Fat Andy's Candy Circus

This is a mock up for a label I am considering for my new busy-ness.

Last week, I wrote about my choice to stop painting for a month and a half, due to frustrations which were spawned from my perfectionistic approach to the medium.

On Sunday, I broke my painting fast to go out painting at Trinidad Beach with "The Sunday Painters" on the only sunny day of the season. 

I had hoped to have a new piece finished and ready to show to you for my Tuesday blog deadline. But unfortunately, after viewing the result of my ambivalent return to painting, I'm again thinking I'll need another month and a half off. Apparently I saw my shadow.

I also mentioned last week that I had run off to join the circus in response to my frustrated artistic aspirations.

For several years I have periodically wandered off into obsessive entrepreneurial flights of fantasy. My thought has always been, if I could bring the same level of creativity to a business that I bring to my art, It would be a business like none other. Often this leads me to get lost in my head designing roadside attractions, ice cream truck art cars, theme bars, believe me the list goes on and on. One of my favorite things to fantasize about is becoming a offbeat, quirky burl artist.

My dear wife puts up with all of this to a point, until she feels compelled to shut me down due to a deep sensation of overwhelm with my flights of fancy.

This last month I really drank the 

Kool Aid. Usually after a couple of weeks of obsessive internet research I burn myself out and realize it's a lot more fun to dream up a business then it is to run it. The costs of investing in the venture nearly always scare me off, as well as the time that would be required. Unfortunately this time I bought the equipment and supplies before my misgivings caught up with me.

My fantasy this time is that I could take a simple cotton candy business and revamp it as a walking art piece that tantalizes the taste buds. 

Hence Fat Andy's Candy Circus was born. My research has inspired many odd purchases, which have been showing up in various small packages from around the world, including many fun and unusual organic flavors like coconut/ginger and fig/pepper, a tailor made pink tuxedo from China, and two matching pink wigs.

Now I'm grappling with the reality that had always scared me off of running my own business. It's a lot of work! Cotton candy is actually very hard to make, and learning how to make the custom organic flavors is a nightmare. 

The pink tuxedo showed up in the wrong shade, more a hot pink then a candy pink.

Finally, the dancing cat toy I had purchased in order to repurpose into a moving circus character arrived broken...

My sabbatical is making me miss the simple life of painting.