Carla Gypsygirl's Blurty

Sunset part 1: Design and the biz
Carla

I feel that the time of day that best describes my life at the moment is sunset. There's a lot of things that are ending, and that's sad, but at the same time, the glow of God's goodness and my own nostalgia makes everything all nice and golden. There's also the promise of exciting times ahead, and I'm able to look back on what's happened and admire the beauty and purpose of it. I feel that I can use experiences of my past to be stronger and wiser in the future. So in today's entry, we have part 1 of my sunset experience: Carla the designer!

I feel very excited at the moment, because my design and illustration business is taking off a little! I never thought to myself, "I'll start up a design business, now!", because I think that too much ambition can be a little dangerous. My design biz all happened very accidentally and wonderfully- friends and people I had come in contact with had remembered that I was a designer and illustrator, and called me up to do work. I love how God has organised all of those little design jobs- they always came when I was running out of money, or when I needed some creative stimulation. When I finished uni, I was preparing myself for the possibility of never working professionally as a designer or illustrator. I was so exhausted and drained. Also, I found it really hard to put God first when I was at uni- design is a really consuming, 24-hour thing, and there was a lot of pressure to make design my whole life. But after not designing or drawing for a long time, I realised that I really missed drawing pictures and creating things. I missed noticing things, and documenting my life through words and pictures. Things are different now, also- I find that working isn't as stressful as going to uni. I feel really blessed that God has given me the creative gifts that I have, and I have a superhero mentality- I want to use my powers for good and not evil! So I'm so excited to have the projects that I'm working on- I get really excited about designing and taking photos and doing linocuts and sketching. God is so good.

As for the next point, if you're a graphic designer or an artist, you'll understand: sometimes, I feel a little crazy. Here are some of the things that I have done in the name of art and design:
> Dressed up as a schoolgirl (complete with knee-high socks and my brother's school tie) and be filmed chasing friends around a park, while a whole lot of Japanese tourists walked by and laughed at me.
> Dressed up as a model and walked along the tops of tables in a classroom at uni, while all of these fake flashlights went off. This was filmed as well.
> Taken a lot of photos of people I didn't know, while they weren't looking.
> Drawn naked people at uni.
> Made my sister pose in many ridiculous scenes (e.g. holding an ugh boot in front of her face, putting a phone on top of her head, wrapping a hair-dryer cord around her neck), usually very early in the morning.
> Taken photos of myself in a photo booth while holding up a red cardboard heart.
> Scattered about 20 big cardboard hearts all over my street and taken photos of them, while the neighbours drove past me and looked at me funny.
> Sat under the table where my computer is and popped party poppers in the middle of the night.
> Taken a perfectly good heart-shaped lollipop that Meg had given me and smashed it with a hammer, and then scanned it.
> Taken photos of my underwear on the washing line.
> Made my friend Grace pretend to talk on a public phone while I took photos of her.
> Made Grace go up and down an escalator too many times so I could photograph her again.
> Stuck my head under a hand dryer in the Broadway Shopping Centre bathrooms so that my friend Jo could take photos of me.

This list would probably get a lot longer if I thought harder about it. Anyway, last Thursday night, I did get that suspicion again that I was nuts. I'm working on creating a visual identity for a fashion designer at the moment, and I had this idea about a girl that I made up in my head. This girl is very rich and dramatic- she cries a lot and breaks up with her boyfriend frequently. As I had no-one else to photograph, I had to photograph myself. So there I was, on a freezing cold night with the flu, dressing up in an evening gown and taking photos of myself writing fictional "Dear John" letters and drinking Ribena out of a wine glass. I also locked myself in the bathroom and put all of this black eye make-up on, and then shoved eye drops into my eyes to make me look like I was crying. That is where the above photo came from- it's one of many!

So next time you hear Britney Spears' "Crazy", think of your Spacegirl Princess Carla!

More sunset coming up.