Collaboration is fun!

In the past month, I've literally had more requests for donations of my artwork and apparel (and money) than I have had actual purchases of these things. With the election season looming, and the fall being a good time for phone-a-thons, walk-a-thons, run-a-thons, and (apparently) art auctions... I have had to start saying no to more than half of these pleas for free stuff. This makes me feel bad, but rest assured - we have already donated money to three great causes this month, and I've given artwork to 2 more for auctions. I feel good about all of them and can now comfortably go back to sleep at night chanting "Sell sell sell" dreaming of financial flow charts and other words capitalist entrepreneurs use. Yet despite feeling like I should probably make more income at some point... I am certain that of all the work I've done this week - the above project was the absolute best. I got an email a couple weeks ago from a group of 7 year olds at an Art center in Canada, asking me to collaborate on an art project with them. They'd send me a piece of artwork they'd started and I could finish it or change it however I wanted. I got the artwork yesterday (see the top image) and last night, I sat down & worked on it. The bottom image is how it turned out. I got such a huge kick out of this project, and being asked out of the blue to do it. I can't say for sure why the approval of wee faceless Canadians feels so much more important to me than the overdue trade show application I procrastinated on by doing this instead... or the emails from the art gallery that I've been putting off answering... I know how many things I have to get done this week (er... last week, really)... and I know that being the only person in the office means that if I don't do them, then no one will. But sometimes the knowledge that I work for myself and make my own To-Do list gets the better of my work-a-holic side, and I end up doing the things on the list that make me happy far before I do the things on the list that make me a living wage. (Business investors: you may want to look elsewhere. This one could tank at any second.)