And Release Deep Breath......

So I delivered the commission this morning and guess what? HE LIKED IT! I think he actually more than liked it. It looked really good on the wall in the room that he is putting it in. I'm going to let him live with it over the next few days and then go over there Monday morning and sign them and paint the top/bottom edges. I'm sooo relieved! Here is a picture of them. They are leaning on the mantel which is not of course where they will be. The ceilings are HUGE so they will be hanging above the mantel.



I don't know enough about iPhoto yet to make the picture look fabulous. Suffice it to say they look great in the room.

Art Work

Some people have emailed me and asked me to post some of my more recent work. So here ya go.....
Here is some self pimping - they are all for sale!

63 Pieces

I haven't talked about it much but I am having a show of my art work this month. I hung most of it on New Year's Eve day while I was deathly ill. At that point it was more of a burden than an enjoyable event. I went back today and hung the rest and I have 63 FREAKIN pieces. I can't believe it. I had no idea I had created that much. This show is 99% watercolor which is a new medium for me. There are some oils that are ones I've hung in my house. I'm thinking I'm ready to let go of them now.

Anyway the opening for the show is Saturday from 11-2. It's really nerve wracking to have this even where people come to look at your stuff. Maybe they'll love it and buy it and maybe they'll hate it and won't hesitate to tell you. Who knows? Every single piece is a small sliver of my soul. I know that sounds dramatic - but that's how it really feels. I'm ecstatic when people want to buy them and give them a good home. My last show (which was my first) paid entirely for my trip to California which was very exciting.

It doesn't matter how many pieces I've sold in the past there is a little thrill when someone hands you a check for your work. It's a huge validation especially since I've only been painting for about 5-6 years. Starting something like this "later" in life can be a bit daunting. I'm so lucky because I found the best class. I'm the only abstract artist in the class and at first I could see that they were not getting it but slowly but surely they have all become extremely supportive. They really are a fabulous group. I can't say enough about our teacher Kim. She is just awesome.

Getting ready for the show has been hectic. Getting the framing done has been mucho expensive and I didn't even do it all professionally. I did the bulk of it myself which just means buying frames and mats and putting them all together. On framing alone I have spent around $750. I think they all look great though so it's money well spent. By doing the framing myself it also allows me to keep the prices down to a reasonable level.

I really hope I sell a good amount - I have no idea where I'm going to put things when they don't sell!

Ok wish me luck. I'm off to work on my price sheet.

Stymied

Maybe it's NaBloPoMo or maybe it's the fact that I've got a thesis meeting on Monday and don't have enough done for it yet or maybe it's just the fact that I don't seem to be able to wake up today but I'm at a loss as to what to write about.

Stymie

Main Entry:
Pronunciation: \ˈstī-mē\
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): sty·mied; sty·mie·ing
Etymology: Scots stimie, stymie to obstruct a golf shot by interposition of the opponent's ball
Date: 1902

to present an obstacle to : stand in the way of


So I'm going to steal an idea from Shrek's Mom and throw it back out to the readers out there. What is it that you want to know about me. You know I that I'm single, in school, an artist, an HR Manager, love art and music and hate Rhode Island drivers. Is there anything else that my loyal 3 or 4 readers would like to know?

I need some caffeine that's for sure.

Here is something fun go to this website. You'll come up with a blank page but just hit your mouse and before you know it you are creating like Jackson Pollock. Every time you hit your mouse it changes the color of the "paint"

So today is November 9th - I officially only have 3 more weeks in my 30's. I'm completely ok with that - I'm done with my 30's. After all someone told me that 40 is the new 20.

Oh, I amost forgot...

I also have an art show in January. Not working would allow me to properly get ready for this too. I need to create, mat, frame & price a bunch of stuff. I have no idea when I'm supposed to fit that in.


25 days....

Hurricane Winds - So Disappointing

As I was scurrying around my condo last night getting ready for my workshop I get a phone call. "You aren't driving to the cape tomorrow are you?" my good friend Kim asked me. Now Kim is not an overly cautious stay inside kind of person, so if she had concerns I decided I needed to look into them.

I had heard the weather was going to be lousy - remnants of Hurricane Noel and all that rot. But really hadn't given it a second thought. So I called Paul - the guy I was renting a small cottage in Provincetown from - and he agreed that traveling down there was not a good idea. Sea's are predicted to be high and the winds are supposed to be bad. So I shoot an email to the center in Truro and let them know I'm a maybe at best. You never know, sometimes these huge storms go out to sea.

This morning I wake up early and look outside. Definitely foreboding skies - the wind is picking up but it hasn't stopped raining. I wonder if I should just chance it but then remember that I no longer have a place to stay. I'm really torn - I get up make some waffles and sit down to look at the weather. Well - it didn't go out to sea and they are predicting 60-80 mph gusts. OK that makes my decision for me.

So I do what any self-respecting almost 40 year old woman does on a rainy Saturday morning (no,not THAT) - I went back to bed and didn't wake up until 11am. I haven't felt this rested in weeks. It just tells me how tired I really was.

Just to give people who aren't familiar with the area - here is an aerial map of the Cape Cod:

The place I was staying was at the very very end. It's the absolute last town on the Cape and the town where the workshop was is right before that. Here is what the radar is currently showing for the storm.





I'm disappointed to say the least. Hopefully the center will give me a credit but I couldn't find anything on their website that said anything about cancellations. Ah well, we'll just have to wait and see.

Now I have these two unexpected days. No one but Kim even is aware that I am in town. My plan is to work on my thesis - I have a ton due by Veterans Day. So I better get after it.

Tyler & George aren't you glad I didn't pick either of you to come with me?

If you live on the East Coast - stay dry!

Oh yeah....27 more days!

Friday

I like Fridays for a lot of different reasons. The obvious one is that it's the day before the weekend - duh. Now that I don't work on Thursdays, Fridays are much much easier to handle. Add to that the fact that my good friend Kim comes in and works on Fridays and it makes for a much better day.

Last night's art class was a complete bust in my opinion (for me anyway). Sometimes you just have a class where you don't have it. I didn't like anything I did and was ready to throw them in the trash - but the cool thing about watercolor is that you can use the other side of the paper. My art teacher (Kim from above) wants me to take a more direct approach in my work. Frankly I was too tired to process it last night - I'll think about it this weekend and figure out just what the heck he meant.

I'm so excited about this weekend. I'm going down to Truro which is all the way down near the tip of Cape Cod to take a workshop in Encaustic Painting. One day when I was trolling Ebay looking at original art I came across this artist. I loved her work so I sent her a quick email complimenting her. This led to a short conversation which led me to research what "encaustic" painting is. Basically it is painting with a wax based paint that is kept warm. As you can see she does all of her work on wood. I love the idea of painting on something that doesn't have any give. That's why on yesterday's to do list I had to go to Lowes and get some plywood cut up.

Now the bad news is that Saturday is supposed to be crappy weather (remnants of Hurricane Noel) and that's when I'm driving down. I'm leaving super early (like 6am) so that I can go to the place I rented first and dump my stuff. Hopefully I can get down there before the bad weather starts up. There is something cozy about being down the cape in a cottage with the wind and rain making all sorts of noise around you all night long. Now if I only had a boy to take with me...oh well that's a post for another day.

Birthday Countdown - 28 days until the big 4-0!

First Day Part II

So far I think I've hit everything on my list except studying...isn't that the way?? It took me much longer to find the frame place and find my way back to the highway than it should of. I HATE driving in Quincy. It seems like it should be so easy but it never is. So just to recap I:

1. Went to the tailors

2. Went to Lowes (forgot the hinges) but got the plywood and got it cut for free!

3. Went to Quincy and picked up my work that had been framed. Spent another $50 on supplies (more than half of that on paper) and then dropped another $200+ for the framing. It's freakin expensive. I hate having things professionally framed because then you have to charge more to cover that cost. I'm only have a few things done for my show. The rest I'll do my self.

4. Stopped at my sister's to get stuff out of my oil painting bag.

5. Went to my aunt's and got her keys.

6. Came to my parents and did laundry. Now I'm waiting for the dryer to be done so I can go to art class. I suppose I could be studying now but somehow this seemed so much more important.

Next I'm off to have dinner (never did get lunch) and then go to art class.
Hopefully I'll have some good work to share tomorrow.

Have a good evening.

Pieces From Class

Even though it's almost time for art class again this week - I thought I would post the pieces I did last week...




All of these are watercolor, abstract (obviously) done on 300lb rough paper. I've only been using watercolors for about 6 months (I usually paint with oils) but I'm already becoming a materials snob. If you had told me that I'd be paying $14 for a sheet of paper - I would have told you that you were crazy. Let me know what you think....

Ebay

Ok so as much as I love my Mac - blogspot is not very Mac friendly, in fact it will not let you do one of those funky highlight the word and create a link.

I've just posted three paintings on ebay if you click on the title of the post it will take you to them. This is my first time listing anything - so be gentle.

Happy browsing!

Art Class

Thursday nights are important to me. It's when I get to sit with a bunch of people that I love and make art. We have this great teacher who doesn't stand at the front of the class and "teach" as much as she wanders around and talks to us all. Sometimes commenting - sometimes questioning a choice you just made or sometimes just making that maddening sound of hmmmmmm. Which then leaves you to wonder - did she like it - did she hate it- should I change it? It's a challenging class and I have seen tremendous growth in all of the students. Our class used to be bigger but just like any situation the people who didn't really want to work that hard or be challenged that much have left. So we are left with a core group of people who really want to work hard. If you click on Art Class you get her blog - I still haven't figured out how to do the link thing with my mac.

Ever since I started painting I have worked quickly. While I watch some people in my class bring in the same piece 3-4 weeks in a row, I tend to do 2-3 pieces a night. Last Thursday was no excpetion. I created three pieces and I was really pretty happy with them all.

This is the first one that I did on Thursday night. I like it but not as much as some other work I've done. When Kim (our teacher) took a look at all three she said something like my first painting of the night is always like that first pancake that you make. It's ok but it's not great. I totally got what she meant about this. With school I hardly get to paint all week - so the first painting of the evening feels rusty and sometimes forced. Although I do have to say that this one I feel is better than most of my "first pancakes"

This is the second one I did. I really like it - but I've always been partial to green. And I love how the watercolors just kind of bleed into each other and create these soft edges. I never thought I'd be interested in anything but oil paints - now I'm not sure when I'll go back to those (although I'm sure I will)


Third and final and quite possibly the most interesting of the evening. I need to keep producing like this for the show in January which is now only something like 84 days a way. So technically I should be producing one painting a day.....oh boy. You can't tell from this picture but this one is slightly bigger. If you click on it you can really see the detail.

The Week In Review

Wow - it's been a long and strangely eventful week. I'm sure you are all just waiting to hear about it.....

* Second full week with my new boss. You can see him starting to spread his wings I think he's going to work out great. We need someone in his position with a bit of a firm hand and he's seems to be exhibiting just that. I spoke to him about staying on four days but switching my day off from Friday to Thursday and he was all for that. So I don't have to give up the four day workweek! yayyyyy

* I had my meeting at Lesley University with the Board of Trustees and it went great. I got to meet the new president who is all over the adult learning division. It really gave us an opportunity to educate people about the our program and having the president there was such a huge bonus. He is going to be great for our program.

* Josh Beckett pitched his cute little butt off on Wednesday night to take the first game of the Red Sox / Dodgers series. They play again tonight at 8:30pm with Dice-K on the mound........I'm worried about that. I'd like to see us sweep the series but I'm not sure if that will happen.

* The Yankees got CRUSHED last night 11-3. As a Boston fan you always love to see that. Although I'm not sure if I want the Yankees to lose the series entirely. If they win the series I want them to go in 5 so they are tired.

* I had an extremely productive art class last night and did a couple of pieces that I'm really proud of. I took pictures of most of the class's work and I'll post it when I get home later on.

Ok maybe the week wasn't so busy......then why the hell am I so tired.

Where is the art?

I've noticed that my last few posts have had nothing to do with art. When you are an artist you go through super creative periods (or as my teacher Kim likes to call them "prolific") or extremely dry spells. In keeping with my general temperament it's pretty much all or nothing with me. I'm either working steadily and creating tons of stuff (some good - some bad) or my stuff is packed away and hasn't been touched in weeks. Saddly that is the case right now. I'm in my last week of school for the semester. My project on Theories of Personality is due next Friday by midnight. I have a pretty good handle on the project it is just between that and work it leaves me completely creatively depleted. I have noticed that this always in the last month of the semester so I'm not worried that I"ll never paint again - I just wish I could find a balance to be able to do all three things simultaneously and have none of them suffer.

I probably should be freaking out a little more because I have a show at the Foxboro Library in January. Which means having everything done before Christmas because that week in between Christmas and New Years is often kind of a "lost week" for me. A lot of my work is smallish now so I need to create kind of a lot to take up the space. I probably need at least 120 pieces if I continue to work within the same size. Right now I have about 30 - 35 pieces (as you can see in the watercolor rack to the left) - so it's time to get my ass in gear.

Crap just seeing those numbers in front of me realize that it's time to get a move on. I do however have some oils that I'm going to rework and hopefully I'll have time to create a few new ones. I haven't worked in oil in so long it feels like a bit of a foreign medium to me. I have one huge oil that hangs in my living room that I will bring to the show and hopefully sell, it's pretty big and will take up one whole panel. You can't tell from the photo but the piece is about 5 1/2 feet long by 4 feet high. Sorry about the glare, it's because of the copper paint.

I have two weeks off in between the semester ending on Friday August 31st and starting up again on Sunday September 16th. Instead of rushing around and trying to do a million things I should just sit back and relax - go to my art class that I have been missing and just get the creative side of my brain engaged again.

OK now I am going for a walk and then I have to pick up my mom from the airport and then get down to some personality theory.

Color

Thursday nights I have art class. I love my class. We have great people, great conversation and of course a great teacher. Tonight I was so excited to paint. I mentioned this to my teacher and she said "well you know what that means." What is usually means is that I usually wouldn't be able to produce anything. It's almost like your excitement gets the better of you. I'm happy to say that wasn't the case tonight.

The painting above is by Jamie Wyeth. He's the son of the more poplular Andrew Wyeth. I am however, partial to Jamie's use of color. This painting is called The Lighthouse. I love how he used green for the sky and how the subject's (man? woman?) hair is whipping around. You can feel the impending storm, you can feel the energy and the electricity. Color is what draws me into a painting plain and simple. It isn't about using the right color for something. It doens't mean all sky's are blue and all tree's are green. It's what the artist represents with their use of color. In this case Jamie Wyeth shows us energy. You aren't sure what kind of energy. Is it positive? Is in negative? Is this person slowly and carefully approaching the home of on old lover or are they running away to the safety of the lighthouse to meet someone? You don't know. For me a big part of the beauty of art is that you can make up the story. You can look at something and be so drawn in that before you know it you've created a life for the person of people on the canvas.

This is a painting by John Singleton Copley called "Watson and the Shark". It's in the permanent collection of the MFA in Boston. One of the things I like best about this painting is it is a large painting - probably 4 feet by 6 feet. When I look at this piece I no longer feel like I am an observer. I feel like I am on a boat watching this all take place. Without knowing the story it's obvious that the person in the water (Watson) is about to be attacked by the shark. I can feel the terror coming off him, I can see his shipmates rushing to save him and you can see the shark has one target in his sights. All of this from paint on canvas AND seeing how this painting was done in 1778 all done from memory. It's fantastic and I love it.

All of this being said, I don't paint representationally, not at all. I paint abstract. I think that the argument could be made that color is even more important to abstract work. Color becomes your subject. Most people are thrown off by abstract because they want to know "what it is". Sorry folks you just have to look at it and make up your own story.


These are two that I finished during class. As I mentioned the non producing prophecy did not come to pass. I especially like the blue one, I'm really happy with how it came out. The colors are a bit more vibrant in person but I think you can get the picture.

Watercolors

I've recently begun fooling around with watercolors. I'm having way more fun that I thought I would with this new medium. Here are a few of my favorites:



I'm giving this one to a friend who is having major surgery on next week. One of the great joys of being an artist is being able to give your stuff away when the opportunity presents itself.



I did another one like this one in green. It's hanging on my board over my desk where I can see it all the time. It's my absolute favorite.

Some of my work

Here are some of the paintings from the library show.

Art

I'm a painter. It still feels funny after all this time to say that. I paint mostly abstract although I have delved into a few realistic watercolors lately. I'm freaking my art teacher out by doing that and I mean that in a good way. I love doing abstract work. It's emotional-challenging and most of all (most of the time) fun. I get a lot of people who want to look at my work and try to make it into something. That's totally ok with me for some reason abstract makes them uncomfortable and they need to put a label on it. Thats their deal and there is nothing I can do about that.

I had a show last July. It was amazing. I hung about 40-50 pieces of work and sold almost half of them. The money financed my trip to California. I was shocked. Shocked at what sold and frankly shocked that any sold at all. I was soooo happy! I'm having another show in January of 08. Seems like a long way away right? Well it isn't. Before I know it it'll be December 30th or so and I'll be up all night painting edges and figuring out how to hang little watercolors like this one.

I love to paint and do it for me. It soothes my soul and sometimes we all need a little soothing.