back? good. i'm so thrilled that i finally learned where all the cookie people are. thanks Lesley! (check out her cookies at www.facebook.com/frostedbylesley ) people are joining daily: people with blogs younger than mine; with cake and cupcake experience, but new to cookies; people whose work i've seen in books; people who work for suppliers and cake shows. it's like we're all showing up at once, realizing that interest is spreading and darnit, cookies could be the next Big Thing if we knew how to get people together and make something happen.
in the chat forums we're talking about meet-ups and conventions, maybe even a charitable event (i plugged for www.cookiesforkidscancer.org, www.dropinanddecorate.org, and www.frostingforthecause.com) one thing is certain, we all seem to have an urge to gather, not just to compare finished products, or swap business cards, but to decorate cookies. that's awesome to me. that's like people who like to paint, all wanting to gather and paint together. like an art class, or a writers' workshop-- two things i used to do all the time in school, and now i don't do at all.
so i've been thinking about this career vacuum i've been in since graduating college, and how long is too long to be deciding what you want to be when you grow up, and then i remember that my favorite musician, Wayne Coyne, worked at Long John Silvers for like, 11 years before becoming a superstar. it paid his young-aspiring-rockstar bills, took up little brain space so his creativity still flourished, and now he and his freakishly talented band, The Flaming Lips, are so popular i can no longer afford their tickets. i keep this in mind when i look back on 10 long years of desks and fax machines and spreadsheets. sometimes it takes 11 years. sometimes you don't know what kind of artist you want to be, then you find yourself baking. (shrug)
in addition to spectacular music, Wayne also paints, often with streaking branching drips that kind of explode angularly like liquid blasted with air. i puddled some watered-down food coloring on a white Easter egg cookie and gave it a few blasts with an empty airbrush and got little Coynian-drip-explosions. here's a close-up; like a Rorschach ink blot, you can kind of stare at it (his work too) and see something new. go for it. pop in "virgo self-esteem broadcast," check out Wayne's mad skills here www.flaminglips.com/store/lithographs and ponder your last ten years..."this is the beginning..."
your cookies are amazing!! I hope to make some in miniature one day :)
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