I actually got to spend a day in my workspace over the weekend. Saturday not only brought some desperately needed rain to the area, it gave me a day off from my job at the nursery. I have a number of pieces on my desk- some of them only the barest sketches but the deadlines are looming. Here is the first to be completed:
It is part of a pair of works- its partner is nearing completion- for a show at the WAAM entitled "Pairings." When I saw the requirements I immediately thought of the 2 Jeans who inspired me in my life ( and whom I never fully appreciated until it was too late; to my great regret): Jean Amy (first-cousin-once-removed) (pictured above) and Jean Webb (great-aunt.) It seemed particularly apt if you just say their shared name- Jeans/genes. True I am not biologically descended from either of them but I am their æsthetic inheritor.
I was working on the assumption that they were both due today but found last night, much to my relief, that they are due this coming Monday. But that doesn't mean I can rest, I have to finish Great-Aunt Jean's portrait as well as the 2 other pieces I have promised. I will post them as they are finished. In the meantime, I commune with my jeans/genes.
Today I am taking in a new piece for a special show/charity auction. I was honored to be asked to participate- 50 artists/50 good causes. The event has been organized by WAAM in conjunction with UlsterCorps- a very worthy umbrella organization for good-works in the county. I was asked to do a piece to benefit CASA, a group that works with abused children and also seeks to prevent abuse before it happens. This dovetailed with my own works on this theme, a series: "A Child's Garden of Entropy."
I had had in mind to do a piece with several of my iconic images from the series- the porcelain doll and the birds (scarlet tanager, indigo bunting and goldfinch,) and entropic metaphors in their various aspects, this event gave me the impetus to do the work. ("Entropic metaphors" gee, I sound like a 'real" artist!) Many people think all I do is witty, fluffy pieces so they don't know what to do with these darker works. Some people think they are supposed to be funny so they make laughing comments about them to me, some get where I'm going- or more accurately, where I've been- and are a bit puzzled by the contrast between the 2 sides of my work. I don't explain beyond that fact that no one's life is 1-dimensional, all light or all dark. Both, for better or worse, are part of me.
"A Child's Garden of Entropy: The Footnotes" 26.75"x9.75" BricolageI am hoping that after this week I will be able to spend a bit more time in my workroom making art. I am acclimated to working outside at the nursery the 4 days I am there- I no longer collapse when I get home in the evening. And the book files are 98% done so I hope to get it to the printer this week. I still have some graphics obligations to fulfill but getting the book off my desk will be a big relief. I miss working/playing with my materials and if I am to be an artist, I need to actually produce- you know, art.
It seems like it has been weeks since my kickstarter.com project reached the end of its funding period even though it has, in fact been less than a week. The end of the project came at 6:09 pm EDT on Sunday. How did I celebrate this milestone? I was working away in my studio. I had gotten an email on Friday(?) asking if I wanted to have a show opening the end of the month and going through most of April? Of course, my answer was yes and then reality set in.Egad, I had to get busy and pull the show together. It is a show of the original art from the Word Project- yes, the same art that will be published soon in my kickstarter-funded book. For the past 2 years the art has been sitting in a little storage closet in my apartment gathering dust. But I had 8 pieces that needed to be framed, paperwork, lists, labels, etcetc that needed to be updated- all the many tasks that need doing collateral to a gallery show. Plus I have, thank heavens, some graphics assignments on my desk.Yesterday, I loaded up my elderly Saab with 7 bins (94 individual, framed pieces) of art and drove down to Hudson Beach Glass in Beacon, NY (about 40 miles south;) and hung the show. My good friend Laurel Smith (sister of one of the partners in HBG) stopped by and we had a nice lunch at Homespun Foods. I went back and continued hanging art. I ran out of steam at about 4 and called it a day. Came home and collapsed. Managed to stay up late enough to watch the designers on Project Runway try to design fabrics- (note to PR designers: don't give up your day jobs.)Framed one last piece- my motto for this project seems like it should have been: measure 4 times, cut twice... Drove back down to Beacon and finished hanging the show. The rest of it is out of my hands and opens tomorrow. The reception is not until April 10th so I am going back to working on production for the book, the assignments on my desk, oh and I have to frame another piece for a show submission on Monday.I am very grateful for all this but I am also learning some lessons about taking care of myself. I'm no spring chicken anymore, lugging those bins full of art down the stairs was a 3 ibuprofen job. Anyway, here is panoramic montage of the show: (yes, I meant to jam the frames together like that, I like it and I'm sticking with it.)
The countdown on my kickstarter.com project "Publish 'The Word Project' " has shifted from days to hours to go- 55 as of this writing. It is both exciting and terrifying to see this. Exciting because it means the book will finally be published- terrifying for exactly the same reasons. I am having to confront my fears of failure and success in the same package.Failure- what if my backers don't like the finished product? What if the book doesn't live up to its promise, what if I don't live up to my promise? Success- what if this really takes off and my life changes in good yet unforeseen ways? How long before I fall on my face? Fear, fear, fear...what a soul-killer.Its not like I have not already rather spectacularly failed in public in my life. Almost 2 years ago I lost almost every thing in my life yet with the support and boundless kindness of friends, and taking some steps, I made it through. I have a roof over my head and work and much (platonic only, alas) love. And I am 55 hours away from realizing a long-held vision. There will be much hard work between the end of the funding period and sending the book to the printer in 3 or so weeks- not only the work of writing and assembling, preparing the images (and, of course, I now have a gallery show to mount and a desk full of graphics assignments); but also admitting my powerlessness over my fear, turning it over and keeping my focus on the next right step.
I am participating in a project to support Doctors Without Borders' efforts in Haiti. The project is called "Posters for Haiti." Artists and designers create posters around the theme and then signed reproductions of the works are available for sale on the site. 100% of the proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders- a worthy cause and an excellent model.(Rant about typical charity art auctions deleted...) I finished the art and the design today and hope to be able to get the posters printed tomorrow and shipped out mid-week.
Every once in a while my cardinal sin of envy rears up and smites me, and smites me hard. It happened a few days ago when I read about a project on kickstarter.com that has made over 400% of its goal. Normally my eyes are a squidgy grey but they quickly turned blazing emerald when I read that. I spent the next hour or so wallowing in my envy, marinating in it- not a pretty sight. It was a truly unlovely thing. My own kickstarter project has made its goal but has stalled at just under 120% of its goal with 19 days to go. Am I content with that? Noooo... I want 400% too! Inside, I was stamping my foot, holding my breath and throwing a right royal tantrum.But now I am over it for the most part and have been racking my brains trying to figure out how to shake that pledge tree in the remaining days. I do have to mention that the project in question was all about sex and my project, while it depicts a fair number of naughty bits is just that- a bit naughty, mostly punnish, and clever.Do I begrudge them their 400%? No, I congratulate them on their achievement. I have to believe that there is enough for us all or I will just set myself back to where I was 2 years ago- a (non)spiritual place I hope to never revisit.But, man oh man, 400%....
Among the iconic images I have carried with me since childhood- along with Eyvind Earle's stunning graphic backgrounds for Disney's Sleeping Beauty, N.C.Wyeth's work, Leo & Diane Dillon's work for the Time-Life science series- is that of Scrooge McDuck swimming in a pool of golden coins in an animated cartoon. Not quite as noble nor as artistically profound as the others but it has stuck with me nevertheless. I was reminded of that image last evening when I dumped the contents of an old plastic bag out onto my worktable. A friend had told me her husband would be bringing them for me to a meeting so it was not a total surprise. That said, I had no idea of the extraordinary glee I would feel when I saw them spilled out in such profusion and scale. All of the buttons are quite large- after all, buttons as a rule tend to be small and the ones I most often use on my art are no more than 1/2- 3/8" wide. These beauties are measured in inches not fractions of inches. And they're mine- all mine I tell you, mine!!!!! (but I get ahead of myself...) I poured over them, sorted them, let them run through my fingers into a pile, held them up and in the case of the one that looks like it was made out of braided twizzlers, was tempted to lick them. Even now, as they rest in their bowl, I look at them and cannot believe my luck. I have no idea how they will be used- but I suspect most of them will remain in their bowl for a while to be admired. I will never have a swimming pool full of money- I will never even have a swimming pool full of buttons to backstroke in like Mr. McDuck. But today I have a bowl full of gorgeous big buttons, given to me by a thoughtful friend, to run my fingers through- I am rich beyond belief.
