Batfort

Style reveals substance

Tag: Batfort prints

Image of the week: life update edition

It’s a personal image this week, from my printmaking class on Sunday.

 

 

This week started off so promising – with art – and yet ended with me curled up on the couch dealing with the side effects of bacterial die-off in my gut. What changed?

Because I could tell that I was entering a healing phase, I decided to go full meat-and-water (with a few eggs here and there) to help my body reset itself. This meant quitting coffee and cheese (again), which meant caffeine withdrawls and general malaise and, a few days in, complete starvation of the bacterial overgrowth that is still hanging around in my gut.

It’s interesting to see, as I’ve gone through my journey toward health, how big problems make smaller problems impossible to see. When I was still eating grains and sugar, it didn’t matter if I quit dairy for a month – there was so much inflammation in my body that I couldn’t tell the difference.

When I had a dead tooth in my mouth, which I’m sure caused all sorts of problems, I had a hunch that my SIBO problems still lingered but it didn’t matter if I was drinking coffee or not. Now that the tooth is gone, and whatever infection along with it, giving up coffee actually means something (all that bacteria in my gut suddenly has no food whatsoever).

It sucks to get through now but I’m hopeful that this means that now my guts can start the real healing. If that means meat + water for a spell, so be it.

The Enthusiasm Gap

I’m used to managing expectations. Jumping over the “gap” between expectations are reality is the easiest way to make a great impression at work. I find the “gap” concept to be an easy way to visualize something that isn’t a material thing.

But expectations aren’t the only thing that can fall into a gap. Enthusiasm can, too.

For instance, today I went to a printmaking class. I’ve been sputtering around trying to get started doing art again (a few sketches here, a design project there), so when I saw a class offered nearby, I jumped at the chance. I was thrilled to have a built-in opportunity to practice printmaking, and am happy to finally have bits of ink under my fingernails again.

And while I wouldn’t expect anybody to fall over themselves praising my first printed art piece (I’m no longer a child), I’ve noticed other people’s excitement about my project is nowhere near my own personal excitement levels.

I’m quite excited, if you couldn’t tell.

Others – friends, my mom, Instagram – respond positively, but they clearly aren’t “hearts in my eyes emoji” like I am.

That’s okay. It wasn’t their experience, it was mine. I was the one who did the work, and rediscovered something I love. It’s my plans and schemes and interests that matter (to me). Other people’s reactions are secondary.

Now, as I think about this, there are definitely scenarios where the other person’s reaction would be of vital importance. If I were getting married, I would want to share my future husband’s level of excitement. A gap there would probably spell disaster.

For my situation now, an enthusiasm gap means nothing. I’m not asking anybody to do this project with me, and I’m going to continue to explore printmaking because it makes me happy.

Yet still, I find myself thinking – what would it take to bridge the enthusiasm gap? Expectations is one thing. That’s just a matter of one’s mental model stacked up against reality. But enthusiasm – that taps into how someone feels about something, and that’s harder to influence.

Maybe this is why selling art is so difficult.

HmmmMMmmmm.

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