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.

Quick report on the workshop

Informative workshop hosted by the Los Angeles Civic Arts Program. I've been vetted for a public arts program in the past, but was not a finalist, so it was good to get some more information on how to make a stronger app. I've been doing some things right.
√ Sincere letter of interest
√ Strong work

What I did learn was what to include on the resume and what to leave off. They could care less about group shows. They want to see your teaching experience. They want to know from your references that you can work well with others and meet deadlines. I'm pretty sure my references will back me up on that and now I can highlight my teaching experience rather than mention it at the end. And lose the majority of group shows. They were useful when I first moved to LA and when I returned to painting, but they've probably served their purpose now.

They're really open to gallery artists who have NOT done public art before, so that's not as big a deterrent as I thought. They also showed some examples of some projects and I can't believe I'm going to say this, but in a million years I never imagined simply painting a supergraphic on building or a wall would be considered public art. I know- murals, where have I been? But again, in my mind most murals are narrative like the amazing examples I've come across in post offices. Think Diego Rivera or Thomas Hart Benton. Seeing abstract painted buildings totally opened up my world of interest and ideas. As a gallery artist, (that's the term the commission used) I kept limiting myself to what I considered public art. You know, traditional outdoor materials, large scale, sculptures or intricate bronze work, stained glass, etc. My biggest obstacle was figuring how, as a painter, to make public art. And on top of that, I had mistakenly assumed that abstract art would be dismissed for not relating to a broader community. So, yep. excellent use of 2 hours of my day, not including travel time. They even reimbursed for parking.

Super Powers Unite. Not. Yet.

I have wasted more than a couple of minutes trying to configure my Facebook account to be accountable for my entire social networking experience. It sounds like a good idea, but then so do lots of things which I later regret. I like the idea of having a little privacy, if you can call it that. This would seem to contradict the whole point of social networking and self-promotion, but so be it. I attempted to feed my Process blog into Facebook, but ended up blasting my profile with umpteen previous posts instead of just the current ones, which felt like the Internet equivalent of spilling the contents of my purse on the floor, so I deleted that app and thought I'd try the Flickr app, but it didn't behave very well either. I'll try again later. 

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On New Year's Eve day, I wrote out a list of my 2009 goals to share. Blogger had some issues and when I went back to post it, they were gone. All gone. Because I am a goal-oriented person, I will rewrite them tonight after dinner and post again. 

Damn, today was grueling.

Sunday. I do not work on Sundays. But because I am helping a friend out tomorrow and I had a little deadline, I hauled ass and got my Smaller Works on paper site up and running. Please check it out. It's a place to buy smaller works, primarily on paper, directly from me. Not trying to cut out the middle men and women, but I make a beaucoup of smaller works on paper and it seems most galleries like to focus on showing the larger works- as do I. The works on paper are like calisthenics for me and instead of stacking them in a flatfile for the rest of eternity, I'm proactively selling them. Also, as I've mentioned yesterday, I was inspired by other artists who are not sitting on the sidelines during this economy.

Tracy Helgeson summed it up quite succinctly-

"The economy is tough and those of us who (try to) make a living selling our work have been greatly affected. Obviously, I hope that if one has limited funds, they will pay for food, insurance, mortgage, etc. first, however perhaps there are still a few folks who can squeeze out a couple of bucks to buy a piece of art to enjoy or to give as a gift. If artists aren't selling anything, they are also not buying anything either or paying their bills or the mortgage and the dominoes will keep falling. I realize that not every art buyer wants to buy my art (what?) so I'd like to offer some alternatives and hopefully somebody will make a few sales, even if it's not me."

I was just really touched by that and I'm not really a group hug kind of person. Her project is The Fine Arts Department.

Back to work

Brief video coffee break on Skype, followed by testing iChat for possible multi-chat. I officially prefer Skpye for audio clarity and ease of menu navigation. I almost got in a virtual fisticuffs with a friend who is seriously lacking in social skills- over an error message I was receiving on iChat, so I disengaged before I needed to apologize for anything. I don't deal well with mean people, know-it-alls, and condescending arrogant cads. I mean seriously, who does? ( I guess that wasn't very nice of me to refer to my friend as a mean person, but I'm pretty sure they'd consider the rest of the description a complement.) Anyway, enough of the hurt feelings.

I'm working on a project proposal for LAX and my ADD kicks in while working on the computer. It's an easy app- I already wrote the proposal, and the tedious part seems to be just putting all the elements together and burning a disk. Silly, because it's not that tedious.

Next up is developing a small portfolio specifically for a corporate client and then after that I get to reward myself by putting together some ideas for a solo show.

Life is good, I just need to remain focused.

I am posting now becuase I will be too tired later.

I managed to practice yoga this morning for the first time in a loooong time. I am always surprised by how unbendable I become when I stop practicing yoga. I also forget why I stop practicing cause I always feel so good afterward. Always. It would make sense then, to continue my yoga practice uninterrupted.

The studio. Yep. I was there today, but nary a brushstroke did I make. I'm dropping a few smaller paintings off to the gallery tomorrow and decided NOT to rush the other 3 that I think I'm finished with, because I may not be finished with them after all. They need sitting time in the studio. I need to stare. On the way to the gallery, I'm stopping by to do a studio visit with another artist.

I had an impromptu coffee with a consultant friend as I was writing this. She was in the neighborhood. Call me a philistine, but as a producer of art, I am so utterly fascinated by the collector of art side of things- the serious collector side of things, the hardcore, that's-equivalent-to-my-entire-mortgage kind of collector. We discuss this kind of stuff and I secretly think that maybe I should spend more time educating myself as a collector. A few weeks ago when the economy hit the first bottom and WAMU was up for grabs, I thought seriously about cashing it all in on one major painting. I didn't, but that gives you an idea of what kind of collector I'd be. Or not. Maybe it just gives you an idea of how disillusioned I am with traditional investments, such as real estate, 401K's and my FDIC insured savings account. It should come as no surprise that "Masterpiece" was one of my favorite games as a child. Maybe there's an art world version of The Sims version out there. If not, there should be.

I also like the idea of dressing up, coiffing my hair and wearing sexy pumps.

As a reminder, next Tuesday is the studio coffee break at 2 PM PST. Unfortunately, I will not be wearing sexy pumps or coiffed hair in the studio. Maybe one day, but not next Tuesday.

Community Outreach Report.

Yesterday I downloaded Skype and from 2-3pm PST, covertly implemented my Tuesday afternoon coffee break with anyone who wanted to participate.

Steven LaRose, who suggested video conferencing via Skype, was my first caller, albeit earlier in the day when I was still setting up, but I'm still counting it. Another woman I know, who is not an artists and who knew nothing of my project, just happen to call during the posted hours and I was able to suggest some resources for her. I'm counting that too. An artist in LA commented that it was a good idea and wanted to know my address.

So, all in all, I think I'm off to a good start. I'll be posting the event on Facebook, seeing as that seems to be the place to reach the most people instantaneously.

For now, I'm committing to being here on Tuesdays, but I may open it up more for the video conferencing thing now that I have that in place.

Currently, a couple of paintings are drying out in the sunshine and I'm going to begin another. I keep hoping to find out that I received a grant I applied for, but when I wait like this, it usually means I didn't get it. I tend to get grants when I forget that I applied for them, which means that I should probably start applying for some more....

My Attempt at Community Outreach.

I am a painter. I work in a studio by myself. In a perfect world, I would have a fancier, bigger, studio like I did in Chicago. My present studio is my drywalled garage and I have a patio. My studio is rather small considering the kind of painter I am, so I like to think that what doesn't kill me will make me stronger. If I had a larger studio, I'm pretty sure I'd never want to venture out and I suspect I'd rule the world cause my paintings would be so fantastic from all the daylight and unlimited white space surrounding me. I long for the day when I can have a comfy painter's couch and huge windows in my studio again. I see it. I do.

But I digress. My point is that being a painter who enjoys working alone, I have to make an effort to be social and have meaningful dialogues with others. I thought the patio might be a good place to start. And I thought that since I take a coffee break at 2pm every day, I would open up my studio one day a week, for anyone who wants to stop by and join me for coffee between 2 and 3 pm. In reality, I only take about 15 minutes for my coffee break, but I'm thinking an hour might be more reasonable for someone to stop by for coffee.

This is my idea of community outreach: conversation and coffee. It's art project within a studio practice. I'm instigating it tomorrow. For the time being I'm calling it, Tuesdays at 2 on Tuller. A bit droll, but it contains the necessary info. Not sure if the idea will take, but I figure I'd give it a shot. And who knows, perhaps vegan cupcakes will be served in the future.

AND, since I am no Luddite, if the real world coffee thing is slow to take, I will be open for IM chatting during that hour as well. I have to work out the details, but I'm thinking I might have found a way to make Facebook accountable.

(Feel free to forward this artists, and others interested in art in the LA/Culver City area.) Interested parties may email me and I will post a map.

I will report back.