amazing grace

Something amazing happened last week. A man compared my work to Mark Rothko's. Considering the fact that I think of that artist as "Saint Rothko" this was truly amazing praise. Obviously as an abstract colorist I worship at the feet of several artist gods: Whistler, Redon, Monet, Turner, Gauguin and Degas. I owe homage to Klee and Gorky and Chagall as well as Milton Avery. Each artist has other artists whose work transcends earthly bounds. We may not take direct inspiration from them but their uniqueness haunts the recesses of our minds. So to have someone say that anything I created reminded him of Rothko's profound work was not only an astonishing compliment but a reason for me to remind myself that simplicity and reduction are often the path to successful pieces. Less is more for sure and nobody practiced that better than St. Rothko when exploring the vibrant subtleties of pure color. Amazing grace indeed.

dilemma

I find myself at a crossroad. This is normally the time of year when I feel most creative and am in fact most productive. Real life is pulling me in assorted directions. This is fact not a real complaint. What is perplexing is my desire to work in the studio and concentrate on larger pieces rather than the small water color things I have been doing. My work needs to be framed and frames cost money. I currently have a backlog of maybe 2 dozen unframed larger pieces. What justifies the expense of creating more work in a climate of such poor sales? Smaller work is easier to keep track of in a portfolio but it certainly sells no faster than larger pieces. Might as well make what I want to satisfy myself until I either run out of materials or make some sales to replenish supplies.

teaching

At breakfast Thursday morning I got into a conversation with 2 previously unknown women artists. They mentioned taking classes and just hearing that I realized how much I miss teaching, especially with adults. In addition to sharing my own knowledge and expertise I recognize the fact that I miss the exchange of information that arises form teaching. I miss learning the unexpected from students.

I told these women that if they had any interest in a composition/design course that I'd be happy to work with them. I mentioned my preference for colored pencils and watercolor crayons so as not to get bogged down with painting techniques. This seemed to interest them. But mainly they were interested in learning composition, something I feel equally comfortable explaining as when I speak about color. I have no idea why something I view as an essential skill is so often left out of classes. I look at paintings by people who have learned a specific method of replicating a photograph and have managed to conquer a painting technique or 2 and all I can focus on is their weak design and composition, their poor use of negative space in support of the picture's theme elements. Decent technique, lots of hours and they want to know why their picture just isn't quite "right".

So I hope to hear back from these 2 women that they have found a 3rd person interested in studying composition and basic design. If this develops I doubt anything will happen until after the holidays but I certainly hope something will happen.

family times

I am having a bit of trouble reconciling the fact that I am the mother of a 36 year old woman who has 3 children of her own. How has time managed to evaporate so completely? A 10pm on November 20, 1975 I got a phone call from my brother-in-law. The call itself was somewhat odd since he seldom called. More unusual and entirely unexpected was his conversation after I said "hello".......... "Susan, this is Mel. Do you and Frank still want a baby?" You have to admit that in all sorts of imagined conversational openers, that has to take top honors for uniqueness. But after years of dehumanizing toxic unsuccessful infertility treatments, such a question seemed no more bizarre than the treatments themselves (which I had discontinued 6 weeks earlier). Each year on November 19 we celebrate Starr Catherine Gorsen Crafton's birthday because that is the date she was born. I tend to hold November 23 as sacred since that is when we first met her. Regardless of the date I still find it amazing that so much time has passed since then. The blessing of having Starr in my life only increases with the years.....

November sunsets

For decades I have looked forward to November afternoons for the spectacular sunsets. I don't know why they seem so much more vivid at this time of the year but my heart just leaps watching the color shifts. It's amazing how much pleasure nature brings into our lives. It's always there, a perpetual source of delight. Far too many people living in constant states of stress never notice what is all around them and never realize what they are missing. Must be one pure benefit of being a true Type B personality. I may move slowly but I seldom miss the magic.

new computer, big learning curve.....

Four weeks, count 'em, 4 weeks after the triple lightening strike in my yard that fried my elderly computer I finally have a new computer and am ready to resume some sort of regular living. For more than 6 years I have been using a borrowed PC of one sort or another. Decided when the last machine bit the dust in the big storm that the Universe was essentially telling me that my grace period avoiding buying a computer had finally expired. Buying a new computer that would serve any and all of my needs for at least 5 years wasn't exactly a walk in the park once I learned just how expensive refurbished Mac laptops were. heaven bless my brother Tom for his patience helping me search through the astonishing number of used Macbooks online. Friends CJ and Geoff told me what sort of specs to look for and that was amazingly helpful. As always the devil is in the details and there are lots and lots of details. But after investing hours and hours of reading the fine print and checking the reliability of various vendor sources I finally narrowed the list to about half a dozen and once again asked advice regarding which of those was going to work best for me. Et voila..... here we are with an elegant 15" MacBook pro that looks brand new and ought to be in the MOMA design collection Now I know why people are so in love with the late Steve Jobs. Sheer genius for easy function. now if I can just learn not to be afraid of the thing and figure out how to really take advantage of all this new technology at my fingertips. think I'll take a Mac class!!

Typical art world craziness

Several weeks ago I got a call from my local art dealer telling me that a corporation was interested in buying my "Science Fair III" series, 7 framed monochromatic 36"x28" oil pastel drawings based on the 7 main colors of the light spectrum. He told me the piece had been installed for over a week and the corporation was ready to sign a contract EXCEPT for the small fact that their budget was less than the already reduced price of the piece. It seems there's a "gotcha!" in every scenario.

Since this work was essentially 15 years old I was willing to reduce the price by 1/3 its original cost. I also, for the first time, agreed to sell the pieces individually, effectively breaking up the set, provided at least 3 pieces were purchased. I completed 6 versions of this particular theme and 4 have sold through the years, 2 privately and 2 in institutions. Interestingly enough the original "Science Fair" (which requires a wall at least 30" wide to install) was shown as part of my "Phoenix Rising" exhibition last fall and was an enormous crowd pleaser. I understand the fact that pricing 7 framed images as 1 unified piece makes the cost sound very high so it doesn't surprise me that, despite having been exhibited 5 times through the years, the largest version has not yet found a home for itself. It will when the time comes but having 2 left to sell motivated me to seriously consider a counteroffer for "SF3".

Rather than trying to get more money from this potential customer I decided to ask for more than the usual 50% artist's split since I had already offered a large reduction. Some dealers are so pro-artist that they will cut their commission if it is the only way to save the sale. I was willing to cut my own commission an additional 10% provided the 2 dealers involved would each cut theirs by 25% in order to remain within the client's stated budget. As it turned out, this proposal was acceptable to all parties. As my wise brother Tom once said, sold work beats unsold inventory by a mile.......

So what's the problem? When I was notified the sale would go through I was also notified it would probably be  about 18 months before I'd get paid!!!!!!!! Having been a part of this corporate program in the past I was well aware that in most cases they tie up work for a year before the client decided which pieces they will actually purchase. The available money is usually some percentage of the total value of the works installed. It's why most artists give older pieces to the program  -  better to see them on a wall in some bank or commercial institution than have them in a closet. But in this particular instance, work had already been contracted for installation earlier in 2011. This same client expanded their space and needed additional work in August which is where "SF3" came into play. At the time I knew nothing about any of this since I had originally been told the work was going to be installed in the lobby of our local cable TV company. Change of plans as to location. But when I was called initially I (wrongly) assumed this was one of the cases where the corporate art marketer had an immediate purchase request and "SF3" fit the bill. What I didn't know was that rather than piggybacking the additional inventory on 2011"s conract they wrote an entierly new contract for 2012 ( despite the fact this was only August 2011). In this scenario I would have to wait until the end of 2012 (August 2012 at the earliest) for payment. It's how the contract was written and as an artist I am essentially powerless to affect any changes.

The "gotcha!" is that somebody loves my work and is willing to pay their entire budget to have it BUT they won't be asked to pay until that contract expires late in 2012. They have signed the purchase agreement and will enjoy the artwork free of charge until then. Will I need the money at that point? Certainly. Do I really need that money right now? You BET!!! And the sad part is that these sorts of deals are typical of the flaming hoops artists are asked to jump through all the time. Burn baby burn.

15 years and counting

Yesterday I went to the regular Thursday morning artist breakfast only to find that there was just one other artist in attendance. This is a rarity. for 15 years, give or take a few months, a group of mid-career Louisville artists have been meeting for breakfast every Thursday morning. What began as a group of 8 has included more than 50 artists through the years. Most weeks there are about 10 artists who show up between 8:45and 9:20am. while this has always been an open meeting the group has embraced the arrival of some artists and seemingly ignored others who dropped out after 2 or 3 visits.

All of this began when a fellow Louisville Visual Art Association Board member asked me to introduce her to some local artists. She was a senior level banker getting ready to retire and so she could concentrate on painting. She asked me to set up a lunch meting but I told her that, unlike 9-5 workers, no artist I knew would be willing to interrupt a studio day just to have lunch and just chat. I also told her that I often met artist friends for breakfast and thought that might work better. We each decided to invite an artist friend for breakfast the following week. That next week the 4 of us decided this might be a great way to keep in touch with artists since the only time we ever seemed to get together was during openings when there was no way to have any sort of serious discussion or exchange of information while standing around in  a crowd. We decided to each ask another artist to meet the following week at which time we collectively decided this was a very good idea indeed.

From this simple idea an institution was born. We began at one restaurant until their prices got so high that some people stopped coming for economic reasons. We then moved to a very small downtown diner where we took over their back room and terrorized their quirky 1950's style waitress for a couple of years. Their crowded condition and smoking policy drove us into suburbia for about 5 years until that restaurant/deli lost it's lease. We now meet at the edge of downtown in a lovely restaurant where we simply push another table together as the group enlarges from week to week. Once again we are on a first name basis with the waitress and have the gratitude of the owner for increasing his Thursday morning business.

The most interesting thing is how many of the artists from that first year still come several times each month. As some people have moved out of town others have moved in to fill their places yet there is still a core group of 8-10 who have continued from those beginning months. Most of us are in our late 50's to mid 60's now but several are over 75 and a few are in their 30's. Lots of experience to share . Lots of talent around 1 table. All in all, it's probably the best idea I ever had!! So being there with only 1 other person yesterday was a fluke that happens several times a year.Iit gave me a chance to really have a serious conversation with someone I knew only slightly and that was an amazingly enjoyable hour.

on exhibit

"Broken Link" will be included in an exhibit at Louisville's Firehouse Gallery on Hancock Street. 
The show features 2 dozen regional artists. There is an opening reception Thursday September 1
from 6-8pm as well as the First Friday Trollley Hop the following evening. I suggest trying to attend
Thursday since the forecast for Friday is 95F!

time marches on....

So many things have happened during the past 7 weeks that I hardly know where to begin. Of course the most important is the birth of my 3rd grandchild, Nathaniel, on July 26. A blessing for one and all.

But life manages to continue in all the small regular ways despite such big events. My problem is that the heat this summer has been so fierce that I have turned into a human slug. I'm more than ready for the end of air conditioning season and the return of 55F nights!!

My position as Artist Facilitator for ArtsWORK New Albany has been a real source of frustration. It's such a misfit for this little suburban community across the river from Louisville. all of the artists I have asked to participate in giving Saturday morning talks have been gracious in accepting my invitation but the audiences continue to shrink to the point where I am embarrassed by the turnout, moreso by the fact that there is no money available to even pay them the smallest honorarium for their eforts. September is the last month of the program and I will try every trick I can to get a bigger turnout for one of the region's most respected and admired senior artists. Unfortunately there is a program at the same site that evening with NPR's Bob Edwards, a beloved Louisville native, which may very well trump the morning talk in the crossing the river department for people interested in both..... We shall see.

Meanwhile my garden has once more gone to pot. This was most definitely NOT the year to resume any attempt at growing tomatoes or anything else in large pots. Planning on buying field chrysanthemums and chucking all the herbs and veggies for a bit of color!! And so it goes.

The bright spot is that friends of my brother's were here for supper Friday night and insisted on exploring the studio with amazingly enthusiastic responses. It's always lovely when near strangers encounter my work and immediately feel such a strong connection. My fingers are crossed for the possibility of sales in the future.....

hard to be creative with melting crayons

Anyone who read my last post here knows full well how I detest hot humid summer weather. What I didn't add to my earlier rant is the sad fact that oil pastels, my medium of choice since 1980, actually begin to melt in the heat. Even when air conditioning  keeps the studio around 75-78F it's still hot and humid enough for the things to melt as soon as I have them in my hands for more than about 90 seconds. I guess this would be fine if I actually used oil pastels another way but since I like layering them dry surface on to dry surface it gets a wee bit problematic to work when  the result is more like making mudpies than making art. All I can say is that I am thankful last June wasn't like this June or I'd never have been able to complete so many pieces for my "Phoenix Rising" exhibit!

This year's major task is to sift through 23 years of accumulated materials in this house so I can make the challenging decisions regarding what to save, what to throw away, what to give away and what to try to sell (heh, heh, heh and good luck with THAT!). IN addition I am spending way too much time outseid with a wonderful yard helper trying to put this poo  neglected piece of property back into some semblence of order. I came across photos of my gardens in June 1995. Glorious. Absolutely glorious in every direction. Hard to believe I actually did every bit of that work myself. I wanted to live in a park surrounded by English floral border plantings and that's what I had and enjoyed for years.

The sad thing about arthritis like I had is the complete inability to get ticked off about things I couldn't do any longer. Ok I stopped all garden work in the Spring of 2004. Nobody could expect anything besides survival of the fittest after 7 years of complete neglect. On Wednesday my son-in-law and grand daughter came over late in the morning. It was shady on the far side of the house so he agreed to tear out vines that had completely engulfed several holly trees as well as way too many volunteer shrub honeysuckles. One vine was about 1" in diameter at its base. As he was strugling to pull in out from the hollies I told Sara I wouold make her a wreath from that kind of vine. She, of course, thought Grammie was completely nuts with this sort of project. Grammie had never made a wreath in her life so Sara wsn't too far of the mark thre after all. But I just sat in a white plastic chair winding this vine around itself until I had actually created a wreath about 16" wide. It's up to Sara and Jake to decorate it for Halloween and then convince their mother to let them hang the thing!!

It's hot. That was about the limit of my creativity for the week. Now back to sorting through clothing and digging through drawers and closets for yet more surprises to drag to the lovely folks at Goodwill to rehabilitate. Last trek included a dozen stufed animals, including some rare light beige monkeys left over from one year when Starr's team mascot at camp was a beige monkey. I'm actually enjoying this process as well as the garden/yard reclamation work. Just wish it were November and 55-60F outside. And of course wish my house were sold and I was getting ready to relocate to somewhere small with large rooms!

only mad dogs and Irishwomen.....

My friend Jane has been in town visiting from Northern Ireland since May 25. These past 2+ weeks have been just about the hottest late spring weather anybody can remember. The daily misery index is through the roof and into the stratosphere, which is silly since the temperatures in the stratosphere would rival that of the Antarctic. We have had temps over 90 F with 85%+ humidity since she has  been here. Meanwhile Jane is absolutely thrilled to finally be warm as temperatures where she lives in Ballymena, 30 miles north of Belfast, have been cold and damp averaging about 40F. What is wrong with this picture?

People who know me are  well aware that my disposition gets worse and worse with every degree above about 75 when the humidity is over 60%. Needless to say during the past few weeks I haven't been my finest. Top that off with the wonderful fact that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the past 2 weeks I have had a garden helper working to reclaim my long neglected yard from the wild honeysuckle, grape vines and dead shrubbery which have run amok for the past 6-7 years. My garden worker is the son of good friends and he is more than willing to do just about anything I can think of for him to tackle. Problem comes when it's about 73 or 74 at 8am and near 90 by noon. We have tried to work in the shade but there are times when that simply isn't possible. He wants me outside with him the whole time so I have done more exercise in the past 2 weeks than I have in the past 2 years. Not much visible progress as yet  so that gives a slight indication of how Herculean the task actually is!!

Back to Jane. She doesn't like air conditioning. I mean she really doesn't like it. so you can well imagine my misery when we went to visit a friend in Indiana last week and she wanted the car windows open. I managed  fine on the 40 minute  drive over there. I managed fine, just barely, when we drove a country road looking for some restaurant I had heard had fabulous birds' eye views above the Ohio River  - true enough. But after lunch at nearly 3pm with my car parked in the sun for nearly 90 minutes I insisted on AC for the long ride home. she kept her window open about an inch anyway!!

So now I find  myself wondering how menopausal Irish women  manage. Don't  they too get hot flashes and night sweats? Or is it so cold there most of the time that they are simply glad to have the extra body warmth?
I loved the summers I spend in Ireland and Northern Ireland because they were cool and the air was so amazingly clean. Now with the Icelandic volcano dirtying their air  and blocking the sun I still think it would be more pleasant for me than staying here and sweltering. Maybe Jane and I just  need to trade places for next summer.  The weather we have here now is only fit for mad dogs and Irishwomen!!

what friends are for

Last month my longtime friend Warren was in town for a professional conference. This was a treat of unbridled proportions for me. When we were neighbors in Cherry Hill, NJ during the 1980s we had dinner together at least once a week. Our relationship was always that of siblings since he had a sister my age whom he adored and I had 2 brothers, all living a distance away. It just happened that we because fast friends and have maintained a long distance contact through the ensuing years.

Warren  appeared at the very beginning of what was to become my professional art career. He showed enormous interest in the progress of both my oil pastel drawings as well as my clay sculptures and vessels. Eventually he began making very deliberate, highly selective purchases of my artwork. His enthusiasm and support, both emotionally and financially was invaluable. some things just don't change.

Warren contacted me to arrange a dinner date his only free evening in L'ville. When I asked what sort of food he wanted he immediately replied "Chinese" as we had probably eaten 100 Chinese dinners together in the past. I hadn't seen him in about 4 or 5 years but from the first moment on the phone it was obvious that we were in for business as usual. It's just so wonderful when time evaporates and the glue between friendships holds fast.

After a fabulous meal at the August Moon Warren asked to go to my house and see my newest work. Now he had seen much of this work online but he wanted to see first hand the progression I went through post surgeries and understand how I reeducated myself to maneuver from point A to points XY and Z. So I showed him everything I had, every scrap of paper, the good the bad the ugly as well as the "I can't believe I actually DID this!!". As is his way, he was deliberate and probative, asking thoughtful questions and making insightful comments as are only possible when someone is actually familiar with an artist's entire body of work. It's not that his interest was flattering. It's that it was gratifying for him to WANT to take so much time to study each piece and try to understand it's place in the continuum.

I am always surprised by what pieces of my work appeala to certain people. My friend Monica is my only "collector" whose taste I know so well that I have an over 90% success rate figuring out what she'll want to buy. Warren selected 2 small early studies. He and Ann have plenty of my work in their home. I really wasn't showing him these pieces with the idea he might actually buy something, let alone 2 pieces from the very middle of my 36 month struggle to recover. I always believe it is up to the artwork itself to select an audience, that's it's job. Once I sign my name to it the thing becomes a marketable commodity. But I was so deeply touched by

Warren's sincerity in wanting to purchase what were really just sturies, and imperfect studies in my eyes. But he saw something in them and that was that. So 2 landscape studies are now in Minneapolis getting acquainted with "Mc Bell's Fantasy" and "Pond Scene"  and "Good Day Sunshine" and the others whose names I have long forgotten as well as numerous ceramics collecting dust on horizontral surfaces in their very lovely home! But after all, that's what friends really are for.

strange business

In February I accepted the position of Artist Facilitator for ArtsWORK Indiana's New Albany programming. The organization aims to assist and promote artists with various disabilities. In essence I contact the selected artist pesenters for these monthly programs and collect information for a press release as well as learning what they will need in a physical sense for the presentation itelf. During their presentation I take notes and write a report about the program and account for the audience members' evaluations.

There was a hole in the schedule and I was the program presenter for May. My topic was "My Recovery Show and Tell" , another in a series of talks about how degenerative osteo-arthritis brought my 34 year career to a screeching halt in 2004 and how after bilateral shoulder replacement surgeries in 2007 I managed to reclaim my studio skills and my career. So what was different about this talk? For the first time I brought work, more than 2 dozen pieces, to share with the audience. I thought, if  picture is worth a thousand words...

Well that part was OK. I know how to tell a story as keep an audience fairly well entertained. BUT the strange business was that I had to write up and submit a report of my own program. Yes, someone else took notes while I was speaking but she left them for me to transcribe and elaborate upon. Just seems like mighty strange business to evaluate myself.

rain rain go away already!!

April was a soggy month in Louisville. It was a windy month as well as evidenced by all the dead branches that have littered my poor neglected yard. The talking heads have promised sun tomorrow. We shall see. It sort of reminds me of the summer of 1999 I spent in Ireland. For several weeks I worked as a volunteer for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Foundation's camp for seriously ill kids at Barretstown Castle in Co. Kildare. For 2 weeks we had nothing but rain, drizzle, fog, more rain and yet again more rain both night and day, with the exception of 1 amazingly clear night where a universe of stars put on a flirtatious display with racing clouds and a full moon. Magic. In any case the Irish accepted this wet mess in typical humorous fashion. The radio DJs all over the country had an ongoing competition with prizes for anyone who would call in with a verifiable report that they were personally seeing the sun at that moment. There were precious few sightings. It came to be known as the summer without sun. It was also a summer without much warmth.

So why haven't I taken advantage of these gray days to write more on this site? I've been way too busy trying to sort through everything in my studio, and I mean everything. I knew that going through the studio would be the most difficult task prior to putting my house up for sale. Once the projecty with Andrew was completed and my studio was an even bigger mess than usual I simply decided to work day in and day out until I had control of things. I threw out, gave away to friends, donated to arts groups, sortd through papers and articles and catalogues and magazines and photos trying to ceate order from 23 years of chaos. Unlike Georgr W, I can HONESTLY state,,,Mission Accomplished at last. Every single crayon was sorted and boxed as were all my embroidery threads and paints and brushes and pencils and soft pastels and water colors and every sort of paper and board a body might want. Things are in clear plastic boxes with labels and put away according to when I might think about using them. Meanwhile they are set for a move, whenever that happens. It felt wonderful to go through with this task. There was a sort of Zen meditative aspect to quietly going through each thing piece by piece, scrap by scrap coupled with the delight of discovering things long forgotten and being able to place them in a way they might actually be accesed in the future. when my large table was finally cleared I put a coat of gesso on it to spruce it up a bit. Thought about giving it a second coat but decided that could wait until I get moved and am ready to begin all over again.

useless month

In my mind February is an entirely useless month unless one has a 2nd home in some sunny place. As for this year, you might as well ass the month of March to the list. I know the days past but my energy and sense of productivity went down the proverbial drain never to be recovered. Now it's nearly April and all I have to show for the past 3+ weeks is a bizarre painted construction sitting in pieces on my dining room table. There's a bit more to the story than that.

I agreed to participate in "Sisters and Brothers", a local exhibition sponsored by the Council on Developmental Disabilities and funded by the NEA. The premise was to pair 25 visual artists and/or visual arts professionals with 25 adult members of the commnity who are identified as having some sort of developmental challenge or disability as well as having some interest in making art. Once paired the 2 were to collaborate in developing a project concept and the execute it either together or by both addressing the same issue individually. No real propblem with any of this except for the fact that I was a late in the game invitee and there was exactly a month left to do all of this.

I asked to work with my young friend Andrew who could easily be the adult poster child for ADHD. I know him from being my yard helper last summer. He's an absolute charmer with a good deal of serious (albeit totally untrained) art talent. I knew it would be fun to do this with him while at the same time recognized how challenging it would probably be since he has absolutely no "preplan" or "edit" button and I tend to be fairly deliberate when it comes to collaboration. Little did I know how significant these differences would be!

We met on a Sunday afternoon and came up with a concept called "Confusion" and decided to create a house of cards type structure out of painted foamcore boards. We talked about graphics and color and Andrew said things in his mind often seemed muddled to him so I asked if brown was a good color representative for what he meant. He agreed that brown worked better than black as he certainly doesn't have a depresseive personality. Since we both embrace bright bold colors in our artwork we agreed to paint one side of the boards brown and to use primary and sceondary colors on the opposite sides. He took half the pieces and I took the others. We painted the brown sides together and then decided to use black markers to create graphic designs on the opposite sides, rather like stained glass windows. When we got back together several days later we were pleased enough with what each had drawn. At that point we decided to exchange boards so I could add the color to his designs and he would paint the color on mine. Once painted and dry we would cut up the boards and assemble them into a structural form.

All went just fine until it came time to cut the painted boards. I reealized immediately that handing Anderw a mat knife was handing him a one way ticket to the emergency Room. He was unable to stop playing with the retractable blade and I was incapable of acting like his mother telling him to put down the damn thing befoe he slit an artery. Eventually we agreed that his strength with the knife was an asset but hat he had to put it down at all other times. It was morbidly fascinating watching him play with the open blade with absolutely no sense of its danger potential. Then we both realized that the acrylic paint we had used was so much like plastic that it made cutting the painted boards a nightmare and seriously limited out ability to be more structurally creative in building the thing. I took the approach I learned from old world Italian carpenters who worked for my former father-in-law's lumber and millwork company  -  measure twice, 2 times better yet, and only cut once; that way no waste, no mistakes. Not Andrew. Once I ever hinted at where something needed to be cut he was raring to go, blade open and set to dive in. I knew our structure had to have enough balance to support itelf which meant some 90 degree angles at the base. Some of those cuts fell somewhat short of 90 degrees due to Andrew's impulsivity.

The whole thing was realy fascinating since my daughter was virtually and literally without any impulse control growing up. I was having maternal flashbacks each time Andrew was acting before his brain had the chance to engage an in any sort of editorial thought process. He was equally frustrated with me, I'm sure, for what must have seemed to him like my moving in nearly frozen slow motion. It was an amazing experience for both of us learning when to be assertive and when to let the other take the lead. Perfect example of that was when we got together after painting the graphice drawn by the other person. I had had a fabulous time just pushing paint around and following Andrew's lines and designs. The paint process itself was a delightful novelty for me. Andrew was somewhat less deliberate in his process, starting with mixing the paint. I shook those bottles of old paint for all they were worth having sat unused since May 2005. Andrew wasn't quite as aggressive as I in the shaking and mixing department with the result that my paint was solidly opaque while much of his looked not painted but like it had been filled in with markers. when we decided that several of the areas he had painted would work more successfully if they were repainted, Andrew completely balked at the iea of doing any additional painting.That experience for him was over. All he wanted to do was get to the part where we could chop up the boards and assemble them. His mind had already raced ahead to what he considered the exciting stuff having been forced to slow himself down and paint following MY design. Not a fun experience he was anxious to rpeat. Yet we both agreed there needed to be some repainting. Rather than insisting he fix what needed fixing becuase he hadn't mixed the paint properly the first time around, I just said I'd be happy  to paint over the boards that needed more intense color and that I would then redraw the marker lines that separated each color from its neighbor. Not exactly "right" in my book for him not to have completed his task but it was apparent to me that he probably wouldn't have been able to impose that degree of structure on himself without really being bothererd and anxious. Ergo I  repainted, I enjoyed the process and he was more than satisfied with the job I did. Mission accomplished.

all in all I thik I have invested about 25 hours in this project. The result isn't fabulous but it is an honest representation of what we set out to accomplish. It juxtoposed 2 diametrically opposite points of view and personality types engaged in trying to build a common ground without either of us sacrificing our individual identity. The exhibit at Louisville's Weber Gallery opens Fridday night April 1. Can't wait to see what the other pairs created.

ArtsWORK Indiana

Last week I attended a meeting of people involved with ArtsWORK Indiana, talented people all. It was interesting because, as suspected, the job as outlined by phone and e-mail didn't exactly mesh with the position as described in person. I'm definitely NOT somebody easily pushed around, especially when I thought I had asked enough questions and made enough protestations about my skills in certain areas not to be surprised face to face. Despite the awkwardness of telling people what I wouldn't be willing to do as well as explaining in detail what I am unable to do, we managed to arrive at some sort of agreement regarding my short term (ends September 30) job description. we won't discucc the unexpected July 9 multi-site series of small exhibitions involving all previous ArtsWORK New Albany presenters I'll need to coordinate along with Julie Schweitzer who has more than too much on her professional plate already. Of course all of that is actually predicated on the assumption that other people (read this to mean scheduled presenters) will comply promptly with requests for promotional data and specific presentation requirements. In addition, the lovely young woman who has been handling PR layout as well as writing press releases now has to deal with my micromanagerial style regarding written text and layout. Poor darling. But once we proceed through these growing pains and relatively minor changes, the time involved for both of us should be streamlined. I think I will enjoy some of this, hope I will meet new and interesting people and sincerely hope those who expect minor miracles from me won't be disappointed. When one door opens and someone walks through there's no telling what other door or series of windows will open next. As ever, I remain an optimist.

good day sunshine

This morning I heard birds singing for the first time in months. Lovely sound so much of a surprise I was unaware how much I had missed it. Guess they too were thrilled for sun and a temporary absence of snow. My holly trees and wild honeysuckle bushes had unusually heavy crops of berries this year  -  how does Mother Nature make those correct forecasts about upcoming cold winters? One has to respect the signs and signals....

The other day I agreed to become the regional Artist Facilitator for an Indiana organization dealing with meeting the various needs of creative artists with all sorts of disabilities and limiting conditions. Centered in Indianapolis this is a fairly well established entity funded in part by the Indiana Arts Council but they are expanding throughout the state and want to develop ties across the river with Louisville people as well. This small new local group has been holding monthly programs at the Carnegie and I have attended most of them  -  mainly to support artist friends who have been \featured presenters. Not at all certain what I'll be doing in this new position nor am I sure of how much time will be required. But I feel certain that with several people I respect strongly encouraging me to do this that I need to pay attention to opportunities the Universe is sending in my direction. I feel I am on the precipice of a major change.

how to proceed and move forward

It's been 3 weeks since I brought work home from my Carnegie exhibit and I am no closer to knowing what to do with these 15 new pieces than I was 3 weeks ago. The dilemma with local representation is every bit as great as that with representation out of state. I know this site isn't working for me yet and need to address that issue as well. Maybe it's possible to create workable links that will actually lead to greater exposure but I don't know how to accomplish that. But I will learn.

It seems to me that applying to a series of juried shows is way too expensive a venture than such a path was 30 years ago when I was first exploring the possibility of having a career. Then an organization called Artists' Equity was very active in Philadelphia and their strong policy was for professional artists to boycott all juried shows with entry fees. Today so many more organizations pay for their entire exhibitions on these artists' entry fees that it is nearly impossible to find serious exhibition venues without rather ridiculous entry fees.

I wish there were some sort of central clearing house with a list of submission review schedules for university and non-profit galleries. That's great for resume building but seldom leads to serious sales. On the other hand one never knows who will see such exhibitions so it's smart to pursue those sorts of possibilities. With so many artists working and so many galleries closing on a weekly basis I have to wonder if the trend will be entirely from online sales and individual open studio galleries.

Meanwhile I still have artwork stacked against the back of the living room sofa. 

gray and cold yet again

Today's good news is that the ground is visible for the first time since Christmas day. Unfortunately the sky is still gray and the humidity is still high enough to chill me through and through. I'm fine as long as my feet aren't cold but my feet have been cold for weeks now. Recovering from bronchitis and wanting to work in the studio but that floor is drafty and I hate turning the lights on during the day... Things will improve but I suppose this is all part of gear shifting now that the Carnegie exhibit is finished. Glad tomorrow begins a new week...

so much work to store.....

Now my living room and front hall look like a frameshop readying a big framing order. It's interesting to bring home so many pieces from a show, especially when half of what has been returned is brand new work previously easily stored unframed in the studio. Not only is bulk storage a problem but safely protecting both the work and the new frames is always a bit of a challenge. I know I need to figure al this out, but for now I first have to get someone over here to help me rehang art that belongs on my own walls and then exchange older work for new pieces to live with and try to evaluate for a while. I used to be able to do all these things for myself on my own in my own time but since the addition of bionic shoulders I have to think and plan ahead before asking someone (usually a brother) to come here and assist me. This probably falls into the category of all things change to one extent or another as we age but that doesn't mean I have to like it!! For now I will figure out which new pieces I'd like to hang on my walls and where to store older work I'm taking down after many months (years ) of enjoyment. My mother called yesterday to tell me she is glad to have "Broad Shoulders Heavy Load" back in her living room so that was nice to hear. One never knows just how mucy anybody ever notices art on their walls after the first month or so..... Of course the bottom line is still trying to find galleries and other exhibition venues for the work so it can go about its primary business of finding permanent homes and earning me a decent living!! In time. All in good time.

what's next?

So today is the day I take down my show at the Carnegie. This is usually a bittersweet moment for me but this particular exhibition has been so wonderful that I almost feel guilty wanting it to stay up any longer. I have had something like 21 or 22 solo exhbitions since 1983 and none has involved a more dedicated or professional staff than this. As someone out of the art world for a number of years, this "rebirth" through the Carnegie has just been a superb experience for me. I got wonderful feedback about the exhibit, the gallery talks and the workshops. Speaking of workshops, my "by special request" 2nd adults' workshop last Wednesday had 16 people and was great fun. I'd definitely like to do more teaching of this sort.

But my question now that it's over and a new exhibit will open Friday is ...... What do I do from here? I have 15 new pieces all framed with nowhere to go and no clue as to how I should proceed. Do I look for traditional gallery representation? Do I look for exhibits on college campuses and in non-profit spaces? do I investigate selling online somehow? No matter how many artists I speak with the answer remains unclear. It's a new world for artists, for commercial galleries, for alternative exhibition spaces. I guess the answer is to simply keep asking questions, try anything that seems the least bit promising and be open minded about outside the box suggestions. Not exactly an optimistic way to think about paying bills.

The best thing may well be to apply for some residencies and hope I'll be able to make new bodies of work that might have broader appeal because of the travel involved. The idea of spending 7 hours on a transAtlantic flight crammed in like a sardine isn't a very appealing choice, despite what I know would be amazingly pleasurable experiences after landing..... The UNiverse will no doubnt push me in one direction or another if I remain alert for the clues. Stay tuned.