Ooh, ooh that smell!

I've been spending most of my time with my computer since I got back in town, but I forgot to mention that lovely smell of my studio. Mmmmm.

LAX --> BNA

Leaving the day after tomorrow for a spell. Ugh. It's hard to stop working, but I've been rather lackadaisical lately knowing I would have to stop for a couple of weeks. I think it will be good to take an official break from my slow death putzing around in the studio. My palette as of late is garish, but in an elementary, I-just-learned-to-paint kind of way. I know I tend to be slightly self-effacing here and I'm trying to catch myself, because honestly, some people believe everything you say, but sometimes I believe it myself. I looked at the painting I worked on today and was numbed by my choice or lack of choice of colors along with almost everything about it. Maybe not numb, more like speechless, which considering I work in the studio by myself, might not be such a bad thing.

I'll be taking my watercolors on holiday and plan on doing some plein air painting in my sketchbook while gone.

The above picture is of Fang stalking around my studio. He looks so much like a wolf in this photo. I heart my dog.

But meanwhile back in the small world of art...

I am occasionally amazed at how art affects us. I mean, really affects us. While I'm mucking around in my studio, I never think about what someone else might think of my endeavors. After a work is finished the thought might cross my mind, but only after I've questioned my own integrity and the act of making is done. And then it's usually at some base level of aesthetics or "skill" or conceptual prowess, that I try and imagine all the critical voices trying to get a word in edgewise.

So to think about what stirs people, what inspires us, what motivates us to walk in a studio and make something when no one is looking, just never enters my mind. I've always thought I just do it because it's there.

Why I feel that act needs to be justified and why for some reason I can feel selfish and self-indulgent for engaging in this pursuit is a secret struggle of mine. For one, I sabotaged myself at a very early age so I would force myself to have fewer options. My dad actually thought I might grow up and be– I'll never forget this– VICE-President of a bank.

I won't go into details about why banking and why VICE-president rather than president, but suffice to say, the first thing that occurred to me was VICE-president? The second thing that occurred to me was that it felt like wishing your daughter would go to prison. (My dad died shortly after I received my BFA, so just for the record, he appreciated art and encouraged me as a kid, though again for the record, I'm pretty sure he wanted me to paint nature and wildlife scenes because he would summons me into the room whenever Bob Ross was on television.)

So, in an early attempt to remove options, I decided around the age of 13, I would never learn to type. And apparently I decided never to paint wildlife scenes, perhaps because of Bob Ross's hair, but probably because I had been reading Artnews and Art in America since I was 10, thanks to a gift subscription from my aunt and uncle. Voila! It worked. I took a typing test once for a temp job and I typed something like 18 words a minute, using two fingers. They put me on phones. I don't do phone either. Thank God no one called, but I wrote haikus on post-it notes for 8 hours just to keep from going crazy. Me in a center cubicle of a property management company on one of the top floors of the Sears Tower. Nothing else in the room, but me, a phone, a desk, glossy pictures of sexy hi-rises, post-it notes and a pen. Maybe they felt sorry for me and installed a prop phone, because I swear NO ONE called. Oh and I'm pretty sure I wore my "funeral dress" and pantyhose with my Doc Martens.

Anyway, I was recently and pleasantly reminded about the larger dialogue we all engage in when we make and look at art. And how big that world is. And that I'm really not a selfish mofo for stubbornly clinging to my desire to walk in my studio and pick up a paintbrush for no apparent reason other than I can. And that it's okay to be homesick occasionally and that all of that, along with everything else I've written thus far, filters in the making somehow.

Whew. I love being an artist.

Meanwhile in the studio...

I think this is finished, but maybe not. If not, it's close. I also have 2 smaller works on....LINEN, yes, LINEN, that I'm pretty close to not working on anymore.

I go to Nashville next week. I should be really excited, but I'm experiencing a bit of inexplicable trepidation. That's a lie. It's neither inexplicable nor trepidatious. It has to do with the motorcycle trip I've been not planning and a couple of other things that are bumming me out, but I'll lump it all it on the motorcycle trip for the sake of convenience.

Just when you think it doesn't get any better, the Los Angeles Times sends me a plush bathrobe because I'm a loyal subscriber.

Honestly, it really is the little things that give me moments of joy. I've haven't had a plush bathrobe since I left Chicago, and I'm pretty sure that one had paint all over it.

Stuff:

Why these things take me so long, I do not know. I finally finished 2 apps. They're sitting next to me waiting to be mailed. Since I am on a roll, it would behoove me to burn a couple more disks, handcraft another impeccable cover letter and knock out my as-yet-determined quota for keeping things flowing.

But that is not the case. The Culver City Artwalk is today and I feel obligated to leave my compound and look at other people's art for a change. Still, I may shoot for getting one more app out the door on the way to the Artwalk, but probably not because it's time for my afternoon espresso now.

hello my pretties.

Right, I'm kind of obsessing about shoes. I'm trying to write a grant. Not for shoes, but seriously, wouldn't that be great if I could? I mean the real reason I need shoes is because I trash mine in the studio.

I'm having some concentration issues today. Obviously.

As I once again mind-meld with my laptop in order to write grant proposals and if I were slightly alturistic, here's what I'd do-

Yes, those two thoughts have nothing to do with each other and it's a disjointed sentence to boot. Nonetheless, one of the top 50 things I would like to do in my life include purchasing a plot of land and and running a small artist residency program.

Now back to proposal planning and all the excitement that comes with that.

Further up on the list is selling out the contents of my flat file this summer and fall.

I'm considerably happy right now, verging on optimistic. No explanation for this, but I'm going with it.

OPP and resources LINKS

I received a email blast from another artist listing a bunch of resource links, which prompted me to attempt to compile my cache of bookmarks. But because I'm only half-assorganized, providing a link to my del.icio.us account wasn't going to be effective. Therefore, the following is some reasonable attempt at listing opp links. I've also thrown in some other links just in case you like dogs or John Fluevogs. I'm coveting those Fluevogs.

Funding Resources Overview
PrintedMatter.org
Chinati Foundation | La Fundación Chinati
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation General Information Page
Americans for the Arts News
:: CCI :: Funding ::
Residency Program
Dog Ice Bones, two sizes: Good Dog Pet Express, Inc.
Riverside Art Museum - JTNP Artist-In-Residence & Affiliate Artist Programs
LACE Submission Guidelines
Submit Art - Artwork Submission - Call for Art - Artistaday.com
NYFA Interactive - New York Foundation for the Arts
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation - The Grant
Grants for Individuals : Arts
Alliance of Artists Communities: Supporting artists residencies programs worldwide
The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts, Inc.
Fluevog Shoes - Item detail: Lily Darling
The California Resale Royalties Act
Limited Edition Artists Books Artist Residencies Art Fellowship Artist Opportunities New York - Women's Studio Workshop
Phantom Galleries LA Information
Fine Art Adoption Network
ART LEADS
America’s Best Places for Artists
GYST: Getting Your Sh*t Together: Tracking Software for Visual Artists - Home
Hofstra University Museum, Exhibition Proposal Guidelines
San Jose Museum of Art | TEMPORARY EXHIBITION PROCEDURES
Art Resources
| Opportunities | for | Artists |
Submitting your work :: the Contemporary :: The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
Welcome to Lantana Projects Residency Information Page: Memphis' Only Non-Profit International Artist Residency Program
NEA: 20
Momenta Art: Submission Policy
General questions
SFMOMA | Shop | Artists Gallery: Slide Submissions
Orange County Museum of Art
Professional Services Department -- Oakland Museum of California
Visiting Artist Program
Google Answers: List of grants w/ URLs
Terra Summer Residency - Musée d'Art Américain Giverny
Visual Arts at The Banff Centre
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts : Residency : Residency Application
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum: Opportunities
Weatherspoon Art Museum - UNC Greensboro
Smack Mellon
SCHLOSS PLÜSCHOW
Stichting KAUS AUSTRALIS
Welcome to the Weisman Art Museum
Djerassi Resident Artists Program
Hambidge Center for the Arts and Sciences
TransArtists
How to Clean Anything
Gottlieb Foundation
The Durfee Foundation
Creative Capital Foundation

it's raining and cold. it's may. it might as well be chicago

Yes, I'm whining, but I FINALLY got back in the studio after the mind meld with my laptop and am still excited to be a painter–so I'm NOT whining about that. Just when I'm on the verge of thinking I've got it figured out (which would be an utter disappointment) I find a new loophole.