It's been one week

...since I blogged last time. And there's new stuff to talk about!

Like I said last week: "From November 8th through the 29th, I'll be participating in my fourth gallery show at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. I will be sharing the gallery space with fellow Grizlybexar Collective member M. E. Majeske. Her medium is photography, and she has her work printed on stretched canvas. The opening reception is the evening of the 8th, from 6 - 9pm. This event is free and open to the public." As of this entry, I have all but two pieces hung on the wall. They're there, chillin' in the gallery, waiting for me to get busy. I'm really excited for this show, and one of the gallery managers told me someone has already expressed interest in my Yellow Swimsuit painting. Awesome!

Along with Saturday's trek into Dallas for the Art Conspiracy 9 painting day (see previous post), I'll be part of an art event on Sunday, as well. This Sunday in Fort Worth, from noon to four pm, Magnolia Street, part of the Near Southside neighborhood, will be completely closed off to vehicular traffic from 8th Avenue to Hemphill Street! The event, appropriately titled Open Streets, is a family-friendly, bike-friendly event meant to bring neighbors together. The Piranha Bear art collective was invited to have artists set up booths to show and/or sell their art. I'm not sure what kind of art-buying crowd will be there, but I'm happy to get my name out there as much as possible. In between getting everything ready for my Friday and Saturday events, I've been trying to produce a few more works on paper, since they seem to sell faster in the street fair setting. I'm also toying with the idea of taking one of my 5-foot tall canvases and working on it during the event as a live painting demonstration, and to get people interested in my work. Wish me luck!

What I've Been Doing & What's Coming Up (I Want the World to Know)

Dear sweet bucket of paint thinner! I haven't posted anything for a month! But it wasn't all bon-bons and rainbows, this artist was working.

Here's what I've been doing:

I completed some works on paper, and a few canvas paintings, I built a storage bench for the dining room, and made my painting space a bit more user-friendly.

Oh, and I participated in two art shows.

First was Arts Goggle, an awesome event that happens every spring and fall in the Near Southside Neighborhood of Fort Worth. It's kinda like three large block parties connected by trolley service. I was in the Park Place block party, along with the rest of my Piranha Bear art members. We had our row of art booths for people to visit, look at the art, and sometimes even purchase! This was my first good-sized art festival, and I learned a lot about how to make my booth more appealing to visitors in the future. I also learned that I need more tarps for my booth if I'm gonna properly protect my paintings from the rain! I passed out lots of business cards, and sold three of my works on paper: two paisleys and a ribcage piece.

The second art show was a home show. A wonderful local lady, Mrs. C, who purchased a few of my paintings previously really wanted her art-loving friends to appreciate (and hopefully purchase) my work as well! I showed about 50 canvases ranging in size from 5x7 up to 48x48, some of my paisleys on paper, a few framed prints, and the blank sketchbooks I've had made. I also brought my sketchbooks. Honestly, I wasn't sure what the foot traffic would be like, and I wanted to be able to keep myself creatively busy. I needn't worry about staying busy, the first visitor arrived within 5 minutes of our announced start time! My sketchbooks did come in handy in another fashion: one of the ladies who stopped by commissioned me to do two original drawings based on some of my doodles and designs. Pretty exciting! I was lucky enough to sell three paintings, seven works on paper, and a half-dozen sketchbooks.

Here's what's coming up:

From November 8th through the 29th, I'll be participating in my fourth gallery show at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. I will be sharing the gallery space with fellow Grizlybexar Collective member M. E. Majeske. Her medium is photography, and she has her work printed on stretched canvas. The opening reception is the evening of the 8th, from 6 - 9pm. This event is free and open to the public, and there is always at least one gallery space with great snacks and free booze (and non-alcoholic drinks for our sober friends). I'm hoping to sell every piece I hang in the show, because I'd love to have space in my house for new works, and I wouldn't need to borrow my friend's truck to get everything home!

Thanks to my membership in a few DFW-area Facebook artist groups, I heard about a 24-hour open call for regional artists for an upcoming event called Art Conspiracy 9. I hurriedly crafted a submission, and then waited. And then forgot about it. And then remembered that I still had not heard anything. Then I received that awesome email saying I was gonna be part of the event! So on November 9th, I'll be driving into Dallas for a 4-hour creativity blast. Dozens of area artists and I will be creating original works of art on provided 18x18 wooden panels. These works will then be auctioned off the following Saturday, the 16th, during their fundraising party. All proceeds go towards a different local charity every year. This year's beneficiary is My Possibilities. I'm really excited to be a part of this event!

I may have previously mentioned about a second art show in November, but because event conflicts and other unknown issues, the venue won't actually be ready to host a show until December at the earliest. So now I'll be participating a Piranha Bear show in December! As I have more details, I'll be sharing them.

After the November and December art shows I'll slow down a bit to work on some home projects, but art will still be happening! After all, I have an April 2014 art show to start preparing for!

I've got work to do!

All this past week, as I was doing things that needed doing (but weren't art), I really wanted to draw and paint. Well, I kinda got to paint. We bought a new wooden screen door, so I gave it a primer coat, and a first coat of high-gloss finish paint. Colonial Red - it looks fantastic. But anyway, I continued to deal with the boring aspects of the art business: cataloging & pricing my art, and trying to figure out a documentation/ spreadsheet/ record-keeping format that actually works for me. One positive aspect of forcing myself to do the mundane business stuff is that my wandering mind kicked into high gear and really started thinking about future projects and what direction I'll take current unfinished works. I'm also trying to fine tune my art-time/ house-time balance, so i can get work done and still cook, clean, wash, fold, etc.

And I just realized I've been home from vacation for 2 weeks, and haven't organized OR posted any of the thousand-plus photos I took. I now have more work to do.

This week will be finalizing my submissions for both of my November art shows. More documentation. And maybe creating a few new paisleys.

Down Time

So this week, I'm producing zero art. You read that correctly. And I have my reasons.

a. I'm recovering from Saturday's Clearfork Music Fest, where I had both an art selling booth, and I was doing a live-painting art installation. I spent the entire week preceding getting everything ready I could imagine. Completing unfinished works, signing finished works, building furniture for the booth, etc. Saturday came and went and exhaustion set in, and I'm just gonna take it easy for a few days.

b. I'm in the process of cataloging all of my completed works. Everything from photography, pricing, double-checking dimensions, to putting it all in an organized spreadsheet. Ah! The joy that is the business side of art!

c. I'm also attempting to organize my photography. I take tons of pictures, but I don't always get to use them the way I'd like to. Hopefully reorganizing them will help with access in the future.

I'll be back to the creativity soon, in fact I've already been thinking about a few paintings I'll be working on next week!