Monday, April 28, 2008

A new record

What a fun weekend, I just love Louisville! Such a neat town filled with great restaurant and culture, beautiful landscape, gorgeous horses, and nicenicenice people, the kind where southern hospitality shines through. I think I could live there. Yes, I know I said this about Chattanooga, but both these towns are similar in certain ways, Louisville being more refined and "city" like but retaining that small town flavor that is just GOOD.

The show was good too and we escaped rain for the most part although it was creeping up on us during tear down. Which is when John and I broke a new record and completely tore down the booth, packed all the art and loaded the truck in under 45 minutes. He slammed the door right as the rain started. Whew. There is nothing quite so horrible as packing up a wet tent. Then unpacking a wet tent once you get home so we were playing an unspoken beat the clock game.

My best pal Rhonda was at the show and hit the proverbial artfair jackpot with a wonderful collector who loved her work and bought a hee-yuge amount of it for his Frank Lloyd Wright home. What an incredibly thrilling event for Rhonda as we are, after all, trying to earn our living. The timing couldn't have been better since Rhonda is having a ton of necessary plumbing work done on her home this week.

I had a good show too with great sales to cool people who got my work. Plus, it is extra special to be situated between neighbors you like and this was bonus week because I loved the people on both sides of me. Susan and Matt were on one side - fun(!) and funny people, they own and run Mountain Mist Soap Company, a home spun operation that makes bath and body stuff, mostly products with shea butter, the labels full of ingredients you have heard of - no chemical yuck in anything. Plus, they just happen to make a solid lotion bar, for which I have been searching. It creates a barrier between hands and water, just lasts forever and I didn't know where or how to find it. I couldn't believe it appeared right there next to me. Good grief!!! I stocked up, got all kinds of gifts and, needless to say, the truck smells really really nice now.

On our other side - Cheri Haney, the adorable and talented wiz behind Shadow Charms. She designs faboo metal products, some functional, some fine art. Check out her website and read about her process - it is really cool, plus I absolutely worship her marketing success, wow talk about inspiring!

And finally, last, but certainly not least (this is like the cherry on top) we got to hang out with Marilyn Werst and her hubby John. I met Marilyn through friends, while at Artfest, and was thrilled to find she lives in Louisville and would be in town for our visit. She and John are wonderful people, good doobies we used to call them years ago, but I am dating myself now. Seriously though, they are just really good people - smart, fun, funny, my three favorite things - plus they are KIND and do good stuff for others. I am so glad they have entered my life.

Now I am wallishing about in my own home. Wallowing and Relishing all mixed up together to make a happy experience. I feel especially blessed this morning.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Pamela has tagged me and I am going to play along because she is a newbie blogger and naturally I don't want to let her down :-) Plus just maybe, oh maybe it will be interesting to someone, 7 oddities about me, tee, hee, hee.

Here are the rules:

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you. 2. Post the RULES on your blog. 3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog. 4. Tag 7 people and link to them. 5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Well, if you have been reading here very long you surely know I am a rule breaker, so I'm not going to tag anyone else, but here are my 7 weird random facts.

1. I am an occasional golfer (at best) yet won a contest to play in a Pro-Am several years back. In a fit of manic preparation that included daily practice with a coach, I managed to contribute to our team's effort and sink a couple vital puts. I also have a very large crystal trophy because my team WON the match.

2. I was a Junior Archer Champion when I was young....very young, like single digit young. Thus ends my sharing of athletic endeavors.

3. I will go for weeks and months on end eating the same thing every day. In fact, if my husband didn't cook, I would probably eat the exact same meal 3 times a day. Right now it's a yogurt concoction that I mix up from this faboo yogurt I get at Whole Foods plus dried tart cherries, walnuts & Fiber One cereal. Yes, delish you must be saying. Ok, I love it. And I eat it every single day for lunch, except when I am on the road.

4. I consider myself shy. I know, I know, seems crazy doesn't it? But I swear I am. Inside my own head I am shy and I have to push myself to be.out.there. Only my husband seems to understand this.

5. I am oddly superstitious - wear lucky earrings on the 1st day of a show, that sort of thing.

6. I have trouble memorizing stuff. Always have. This was a real big issue when I competed in music - piano competitions and cello stuff. Once I was doing a piano competition at Miami University and completely forgot the music mid performance. I managed to play for a bit without pause, just making stuff up, and finally found my way back into the real piece. It was wildly embarrassing but I got decent marks for an ability to improvise.

7. I have been married 3 times. The third was truly the charm - John and I are perfect together and it will be 15 years this October. I warned him about the 4 year mark, as it has been very rocky for me in the past. Ha!

And........if you happen to be in Louisville, KY this weekend, you can find me at Cherokee Triangle. I have lots of cool art and would love to see you, so come on by.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
-Pablo Picasso

This quote came up today on my iGoogle. It is definitely food for thought and has put me in a contemplative mode.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Nuff said

I love Alyson Stanfield's blog. She covers many topics that are just dead on relevant to an artist's life. Her current post, for instance, links up an article in the Wall Street Journal that talks about art commentary. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, art-speak language that makes you scratch your head and go, HUH? This kind of art talk troubles me because I strive to make my art accessible to all kinds of people. To me, confusing drivel-ish (ok, that's not really a word) explanations do the exact opposite and only serve to exclude. And there's nothing worse (imho) than uppity art.

Anyway, you can click here to read the article for yourself. There are some classic quotes that are absolutely hilarious. My favorite sentence is:
"Bove's 'settings' draw on the style, and substance, of certain time-specific materials to resuscitate their referential possibilities, to pull them out of historical stasis and return them to active symbolic duty, where new adjacencies might reactivate latent meanings."

Wow. That's a lot to ask from a piece of art.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Remember those 2 pieces from the last post? Well, they are gone
:-(
That didn't take long. A lovely lady walked into my booth at 4 Bridges and said she wanted to buy them. I stood there like a total goof because I was so smitten with the "newness" of them that I wasn't really ready to let them go. But she was paying a good price and I do need to earn a living (which is why I was *at* 4 Bridges after all, DUH) so.......she took them. She matched them up with a piece by Gina Cochran. It was ironic really since Gina and I had been talking just an hour or so before all this took place. I am glad they went to a good home.
The show was great by the way, tons of fun folks, unbelievably cool art, plus I sold lots which always makes it nice. Chattanooga is an awesome town and I believe I could live there if it weren't for some very special family members (you'll know who you are!) who live in St. Louis.
We head back home tomorrow and I am wiped out. Need some rest, but also need to paint some more work for the show next week. I want to paint B-I-G.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Zoned in





You know that zone? The painting one I mean, the one where you paint and paint and paint, barely stopping to breathe, certainly not stopping to pee because you are like an impatient child, just so excited about what the paint is doing, how a composition is developing and the actual moment of action, the placing of paint on the canvas and fascination with its texture and movement, especially the drips. Oh I could go on and on.

And I wish I could say life in the studio was always like this. But alas, it is not.

Monday started as ugly painting day. Color combinations turning to mud right before my eyes. Layouts falling apart, plans derailed - all when I really really really needed to crank and get some inventory together for these 2 back to back shows(isn't that how it always works, you fall apart when you are in a hurry). Somebody please tell me what I was thinking when I booked not one, but TWO shows during the same month as Artfest!?!?!?

Anyhoo, I digress. I stayed the course, not that I was at war with my paintings, but I mainly just kept going and going. I painted over. Moved to another. Painted over it. Moved back to the batch of 6x6's on the other table. Worked on them while the others dried. Moved across the room and prepped some 12x12's. Then into the other room, where I had a tarp down on the floor for some really wet stuff. Worked on that for awhile. In silence which is rare for me because I typically play music.

At about midnite, I finally stopped. I had a dyptych that I liked. I carried them upstairs to view in another setting. Yes, I still liked them. Hmmm. Two 24x24's. It was all I could do to not waken John when I finally fell into bed.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

13 Squared

Remember a couple of months ago when I did that piece for a local fund raiser? Hmm, which fundraiser you might say? Well, it was for Viva Vox and the piece is one of my "trash" pieces, meaning that it was made from trash, hopefully it does not look like trash. That was during my trash phase awhile back - I was so convinced I wanted to do an entire new series all made from trash - it was going to be called "Talkin' Trash" until I Googled that phrase (and several derivatives) and found lots of porn stuff. Geez, am I naive or what!??!!

Well, anyhoo, the entire show is posted here if you want to check it out. Some extremely cool art including more than a few that I would buy. I have a feeling there is going to be a feeding frenzy at the opening because the pieces are set at one price (it's not an auction) and I seem to recall they are setting a low, affordable amount because they want to sell each and every one and guarantee a nice donation Viva Vox. Hmmm, it will be very embarrassing to have to tackle someone to get the piece I want.
Just joking...

If you want to read my original post, just click here.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

The most amazing students











If you have been following along with my blog, you know I am a full time artist livin' the gypsy life schlepping my wares from city to city on the Art Fair circuit. You also know that I occasionally teach classes, mainly in my studio. Now let me tell you - teaching at Artfest is big time. For me, it was like leaping right into the fire and my oh my what a sweet fire it was. There were 600 people there, give or take a few, all simply champing at the bit to play and make art. The energy was palpable.
I had 24 students in my class and we worked on Claybord. As you can see from these photos, they were brilliant. I wanted to show them all, but alas, I'm a painter, not a photographer so some of the pics didn't come out right.





I think my student's work speaks for itself though, I mean just look at these pictures!!! They were all just amazing and I am so proud of the art they made. What a wonderful experience - I feel completely fulfilled on every level.



As a teacher and a student, all I have to say is ARTFEST R-O-C-K-S!!!!
I hopehopehope to teach again next year, so stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed for me. In the meantime, I gotta go make some art cause I have a show coming up in 10 days. Luckily I am a mass of creative artistic energy right now, all inspired and ready to work.




PS.......I am so sorry I didn't get to see much of Show and Tell. I got caught up in town trying to beg the art store (thanks Mark!!) to mail a package for me. By the time I got back, it was winding down. But thanks to those of you who shared your art. I saw some gorgeous stuff.

Monday, April 07, 2008

I am back from Artfest and my first "bigtime" teaching gig was fantabulous. My sweet and talented students applauded at the end of class.
Awe.......shucks.......their works were stunning.
I am coming up for air right now and will report back with more detail and photos very soon.
In the meantime, I would encourage you to hop on over to Artsmiths to read the terrific article by Denise on Holga cameras.