It's a see-saw, but I am optimistic again.

Spring semester grades in √
Summer syllabus completed, almost √
New paintings, signed and titled, almost √
Divorce paperwork completed, almost √

Another painter came over for a studio visit today. Next week I shall go visit her studio. It's definitely good, nay necessary, for me to get out and meet up with other artists right now. I'm been a hermit lately, even more so than usual. Bobbie makes the 4th person I've shown the new work to. So far, 4 out of 4 people are digging them. I should let my guests speak more, but I get so excited about the new works that I have to tell the backstory about how I arrived at them and then tell another backstory for why etc. For the time being, it's been good practice to talk about the work. The BIG studio visit is a week from Saturday. I'll be entertaining 25 collectors for approximately 30 minutes. My major concern is that my front lawn is dead and the back yard is barely holding on. The place needs some landscape love. I'll grab some cheap plants at Home Depot to brighten up the place. I'm self-conscious about these things. I should also finish titling the pieces and nail my spiel. Possibly a tad more important, yes?

But back to today's studio visit. I came away feeling hopeful and optimistic. In addition to talking specifically about the work, we also chatted about the business side of things and the day job side of things. If you recall, I've been laid off after the summer. I said I was brainstorming and basically cobbling an income together and instead of receiving the awkward stare of pity I usually get when I say that, I got a positive reaction and an excellent idea for proposing some workshops I could teach. I'm so on it. I also got some other business advice regarding the paintings, and I made a pledge to myself and to my visitor that I will take that advice as well. I've had some really sorry-ass advice thrown my way over the years, so sometimes I'm skeptical, but not anymore. Majority rues.

I'm also going to experiment with having an Open Studio on Saturdays this summer. My community coffee break never really took off, so we'll try this. I don't advertise and my marketing strategies are zilch. That might be one of my problems. The other might be the self-effacing humor I tend to use.

I'm one block away from a small business district on the west side Culver City, as opposed to the east side which is where all the galleries are, and have decided to take advantage of people who park on my block while shopping at Allied Train Store and Samy's camera. But, the real motivation for opening the studio one day a week was that when we bought the house several years ago, I found a blank, homemade and weathered wooden sign cast aside in the garage. Seriously, I'm like that; a sign needs a purpose. I almost used it as it, but since I'm not selling jam, potholders or rabbits, just yet, I gessoed it and will be painting a more appropriate signage denoting an open studio. The open studio will be a mix of things- mainly an opportunity to sell some older work and drawings, but possibly a chance to work on the craft side of things and see what happens there. I got into wood burning aka pyrography back in the early 90's and a few years ago I picked up leather tooling. When I said "open," I mean open. I'm still in the brainstorming phase, but am hoping to stage the first one this Saturday. Another potential cog in my cobbled empire.

All work and no play....

For some archaic reason I aim to stay tech-free on Sundays, but it rarely works. My father-in-law passed away this morning. I felt obligated to post that since I've posted everything else.

I had a fairly good day in the studio on Friday with some new paintings. For another archaic reason, I try not to paint on Sundays either, so I'm just kind of hanging out listening to the wind and the plants scraping against my window. I am sitting on the sofa and Fang and I are attached at the hip.

This morning I was at a brunch/project meeting with about 25 other artists. It sounds like an interesting project. Essentially there's an archaeological museum in a Ameila, Italy and for the first phase of the project, we've been invited to exhibit a introductory work in the museum. The second phase involves making something more site-specific for next summer. More details to follow.

I should probably try to do something fun soon. I could use some side-splitting fun. Otherwise, we're likely to become a scaled down version of The Shining over here.

Some Things.

The art world is super small, crazy small. I'm not talking about the online arts community or any of that, I'm talking about the nuts and bolts world of people who buy art, people who sell art and people who make art, and at some point those paths cross in the physical world.

Like this past weekend, which is how I discovered that a painting I thought was hanging 2000 miles away in a private collection is actually hanging here in Los Angeles in a private collection. I was at an opening and dealer I know showed me a picture of my painting on their cellphone. And, in an even bigger coincidence, the collector was at the same opening, so I had a chance to meet him and chat with him about how he acquired my work. It was a nice conversation. He's an amicable gentleman.
Everything's legit, apparently just some really bad timing and delayed correspondence. And I might add, an error in judgement on my part, for which I am now wiser. If the sale had taken place in California, then this link would have been useful.
(Addendum: I'm still open to the possibility that there was no error in judgement and no bad timing and that things happen for a reason, and I'll leave it at that.)

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And then this morning I read where my comrade in a parallel universe, Steven LaRose has decided to fizzle out his blog. At first I was bummed. I mean this is not a eulogy or anything, but there are certain artist/bloggers who, whom I was particularly simpatico with and LaRose is one of them, and so I will miss the dialogue. FB is just not the same.

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I may be posting less as well, not as an intentional desire to quit writing, but when writing about things such as life and art, and art and life, it seems that messy things are well, messy and best omitted from the public spheres. And when I start having to omit the messy stuff, then I feel self-censored, which is obviously my prerogative since I am the self doing the censoring, but there's a fine line between revealing what I had for breakfast, what I'm doing in the studio and how I'm managing a couple of difficult things in my personal life. It's hard to pull the strands. My goal is to keep working as I'm working, work a little more than I think I'm working (see Perceived Exertion scale), try and be more fearless and have some faith.

I'll place the twitter feed in the side bar. Just in case...