It's Winter Again!

I took this photo 24 hours ago, wishing so badly for winter to come back. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do love spring....but it's January and January means winter. But our yard was a soggy, icky mess.

Little did I know, we were in the direct line of a winter snowstorm and my wish came true! Now we have snow again which I'm very excited about. The only bad thing is that I tried leaving my house today to head into Madison for an appt that I really needed to go to, but I got out in the road and realized that what I was trying to do was worth a pretty good eyeroll, so I was back inside my house in less than a minute calling to reschedule. 

So I spent most of my day doing art stuff and getting all my pieces ready to hang in the coffee shop. I finished my most dreaded task, applying the matte finish and mounting hardware, and now I'm onto titles and pricing. Ugh, pricing....you never used to be so damn hard. Ah well, I'll get it one day. 

Yola's in Madison

I've been trying to connect with a few coffee shop owners over the past week or so and as it turns out, one of them is looking for somebody to hang art in their shop for the month of February...which is in like, 6 days. I've got enough stuff ready but I felt like I should probably make a few more things just because otherwise it seemed too easy. ;)

These ones are all about the same size, 8" x 12". I need to buy a new reddish orange prisma color pencil [i think they call that rust. what a novel concept...] because mine got dropped one too many times and won't sharpen without crumbling into a million pieces. Once I get a new one, I'm going to color a couple of the leaves on this blue piece.

I'll probably end up hanging about 12-15 pieces or so and I think most of them will be pretty simple, mostly in the $45 - $150 range. I'm excited about the exposure more than anything, really....any sales will just be a nice surprise. So if you're on the West Side of Madison, you should run over and get a latte from Yola's and take a quick browse. They have a fireplace so make sure you bring a good book too. :)

Mixed Media: Progression Clips

I put together this short series of clips highlighting the progression of layers in the last piece I made. It's far from anything spectacular and I need to focus on better image quality next time, but for now I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice for me to be able to see how things came together, because I usually manage to erase that part from my head by the time I'm finished with it. I'm hoping to make a bunch of these to stream during my next art opening.

I'm pushing for 4 art shows over the next year. One solo, one with a friend who recently started printmaking, one group and one in....gulp...Minneapolis|St. Paul. Of course, more would be fun, but I think 4 is a decent number considering I'll still be working and doing the firefighting thing and hopefully going to school during that time. 

If you happen to be an artist in Madison or Minneapolis and you somehow strolled across this post, feel free to shoot me an email. I haven't researched my group show too much and I'd love to hear from groups looking for more people, and I'm also looking for a good venue in Minnesota. 

Okay, well that's all. Talk soon. 

Latest Mixed Media Collage: Drifter

Here's the latest piece- I finally felt that it was finished sometime yesterday afternoon. It's about 12" x 18", on wood that I cut and sanded a couple weeks ago. I don't know how it happens or why it happens, but I almost always end up gravitating towards cool colors, unless I really drag myself to the reds and yellows and oranges. I have been trying to lean toward the sunny-day hues, but in all honesty...I think I'm just a rainy-day girl at heart.

I thought about making a strikingly similar piece with sunnier tones [an idea I came up with about 3 seconds ago after mentioning that I'm a rainy-day gal and realizing that, coincidentally, there are raindrops all over this one...] so I might work on that sometime this week. 

I've got the next 2 or 3 weeks off [fuckshitYEAH!!!] and I'm going to focus on my art stuff pretty heavily during my break. I'm between seasons with my jobs and every year I have the luxury of enjoying my birthday week and then some away from the workplace. Yeah...it's pretty much perfect. 
I've been feeling pretty good lately but there's definitely something that's not right. It's kind of frustrating, but I'm getting through it. I've got another MRI and more tests tomorrow; we'll see how it goes. One thing I know for sure is that I'm not going to request Moby when they ask which internet radio station I want to listen to during the MRI...because that station is a bit nuts when teeter-tottered with the DitDitDitDitDitDitDit RRRRRRRR neeeeee.neeeee.neeee *CLANG*CLANG*CLANG* noise emitting from that damn magnetic-cylinder bed. It was 25 minutes of insane non-stop crazy electronic noize! I couldn't hear the music over the machine and it was kind of funny because as soon as the machine shut it's mouth for a minute, there was the music again, blazing into my ears. Less than comforting. Although I did kind of laugh about it when I realized what I'd gotten myself into. The night before that I had told Joe that I was a bit humored by this recurring image I had of being fed into a big machine with googly eyes and a mouth with sharp teeth and a crooked jaw and that Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" was playing anytime I started to think about this goofy cartoon-like thing. Yeah...I almost requested Pink Floyd for my tunes but I thought it might have been cliche [like they would have known what was going on...] So anyway, I don't know what music I should ask for tomorrow. I'll let you know if my experience is as good as the last.

Cheers to 2013!

Hey hey! It's 2013! Did you all have a wonderful holiday season? Are you all glad that it's over? Yeah, me too. Although I've gotta say- this was the first year in forever that I wasn't running around touting my shiny bah-humbug horn. Not really sure what was different, but I had fun getting ready for Christmas this time which was really a nice change.

We cut our tree down a few weeks before the holiday and the weather ended up being perfect. It snowed for the first time this year and the temp was in the upper 30s. The tree farm we picked was really cool...just a ton of random pines poking out of the ground in a jagged pattern, across acres and acres of snowy white fields. Most tree farms tend to be planted in perfectly straight lines, row after row, with all of the pines separated by type and size. This felt more like we were in the woods, which was awesome.

I was also really thrilled about the day because it was the first time in what felt like ages that I had felt really good. I had enough strength to help Joe carry our tree, which I know sounds like nothing, but it was such a feeling of victory. I felt like a kid who just learned how to tie their shoes. 

I've been mostly fine lately but still not 100%. I'm dealing with some health stuff that's been everything from scary to frustrating to hopeful and back again. I'm still waiting on a diagnosis, and it could possibly take years to diagnose if it turns out to be what I am fearing most, which I'm near certain it is. I won't go into full details just yet, but I'm sure my next post will have more. For now I'm happy that I woke up feeling good this morning and I have mostly just been embracing these kind of days. Today is the first time in 23 days that I have the day off and the house to myself. I'm planning on doing some art stuff and I hope to finish this piece that I started a month ago.

Fingers crossed that I can get it finished! We'll see. I just noticed that my hands aren't shaking for the first time in 6 weeks. I should get drawing while things are good. :) See you guys soon! I hope you've had a great start to the new year.