American Thrift

One of the art associations I belong to stages a yearly "6 x 6 Show." Each participant may submit up to six pieces, all six-inch square including frames. Here's a sneak preview of my six collages, hope you like:

SOLD

Flow

SOLD

Lessons in Flow
Hand-Marbelized papers, each approx. 19" x 12.5"
$35 each including shipping

***

Lately I've been waking up with bigger dreams.

For instance, I keep thinking of the studio space I want to grow into, the imaginary addition on my home where I can really spread out, where I can set up a sewing machine and a huge collage and a great big canvas all at the same time, without having to dismantle one project in order to accommodate another. A space with a very long table and a flock of comfortable stools, with built-in storage for art works and supplies, a deep sink. A space where I can teach classes and lead workshops and hold open studios to my heart's content.

I find myself thinking about how much I could accomplish with hired help. I plot out an imaginary schedule for an imaginary assistant: two mornings a week, Monday and Wednesday? Tuesday and Thursday? I think how great it would be to have that built-in structure to my work life. To know that I can deposit certain tasks in someone else's inbox, that they will get done. To be able to write a decent paycheck (what a nice thing to be able to do for another person!) and turn my focus on the stockpile of projects cluttering my brain.

And then, a moment later, all I want is a two-hour walk in the woods, or to wander out to the garden and plant more lettuce, mulch the garlic. I look around and once again, I'm satisfied with my spare-bedroom studio, my quiet, obsessive work habits, my U-shaped desk arrangement where all I have to do is swivel my chair and I'm designing a web site, writing a book proposal, answering emails, answering the phone; swivel again, and I'm making a collage, a painting, a journal entry.

Who knows where all of this might lead. Perhaps I will begin to see a path toward these new visions. After all, I have just the person in mind for the assistantship. And my next-door neighbor does have a lovely barn/apartment, once a potter's studio, now unrented, a glorified shed for her kayak and bicycle.

But it's not time yet for any big moves. Though that time may come sooner than I imagine, I've got enough on my plate for now.

In the meantime, I will continue to allow myself to dream, while going with the flow, but at the same time, experimenting with creating my own flow. And appreciating the fact that there are limits to how many projects I can entertain in a given day.

Art Show To Do List (+ hints)

18" x 12" mixed media on heavy cardboard
SOLD


ALREADY DONE:

• write proposal and get the show
• make lots of art
• choose what goes in the show
• document art work (scan & photograph)
  
• design invitation postcard, send to printer
  
• discuss mailing list with gallery
• frame shadow box assemblage pieces
  
• make decisions about matting and framing everything else, choose a framer
  

MAILING LIST:

• compile Mailing list (friends, family, colleagues, clients)
  
• enter names and addresses into excel spreadsheet (instructions here)
• transfer to Word to print onto sticky labels (same instructions apply)
• make appointment with gallery - have them print out mailing list labels ahead of time
  
• when postcards arrive from printer, apply my mailing list labels
• go to gallery to add their mailing list labels and bulk mailing stamp to cards

MORE ON PUBLICITY:

• design email version of postcard invitation
• design poster version of postcard invitation
• send out postcards, e-cards, put up posters
• post announcement & e-card on Facebook
  
• ask gallery what they're doing re: press release (so as not to duplicate efforts)
  
• possibly write press release and send to local papers along with art image
• pick art image for press release - print hi-res on glossy stock (if mailing hard copy)
  
• send press release to local college radio, and to one dj friend in particular

ART:

• look for response to follow-up email from framer re: price and wire hangers (I spoke to him yesterday - all of the 2d work - 43 pieces - have arrived safely. All matting & framing decisions are done)
• set prices (taking into consideration: materials, framing & shipping, gallery fees, postcard and postage expenses, size, and time to create each work )
• make labels for each piece and decide how to hang them
  
• finish last two pieces
• finish framing last shadow box (add glass)
  
• follow up with company sending clear sleeves for unframed daily collages - make sure order has shipped and will arrive on time
• follow up with framer to make sure they ship on time (I am using P.S. Art Company for the first time - very good prices, good reputation - hopefully good results!)
  
• hang everything on the appointed day (find a friend to help and then to take out for a celebratory meal?)
  

ETCETERA:

• plan for reception: food, drink, what to wear! (note to self: comfortable shoes)
  
• make personal phone invitations, and plans for dinner after reception
• check over contract with gallery to make sure I'm not forgetting anything
• make/get guest book for show, ask for: name, address, email, comments
• print list of art pieces: titles, size, media, price
• print artist's statement and bio
• compile statement, bio, art list into single document to leave with gallery front desk
• take it all down twenty days later
• rinse and repeat - at another venue!
  

Nostalgia

The artwork in this post is all on 8.5 x 11" paper in some combination of ink, watercolor, and oil pastel. Shipping is included in the listed prices.



SOLD


When I was five years old, I knew I wanted to be two things when I grew up: an artist and a writer. Though these desires have never flagged, at times my confidence has. Therefore, my life has occasionally strayed — quite unhappily — far from the mark.

About ten years ago, I was working construction by day and dabbling in (but mostly feeling discouraged about) my writing and art at night and on the weekends. Perhaps it was the day that I learned to run the jackhammer that things began to change.

Running a jackhammer was a secret dream since childhood. It seemed entirely outside of my grasp. After all, I only saw jackhammers on construction sites in the hands of muscle-bound men in hardhats. Construction sites, not to mention hardhats, seemed completely inaccessible. Great big biceps seemed, well, not exactly desirable. But the day I ran the jackhammer I learned that not everything that looks hard is hard.

Perhaps it was a true epiphany. Perhaps my brain had just been jostled out of complacency by a loud, violently vibrating machine, but very soon thereafter it hit me: I was already both an artist and a writer. And not only that, but: I can run a jackhammer! It didn't matter if I believed in myself. It didn't matter if I was "successful" in any sense of the word. I am free to dedicate as much energy and resource as I can muster to my cause: the full realization of me.

These drawings/paintings of grapes come from that time. In fact, they were the first thing I did after realizing that I wanted to keep my art and writing as the central creative pursuits of my life. I gave a bowl of grapes to myself as an assignment, a drawing challenge, a creative inspiration, and finally, after several nights' work, a snack.

I hope you, dear readers, invest in yourselves similarly.





$125

$125

SOLD




SOLD






$125

$125

$125

$125

$125

Overlooked, Underlooked

I made these small paintings/collages a while back and, not sure if I liked them, tacked them to the wall of my studio to contemplate. Funny how you can stare at something everyday and not really notice it at all. Today I took them down, scanned them, and really saw them for the first time. Thought I'd share...

Also, here's another link for ya, the collagist Mark Wagner, who works almost exclusively with the American dollar bill and makes some remarkable things...




9" x 8" mixed media on canvas




10" x 9" mixed media on canvas
SOLD





9" x 7" mixed media on canvas

A Couple More

Two more paintings, small ones, and two more inspirations.

First the paintings:



Subcutaneous
5.5" x 5.5" gouache and X-acto knife scratching
SOLD

Volcanic
5.5" x 5.5" gouache
SOLD

And now the inspirations:

Watch Blu's Wall-Painted Animation (it's incredible) and then check out his blog.

Take a look at the BioMotion Lab's walker - and play with the sliders. It's fun, and funny too, and amazing to note how much can be communicated with a few points of light and a little bit of motion.

And finally, I know I've posted this link before but it's always worth perusing the latest from SpaceCollective.

Wishing

gouache and ink on heavyweight bristol paper, 14" x 11"
SOLD



I believe in the power of wishing. Active, creative wish-making (rather than passive longing, whiny "if only"s in moments of emptiness and desperation). I don't think it helps to cling to a wish, to squeeze it, worry it, focusing exclusively on the void in your life that your unfulfilled desire occupies.

I believe, instead, in creating a detailed visualization of whatever you want to bring into being. Blow your wish into a big pink balloon. As the old New Age Creative Visualization guru, Shakti Gawain advised, let it float away into the sky. You must trust that your wish will be heard by the powers that be, and that, if a path can be forged to its realization, the way will open up before you.

Release your wishes. Allow for the present moment, where you have acknowledged an unfulfilled desire. Allow for the perhaps difficult possibility that your wish will not come true. Allow for whatever emotion comes up in its wake. And most of all, allow for mystery, subconscious process, and invisible magic behind the scenes.

NEWS FLASH

mixed media (ink, pencil, crayon, watercolor),
on 100% cotton paper, 8.5 x 11"

"You're not charging enough for your work."

How many times have we, as artists (and designers, and freelancers), received this dubious compliment? I suppose if we are busier and poorer than we can sustain, it's a comment worth thinking about. Otherwise, it implies a "should." Be very wary of "should"s, people, whether generated by the restlessness of your own mind, or by someone else's.

My response, regarding my daily collages, has been this: As soon as I sell one, we can talk. This may sound flip, but Cay Lang, in her excellent book, Taking the Leap: Building a Career as a Visual Artist (by far the best practical guide to being a professional artist I've come across thus far) backs me.

Says Lang: "At the beginning of your career, you want to place your work inside the standard price range for the type and size of work that you make, and at the lower end of that price range. The advantages to this strategy are many. By pricing the work low, you will begin the process of getting the work moving. More people will buy it, which means more people will want to buy it, and you will start to develop a following. Pricing the work low creates room for the prices to increase, which makes you look successful and places your work in even higher demand."

Truth be told, I'm not so much strategic as going on gut instinct. I know no better incentive to make more art than hooking up with people who want the art I've already made. But it is difficult, I'll admit, to part with these pieces for just $45 (which includes not only the minor masterpiece in question, but the cost of the envelope, postage, a cut for Paypal, plus gas and my time to and from the post office,). Taking all of this into consideration, I made a promise to myself: Once I sell my first collage, I'll raise prices.

Well I sold my first Daily Collage this week (#32, see below). Additionally, I received word that another sale is looming (the buyer is in the process of choosing her favorite). As a courtesy, I've given this second buyer until the end of the month. I'm extending that same courtesy to you.

Here's my NEWSFLASH: True to my promise, the price on Daily Collages will go up from $45 to $65 beginning August first. (Shipping, within the U.S. anyway, will still be included.) [Note from the future: these prices are out-of-date, and Paypal "Buy now" links have been removed, at least temporarily as I make adjustments.]

Consider yourself fairly warned!

You can see the whole Daily Collage series, as a slide show, in the order it was created, here. And in their original blog entries here. If you want one that isn't labeled with a "buy now" button [or if you want more information], email or post a comment and I'll set up a Paypal link for you.

#32 - SOLD