First Art Show : List of Things To Do

It seems I've got several million things on my mind regarding the upcoming show and various other projects. It seems that way.

When I actually jot them down, the list fits on a post-it note... if I write really small.

There is a fascinating calm to this stress.

I have no idea how to do several things, and am trying to figure them out in plenty of time. Credit cards? Yeah. I'm spoiled by paypal. Setting up the actual booth? You mean I need a plan other than to pull it out of the box and hang a few things up? Lights? Arrangement? A table, maybe? A place to put the credit card machine? Wow...

Paintings. Carvings. I don't have as many carvings done as I'd like to have. The smaller paintings need more work. I need to get the prints narrowed down from the 76 images I have to choose from and get them printed. I need to order the sleeves for them, and for the note cards. I need to work on the note cards!

I need to send out the postcards as soon as they're ready - tell everyone about the show and offer a discount to those who are interested. I need to update the gallery on heatherartworks.com and I'd like to launch a mailing list, but that may have to wait till December. I have to make a decision on the Spring shows - which one I want to aim for - how many pieces I can accomplish before then, cost, can I really do this?, etc...

It's a very, very different stress than what I was going through over a month ago. (Let's just say: I don't take orders. At all. And I'm going back to being a volunteer so I can say "No" to the ridiculous.)

This is a stress I can deal with, because it allows me to find creative solutions and rearrange how I approach things. (I'm not crying every night, so that alone is 100 times better!) This is my plan, my creativity given free reign, the way it should be.

Paintings will be finished. Carvings will get stained. Prints will be sleeved. Note cards will be bundled.

Speaking of which - the note cards are a limited edition item... come to think of it, so's everything else! When they're gone, they're gone! So... if any of the pieces strike your fancy, snap 'em up!

Now back to sorting out the list of things to do and find a place to start. A paintbrush seems a good a place as any...

Doin' it my way

This piece is one of two, because it was supposed to be one of four, but two of them were sent to the 'scrap it' pile.

This piece was submitted to the local art association for the juried show. It was 'not accepted'. My guess is because it's not a landscape or still life. (No, I'm not bitter... oh, well, maybe a little bit...)




This piece is called "Wishes Do...", because I thought it was cute and fun. And because it's only two feet long and the letters are like three inches each and they take up a lot of space, so word choices were limited. Logic. Of some sort. And because I wanted to have a happy little painting with a bit of meaning.


Actually, this is coming off as a bit jaded, and while I am about some things, I love the way these two came out.
They're cute, in a sassy kind of way. They're simple, and yet so many layers went into it, and I just want to run my fingers over the lines and layers... It's so tactile, the way I like my art. (<--- click on the photo for an extreme close up that makes you want to pet your computer screen.)

~~~~~~~~~

Now, this is a picture of one of the two that are being repurposed. Gag. (In my opinion.)

Oh, I should wait for you to scroll back to the top to see if you can compare and see the differences...

There - did you see it?

You can see the words in the first one. In the second one, well, you can't. The paint bled under the tape lines on the second set.

What the difference is: The base.

The two that came out awesome, or at least the way I wanted them to, are the two I built and stretched myself. I use muslin because it's thinner than regular canvas is which offers the opportunity to see through it. This is a feature I really like. The bonus part of this is the way paint adheres to the thinly woven fabric, thus making it easier for shape shadows that are set with tape, and making the paint stay thick so it stands out, not bleeds down.

The two that bled? Were done on the store bought gesso'd canvases. The gesso makes the canvas smoother, yes, and for some paintings makes a pretty decent base. But when I lay tape down and drizzle layers of paint over it and peel the tape up, it should be bare under the tape, right? For some reason, the gesso base lets the paint bleed under the tape. Yuck.

Peeling the tape off the bare fabric of the muslin canvases leaves a fairly clean line 99.3% of the time. This is more to my liking.

It was a learning experience. The two for scrap will be unstapled and the paint covered canvas will be cut up for... strips on something else, for cut outs to glue to cards for sale or gifts, for tying together to make funky necklaces, for spelling out naughty words on the front lawn, whatever... the frames will be used to stretch and staple fresh, bare muslin on and go about the process again with new pieces.

The two "Wishes Do..." pieces measure 12 inches by 24 inches, have a plain white cloth backing so the staples won't scratch your wall, are wrapped on the edges by navy blue ribbon which also serves as the hanging anchor. The colors on the canvas are grey, light blue, light pink, dark blue, and a rust red. Each is signed on the back and will be custom wrapped for shipping.

$120 if you'd like one to pet, stroke, rub, you're interested:

this title is yet to be determined

Here I go again, trying to type in a title for a post I'm barely beginning to formulate.

I don't work that way. I should know this by now. Really. I should.

It's one of those things, that my brain starts somewhere in the middle, or the end, and works backwards or outwards or whatever, filling in the puzzle gaps along the way. All those writing assignments in school where we had to turn in a title and outline and synopsis like weeks before the actual writing thingy was due - well, that sucked for me, because I never had a title until I was done. More often, after the reprimands & bad grades for "not completing work on time", I just made shit up. Whatever, it worked to appease the teacher who wanted a title & outline on her desk by a certain day. I figured out it didn't really matter if I changed it later after the real stuff was written.

That's how I do things. It's how I roll, baby.

That has very little to do with what I want to write about, though.

Today is the day the world holds a collective breath to see who is going to be head stormtrooper, puppet, poombah of these United States. Lots o' hype leading up to this circus, we're all tired of it.

I voted for Obama/Biden. Do I need to explain? No. I don't need to. I'll spare the stuff that you don't need to know about me or care about anyway and just say that I want to be able to look forward, not backward. I believe every person on this earth has a right to love and be loved, no matter their skin color or sexuality. I believe that women deserve far better in so many situations and am thankful a man like Joe Biden has stood up for those rights. I believe the man that Barack Obama is shines through in the way he treats his wife and family over the rest of the political dancing. The things like taxes and the war and the 'promises' do not matter as much to me as the ability to keep calm, make decisions based on how they will affect his own family as well as others instead of the quick-temper reaction that does more harm than good, a quick-temper reaction that I know all too well in my family.

I'm ready for the hope to move forward and make changes.

Personally.

Not just as a nation.

Personally.

So I bought (at least I think I did, it takes '24 hours to process') a domain name. But it's not the name we wanted, because the one we wanted is already taken by someone else. grumble. We're creating ideas & developing these lil' guys and their stories and having fun, and we want to share this with others.

But I know enough basic html to make a mess, and I'm good at picking and gleaning from other codes to figure a few things out, now I'm freaking out over the "How the hell do other people do this web building stuff?". Because I'm hard-headed (no kidding, really?) and I want to figure it out and do it on my own. Because I figure I'm capable and should know how to do this, so why don't I?

I also jumped on the NaNoWriMo bandwagon again this year after not doing it last year (something about driving back & forth from Florida & no regular internet connection & job hunting being a priority at the time, but whatever. excuses, excuses). I have maybe 600 words towards that 80k total by the end of November, and I'm using it as a chance to push myself and develop a few things.

One is the bunnyflies stories with Rob. One is the command of customer service stuff with Amber. One is an article on the boot camps that daddy & Papa Earl do for the museum. One is a piece of fiction that has been rolling around for awhile.

The best advice for NaNoWriMo is to just write - clean it up and edit later, like in December. So what if I'm using four different things to gain that word count, I'm trying to make it happen and learn about myself as a writer along the way.

There will always be some level of crazy going on. Election or not. Economy or not. Seasonal or not. Relationship or not. But I still have words to put to paper, I still have things I jump into the middle of and feel my way out of. And I'm looking forward to the day I can show off my stuff and be proud of it, because I learned something along the way to making it happen.

in which I start. something.

This is going to ramble a bit, or maybe it won't and I'll get straight to a point. Maybe. Maybe not.

Idea: these little amusing characters that Rob & I made up to amuse each other. A cast that can be made into stuffed toys or vinyl toys and have children's books with their stories in them. So far rob has been way more creative & productive than I have with these guys. But we have fun making up scenarios and putting them into them to see what they do. We let our imaginations run free and it's fun.

Stuck: He's sculpted a few. I've drawn a few. We talk about them & make up stories. Want to actually "bring them to life", so to speak - write out these stories, make these characters, draw the pictures.

But. I. Haven't. Yet.

Fear: Lots. Things like "failure" and "finances" and "do something useful with your life" keep popping up. There are other, smaller, slightly less pestering fears that filter in here and there, but those 3 are the main ones. The big ones. The "DO NOT HIT THIS RED BUTTON" ones.

Havi: The awesome inspiration of Havi Brooks and Selma, over at The Fluent Self, whose blog I read for great "You can do it!" type of thinking, who does amazing things with yoga and brains (totally in a smart way, not in a weird "Ruutting on dee Ritz/Frankenstein" way) and offers ways to stop procrastinating that are really, really effective and well, awesome. We talked last week, as a training session (I got to play guinea pig for her to work on a new method in return for a bit of help and insight to what I want to work on) where I voiced those fears and walked through some of the things affecting my creative process.

Let's just say I learned that this is one tree I want to climb and am figuring it out as I go along.

This is where this "start. something." comes in.

Process: I now admit I'm not good at the photos part. I admit I dislike video blogging, and 99% of the time I will close a page with a video article because I'd rather read. And I know writing takes the time and effort, but it's what I prefer. I prefer the tactile of painting, sculpting, making messes. Remembering to take photos -then download, resize, save, and upload -those photos takes a lot more time than I am willing to invest on a real routine basis. So I will do my best to continue the photos as I can, but I'm going back to the words. Because to me that's what blogging is all about.

More process: Havi suggested (gently urged in that "Just Do It" way she has) that I write myself a permission slip to take 45 minutes to actually, well, "Do" something with this.

Ok. So I failed for this past weekend. I let myself procrastinate on this 'process' and did not use that 45 minute permission slip. I stretched canvas & gesso prepped. I worked on the articles I have on deadline in the next few days. I attended an Airsho meeting where we sorted things out for the Sho next month while beating the usual dead horses (not literally, that would take more than the four hours). And I spent time talking to Rob whom I hadn't gotten to talk to much for the past two weeks.

But! I feel ok about this. It's like I'm clearing the table to make room to work on things. I get these articles done & I can work on these self projects.

And here is where I will document it. Because as we worked out, there have got to be lots of other artists out there who have the same fears and wonders about bringing these things together and making them happen the way we visualize them.

So. Raise your glass. Or tube of paint. Here's to figuring out the process, accepting that it is all about the learning, seeing where it goes, and making things happen. And knowing that this is just one tree. There are plenty more trees out there to go climb later. Right now, this is the one I want to climb.

(Thank you Havi. You are wonderful to work with. I bow in your presence! And will name one of these lil' guys after you. Or Selma.)