be better at running their business.

I had a fit of enthusiasm and registered, willingly paying out the money, with barely a thought about whether I could actually call myself someone who was, or could be in business.

I sell my books every now and then, but most often for only enough money to get back the acual money put in to having the book printed. And the editing job I do for fun, well that’s for a monthly newsletter that I put out for free to obtain, but I actually pay money out to get it printed now.

Once upon a time, the newsletter was printed by myself in my job working in a council, then later it was printed by various offices of politicians. But those all fell though, so if I want to have this particular newsletter printed, I have to pay for it myself.

One of the things I do, and enjoy working on. But it doesn’t bring in any money for me, not yet. I’d love to get involved in tourism and show off what I’ve created, and even talk about it all to interested others.

Could that be a business? It would be great if it could be! Maybe I’ll find out how to do that, at the workshops I’m attending on Wednesday this week. Or maybe those baby plans will all flitter away, and I’ll go back to being a volunteer and not think about any ‘I could be in business’ ideas.

We’ll see. It will become clearer, anyway, by the end of the day on Wednesday. I might find a great Mentor who takes me under their wing and shows me what I could do in ways that don’t frighten me! Haha!

Caro the Creative, or something along those lines …