Sleep Deprivation as Art

I did it! I lost some sleep -- OK, I lost a lot of sleep, but I made my kids' halloween costumes. Yes, it's a little early, thank goodness, or my kids would probably go out in painted paper bags. I like when I have a pre-deadline deadline. In this case, it was a costume party at my horse stable. (Well, it's not mine exactly. It's where my horse lives. I know! I know! That needs some explaining, but I'll have to get to that another day.)

I mentioned before that I'm an artist, right? Yes, I'm a Realtor® too, which is an art in a way, or at least you can bring a lot of creativity to it. I have no choice. I live and breathe art and it slips into everything I do. I've always drawn, painted, or sculpted using various paints on paper or canvas, paper mache, clay -- anything I could get my hands on. I even did a winter scene out of toilet paper and glue when I was 9. Embarrassing but true. Adult artists call this using "found materials." I became a professional about 15 years ago, and since then have been doing freelance illustration for children's publication's and, when I'm lucky, advertising. I did a really fun job for IKEA 2 years ago. My art appeared on a full page in the newspaper in four North American cities. I still freelance a few jobs a year. I got started in real estate with mural painting, then investing and remodeling, so adding agent to the mix was a logical step.

So what does that have to do with Halloween costumes? To me sewing is an art form. Way back when I was a kid I got into "soft sculpture." My first project as a 12 year old was an alligator. In high school I made an 4 foot tall ogre out of woolly tan fabric with wiggly, foam rubber stuffing, beady metallic eyes and big pointy clay teeth. He was very popular with the boys. They liked tossing him around on the bus or walking with his arms over their shoulders. I made my first kid's costume before I even had kids of my own. My little then 4 year old cousin made an adorable frog with big bulgy eyes coming out of the top of his head... OK it looked better than it sounds. Little kids have such great stuffed animal like proportions they can make just about anything look cute.

After that my costumes helped my daughter turn into a kangaroo, the classic witch with pointy foam rubber hat, a brown mouse and, last year, she was Eowyn from the Lord of the Rings. Making the helmet was great fun. I even made leather like gauntlets and epaulets out of fun foam. She looked very cool. My younger one wore the hand me down costumes until last year when I made her a dolphin. This year it was husky dogs. Both girls wanted to be husky dogs.

I get a bit carried away. I can't just use a pattern that I find... no. I have to start with sketches and draw pattern pieces on old newspaper. So 'round the clock from Friday afternoon through the wee hours of Saturday morning, covered in flying fluffs of faux fur, I cut and adjusted and reshaped first newspaper, then doll sized, then people sized pieces of fabric. Sculpting is what I was doing. It was fun and exhausting. Working like that is such a mixed bag. You're tired and having trouble thinking straight, but hours of uninterrupted work time are so refreshing. Once you have little kids, through the night is often the only way you can get that kind of time.

As the dark of night brightened to the light of dawn, I sat hunched over the sewing machine making curly tails. My partner brought me some breakfast -- tea and toast -- which sat untouched as I pinned and stitched. I looked up and realized I only had an hour to go. I had to leave to host an open house in Lincoln Park. A busy one too it turned out. So I whipped that last few pieces together, threw them into a pile with a supply of safety pins for attaching things that didn't get sewn on, cleaned up, changed my clothes and headed to that open.

I made it to the open house with just a few minor struggles with parking. Lincoln Park, has to be the most popular neighborhood in all of Chicago and parking is a nightmare! I decompressed as I sat in a beautiful condo in a vintage high rise for two hours, hopefully not babbling incoherently at the poor innocent people who came by to see the place. They were there to see the condo, not me, so they seemed happy enough.

After the open I headed home through traffic that reflected the huge numbers of people out enjoying yet another unseasonably warm October Saturday. I stopped home, grabbed the costumes and the kids, making sure I had the safety pins, and flew back into the car to enjoy more 'let's get out and enjoy this unseasonably warm Saturday' traffic.

By the time I got there, I only had fifteen minutes to get the kids and the pony into their costumes. Safety pins and fur flew in all directions as I attached tails and ears and hustled the kids over to the barn, only to find the pony soaking wet. Another girl had given her a bath for the horse show. What can you do? I popped on the bridle, stuffed her tail into the dog tail I'd sewn for her, sat the kids on her back, popped big fur dog ears over her little pony ears and off we went. They won 'cutest,' got a big blue sparkly ribbon and a bucket of candy and prizes. Life is good.

When we got home, I went straight to bed.