Totally Necessary

I am super body positive. Like super. I think all bodies are beautiful. I think the variety of bodies alone is what makes them beautiful. Fat, saggy bodies striped with iridescent lightning bolt stretch marks, with soft rolls of flesh. Old, wrinkled bodies that look like topography maps of a life well lived. Thin bodies with bones pressing again delicate skin. Colors ranging from that of the rich earth, pale and shot through with rich blues and purples, wine colored spots, freckles, sun burns...the variety of humanity is so freaking beautiful. Body positivity brought that to me. Just like becoming familiar with any subject, looking at bodies out side of the paradigm of western beauty standards made me appreciate all of them. Of course I have my preferences for what I like most, that's how humans work. But breaking that brain washing of "Only THIS is beautiful" helped me see lots of beauty. Like...have you ever stopped and thought about how gorgeous stretch mark

Social media is scary. I mean it's really, really awesome too. But it is a mess of unspoken rules, huge potential, and a HUGE variety of wonderful ways to fuck it up. I'm not a social media queen, by any means. But I have been working at getting better at it, and recently, due to another day job, gotten the opportunity to really explore artist and creators social media from the point of view of someone looking for information about artist, to promote them, and between the two, would like to offer up some advice on some social media basics. This is all pretty basic stuff, but all mistakes I have run into in the last few weeks: #1: HAVE A SOLID SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE.   Your name should be unique and specific enough that when I plug you into google, I can get relevant hits off the first page. Google social media name s before you choose them, make sure that you aren't drowned out by bigger companies, other creatives, or so generic it ends up in a sea of same.

This week has been insane. But, good insane. Once upon a time my art group, t he Atomic Pixies , did our first baby kickstarter, and it was amazing, and we made our Atomic Tarot deck. And now we're running the second printing , and I am remembering, now, that running a kickstarter is 30 days of anxiety. Even, apparently, one that's doing really well! But that said, I...I really do love running a Kickstarter. I love the crowdfunding model. I know there are a lot of deeper think pieces out there about communism and millennials and all sorts of stuff, but I just love, as a creator, working so closely with people. Being able to use a lot of people, doing a little, to get every one what they need. If I didn't have backers who were hoping and waiting on this project, it would have been a dream, forever. There's an interesting, and frustrating thing when you run a business that buying  in bulk is cheaper. For a little over double the last Kickstarter, we are getting 4

So I am going to keep up a blog. Yes hello, this is me making this vow that roughly only several million people have probably made, and broken, half a dozen times. But I LOVED having a blog on LJ, and while I think the magic (and misery) of livejournal is solidly a thing of the past, there’s nothing stopping me from finding some other corner of the internet to word vomit into. So hello. I am Terra and this is my new blog. By being here you have already consent to bad puns and bad memes and a lot of typos. Sorry thems the rules. I suppose that, as a first post, and introduction is a good idea. I’m an early onset crazy cat lady who teaches kids that learning is fun using art and comics. I am one of the three woman in www.atomicpixies.com which is my greatest pride and joy p much. Besides my cats. I live near Denver with too other being all of whom I love very dearly. How is it that it’s always hardest to talk about ourselves? There is literally no subject we should have a