"Disaappointment in love, where the character is amiable, gives a pathetic interest to woman or man..."

Another one bites the dust.

I have in my possession and intend on actually reading, a book titled, "English Portrait Miniatures." Meanwhile, I've only had the time to pick it up and randomly open to a page, which is how today's post title came into being.

From what I've gathered, a portrait miniaturist by the name of Cross suffered a stroke of "temporal misfortune" during the 1790's. Although he was born a "deaf-mute," he had an aptitude for art and was a successful and prolific worker until he either took ill or went on holiday, at which point his production dropped quite drastically. Furthermore, Mr. Cross was totally dissed and rejected by the woman he was in love with, who natch, being the 1790's and all, was also his cousin. He proposed, she rejected and he withdrew from society. It gets better. He harbors a ton of anger all his life, they run into each other 30 years later, she's looking rather ill and sickly, or "broken and dying," as the author would have it, and all his anger washes away and he's totally in love with her again. They part, I assume she expires, and I have no idea what happened next.

Such is the life of a one, Richard Cross, miniature portrait painter.

Let us all live and learn by this.

***

I'm teaching an abstract painting workshop tomorrow. 12 people have signed up. It should be fun, though I readily admit, "teaching" abstract painting is a mystery to me. I prefer to think of it as showing people how process-based paintings begin and evolve, according to me. I believe it quite impossible to make any painting, but especially an abstract one, without some sort of personal vision or mission to communicate something, so teaching techniques without knowing what people are interested in, is like only half the deal. I suppose it's like teaching writing, by giving people a dictionary, which now suddenly sounds like a splendid idea and I think I shall capitalize on that next. Meanwhile, maybe I'll ask everyone what they're interested in before I start wowing them pretending like I know what I'm doing with my artillery of techniques paints and brushes and coffee spills. I didn't decide to be an abstract painter. I think abstractly and work my way back to actuality and the concrete during the process of painting. I'm not sure how to do it in reverse.

I had another studio visit today and showed off some of the new ones on linen. I think it was a good visit. I've stopped being able to read people anymore, but I think it was good overall. I got some pointers: Be more social. Go to openings. Meet people.
Stop being so lazy and complacent. I'm paraphrasing of course.

Oh, and I need more paying work. Couch, cough, like a permanent part-time job that pays really well. Ideally one that I've designed. Still brainstorming on that small detail.

Addendum: Whenever I have left a rather hasty post, I re-read my post to make sure I wasn't spouting off nonsense, and since I am not a publication with any sort of ethical standard, I reserve the right to correct or delete things said in haste. Blogging, to a certain degree is about haste. I haven't yet pre-written any posts and pasted them in, though don't put that past me either.

That said, I came across a couple of sentences where I, the "I" was having trouble defining the gap between appearing knowledgeable about what I do versus pretending to be clueless and way more humble than I am. Note the strikeout phrases. Somewhere between those two strikeouts is the truth. At certain times, I do feel like I have the ability to amaze, and that painting IS like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. On the other hand, I pretend every day that I know what I'm doing. And after a few or more years of pretending every day that I know what I'm doing and maybe I don't pretend anymore, but in my studio, I never assume they'll win. It's a game in there (the studio) and I need to be sharp, but not so sharp that I have it all figured out before I walk in the door. Which brings me to my "artillery of techniques." It seemed a tad less trite than "bag of tricks" and far more economical than listing any and everything I have used in order to get paint onto a surface.

Regarding the studio visit. I must have been feeling sad at end of day, because it was a very good visit. My self-described laziness and complacency does need to be worked on, both socially and in regard to goals. At the end of the day, give me a book and a bowl of cherries or "The Wire" and a bowl of popcorn and a furry creature at my feet (or at my side) and I'm content. However, I don't think that defines social and so having the good fortune to live in the smack center of an art world proper, I need to get out more.

I'm slow on bouncing back during this D thing, and I wasn't particularly extroverted before.

I may as well have re-written the post, no?