Here we are, the inaugural blog post. I suppose the first question is, "Why Star Bar Cane?" It is a nod to my father, who passed away in 2019, and acknowledges where I come from, helping me define where I'm going. "Bar Cane" is sampled from my family's brand. "Star" references one of my favorite memories with my father, stargazing into the late-night rural New Mexico sky.
The second question is, "What is Star Bar Cane?" I started Star Bar Cane to have cosmic conversations about culture, conservation, and consciousness through art, fashion, and written narratives. I am naturally curious and love to be exposed to and learn about many different things. I'm an artist, designer, and writer focused on life-long learning, vocational exploration, and edutainment. I'm innately attracted to the spiritual and esoteric. I'm obsessed with perspectives, and there are many. The more I learn, the more I find similarities, even in concepts that appear opposites.
I like balance. I thrive in the understanding that there often is no black-and-white absolute. The best we can hope for is to consume enough information to be comfortable in the grey and to become empowered, making decisions with a constant caveat that pivots may be necessary. At one point, I considered calling this blog "Schrödinger's Kat" in a nod to ambiguity and nuance. Here, I'll talk about what piques my interest through a personal lens that often includes pondering universal love, the concept of home, and life purpose, sharing my thoughts and questions along the way.
In a cosmic wink, several months after choosing the name for this blog, I found a box of projects saved from grade school. One project was a high school compilation of freshman-year writing, bound by hand with drawings I recreated from two of my favorite illustrators, Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson. I listed the publisher as "Star Books." The About the Author page reads, "Katherine is a freshman. At night, she looks outside and counts the stars before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep. She enjoys doing everything, especially with her friends and family, and hopes to one day make a name for herself. But for now, being a freshman with friends she can count on and a place to go home to is just fine with her."
There is a twenty-five-year span between the birth of this blog and that high school project. Yet, the future author and illustrator was already taking shape in the words and doodles of a fifteen-year-old. So, my first cosmic point is to listen to your inner child. Somewhere in those often cringe-worthy adolescent ramblings are dream seeds from when it was much easier to define happiness. What were you interested in? What did you consider fun? What made you laugh; how did you play? My edutainment projects focus on connecting play and creativity with future vocational aspirations for children. Shouldn't adults contemplate what type of play brought and continues to bring them joy when considering vocational pivots or entrepreneurial projects? If you find yourself attempting to pinpoint a new direction, why not reexamine where you've been? Maybe there's a box of grade school projects in your attic containing the childhood answer to your question.
Ignite your inner child with this grown-up take on a star projector:
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I haven't had a TV for over a decade. I stream content, preferring a pico projector, HDMI adapter, and iPad. I've found that this is also my preferred way to create an in-home planetarium. Star projectors have limited options, but when I project a YouTube video of deep-space NASA footage, I feel like I'm floating in the cosmos.