Working Through The Pain

Displays.  I woke up this morning with a pounding headache and convinced myself I could make it through the day without letting it affect me.  Ouch.  Easier said than done.

I worked on the displays this morning.  I think I'm going to do a zipper display for the Lust Charms.  Initial concept on the left.  It will look better than that when finished.  I also think I'm going to make it two sided so I have womens charms on one side and mens on the other.  I was cracking myself up trying to come up with tag lines for Lust Charms.  I thought "for sexier unzipping", but the BF came up with "unzip your passion".  He also came up with a fabulous idea for a 2nd product under the "lust" line.  I have met my match creatively!

The 2nd display above is for the Art Charms.  I kept the same display I started with, but took off the charm bracelet and hooked a key chain to the hand.  I think I like that better.  The one on the right will be the "fashion charms" or "style charms".  I'll do the display a bit differently with pegs to hold the charms, like the other displays, but I think the headless torso will be similar.  I think i will offer two types of necklaces for sale along with the charms on the fashion display.

On the good news side of things....I got an email from a gallery I work with in Poulsbo, Washington.  They offered my name as an artist to display in a crepe shop closeby.  Because they are so far away, they have an inventory of my paintings, I think about 10 of them, so the idea is to take the ones they are rotating and hang them in the crepe shop.  I hope it works out.  I'm waiting to hear from the Crepe owner.

I also got a call from a fellow artist and was asked to participate in a one day art show in the Medford area.  She said the manager of the locations saw my paintings and liked them.  That is just the type of thing I like to hear.  :)

The Absurdities of Life

Life really is absurd at times.  Which I love.  That is I love the good absurd, not the painful absurd.  Here is my absurd day.  Spent half of the night getting up with Gramma who was hallucinating about my Grampa on the fishing boat.  Grampa passed away about ten years ago and I didn't want to remind her so we just talked about Grampa.

Morning,  did the girl primp thing, while at the same time emptying the commode and all the fun caretaking duties.  Into the nursing home to drop G off at Respite.  Got a call from Margo at the gallery.  Now, I have to say, the pear painting I just completed was done painstakingly.  Not the art/creative part (that part is always done painstakingly), but the building of the canvas.  That's been my biggest criticism from gallery owners, my attention to detail.  So carefully I had built this thing, even redoing a few things when they weren't perfect.  My main goal; make Margo (who I consider my mentor) proud.  Call from Margo, "two of your pears have fallen off".  WHAAA????!!

On my way to see the BF, but she was going to put the painting in the gallery window, can't pass that up.  Ran to store, E6000, trip to gallery, reglued pears.  Done.

Off to see BF.  Very nice respite from being a caretaker.  And like five minutes later, I'm swatting at balloons in the nursing home.

Somewhere in between all of that, I started making a necklace, charm bracelet and keychain to test my charms.  I walked around covered in charms and not happy with some of jewelry items.  I'm just not quite getting the concept/marketing plan where I want it.  I'm going to know when I hit on the right way to market each of the categories of charms, I just have to keep processing and thinking (aka head spinning).  So...I ask everyone.  Faeebook, love my facebook friends!  Great input.  Walk into the bank, ask G's favorite teller Robin what she thinks.  She says, "zipper pull" make the display a zipper pull.

Bells started going off.  Of course....I doubt that she had any idea I was thinking of my Lust Charms, especially considering I haven't really brought it up to anyone yet.  I just created them last weekend.  What better way to display charms to sell in sex type stores than on half undone pants?  (There is a story behind the lust products, mainly that I'm looking for niche markets and....sex sells).  So here I am, in between blushing and laughing making a display for sex charms, while at the same time texting my close friend Susan, who started chemo today and two of my daughters.  One who was going into a job interview and the other who wanted her first credit card.

All I'm saying....is that life is absurd.  And ...the more absurd the harder I laugh.  ;)  Raise your glass to the absurdities of life!

These are the Lust Charms.  Did I forget anything?  ;)

And then to finish out the day, I'm making Immy's 1930's outfit for Third Friday.  Doesn't she look beautiful in a dress?  I don't know why, but whenever I dress her up I get almost hysterical laughing.  She's just so funny in her misery!

Pagelet and Music

I am really  missing my girls today and since part of "living my creative life" has been moving away from them, I'm going to include them in my blog today.  This is Page, my youngest daughter.  Click here to watch one of her youtube videos.   She has such a sensitive, sweet voice.  She writes some of the songs herself and has not taken any lessons.  I think she's amazing.

Page is in her senior year of high school, which she is taking at a community college in the Seattle area.  She will graduate with her high school diploma and her associates degree in June, then she's on to UW.  In order for me to be able to care for my grandmother, Page had to give up having me around for her last year of high school.  When my parents asked me to move to Oregon and care for my Gramma, of course, I told my parents "no, not until Pagey graduates".   Page said when i was talking to them, it was the first time she had seen me smile in a long time, it was during the offer to turn G's garage into a studio for myself.  Pagey told me she didn't want Great Gramma to go into a nursing home and she wanted me to be an artist.  I could not love anyone more than I love my three daughters and today, I want to acknowlege Pagey's selfless support of my dreams.

I love you Pagelet!

Blue Pears

Finished the Pear painting today for April's theme at Art du Jour Gallery.

I may have to paint more pears, they are fun to paint, especially trying different colors.  Kind of cathartic.

How I Sketch

I was talking with a friend earlier.  One of my best friends from kid days and one of the most talented artists I went to high school with.  She does these amazingly detailed pen and ink drawings of animals.  She's going through a tough time right now, battling cancer.  She's been drawing again, but commented that it goes away if you don't use it.  I think it's about retraining your brain.  My college instructors always had us carry a sketch pad and draw, jot notes, glue clippings, just stay active throughout the day with your mind, your creativity and your drawing abilities.

Sue, this is for you.  Here's my last few weeks of sketches and paintings.  I warn you, my sketches are very loose, that's how I think best.  If you're working on retraining your brain to see perspective and scale, you can just sketch whatever you are looking at.  Chemo (I can't bear to think of you dealing with that), you can sketch to take your mind off of it.  Sketch the machines, or the medicine, write down your thoughts, anger, fear, surprise, monotony, boredom, whatever is going on in your mind.

In the montage of my recent sketches, the first photo is of the sketchbooks I tend to use.  I like them small enough to carry easily but not so small I can't fit anything on a page.  This one is about 5" x 5" by Pentalic and cheap at college bookstores.  I usually just carry an architects pencil, not sure of the specific name, drafting pencil maybe?  Pentel 0.7 are my favorites.  Charcoal just breaks too easily so these seem to travel well in my purse.

The montage above shows my notes and sketches for two of my recent works.  The first I did a few weeks ago and am still working on the larger, middle piece.  I started with words.  I wanted to do 3 pieces that went together and talked about my personal growth and struggles.  The first one is the past, people in your life who fill your world with criticism, the 2nd is about pushing through those things you start to believe and trying to find yourself and the last one is growth, balance, brightness, finally seeing yourself for who you are.

As I was working on these three paintings, I stumbled a bit in my personal life.  I swear, life is such a step-forward-and-two-steps-back type of thing.  So I started a new piece about crying, bleeding, finding the sun.  It started with the 2nd row of words and sketches on the montage.  I wanted to show the way my brain was spinning as I was trying to understand what I was feeling.  First I thought of very abstract, bright red splashes with a center of deep red, then I looked at using a tornado with my thoughts spinning to the vortex.

As I was working through my feelings and pain, I realized I was feeling better each day, so I focused the painting on how time heals all wounds.  That's when I jumped into building the canvas (which is a huge part of my process, I love texture).  I wanted the focus to be on a clock spinning, crazy and then the emotions forming a full circle.  I often clip images from magazines that inspire or interest me and those are pasted in my sketchbook throughout.  Since I had something specific in mind, I googled clocks, wanting to get an idea of how to make it look spinning or crazy.  I liked this dali-esque one because it was simple visually.  I also googled Alice in Wonderland and puddles and blood, tears, ray of sunshine, etc.  So this page has the clippings I glued into my sketchbook for this painting.  Then I have the last sketch I did and the final painting, which I called Time Heals.

Susan, I hope this gives you ideas on how to use what you're going through to get your creativity flowing again.  You are so talented, the world needs to see your amazing style.

Pears, Pears and More Pears

Working on the pears to go on the pear painting.  Kind of making me hungry!

This is the sketch for the piece.  Sitting at a SOSA meeting, doodling in my sketchbook.  How to do something with pears that is consistent with my style.  Hmm...

Pear Trees

I'm thinking about doing a painting of pears, with pear trees layered underneath.  So, I stopped today and took some pics of pear trees.  I love  the way the trees change during the seasons.  You really notice driving from Jacksonville to Medford.

It was the perfect sky to photograph.  I practically had to lay on the ground to get the tree and the sky in the photo, especially without crossing the barbed wire fence.