...changes of pace...

Okay...
Sorry I have not posted for TWO WHOLE MONTHS...

Last posting was the dog show in Palm Springs, which was AMAZING.

Since then, I manned my booth at the big Denver dog show.  Which was even MORE AMAZING.

After looking at the artists in Palm Springs, I thought, "Hmmmm....well, maybe the dog show crowd is too CONSERVATIVE for my art."

After all, I like to use PINK.  And other colors THAT ARE NOT BROWN.

And I could really give a flying whatever about whether the dog's conformation is correct.  I'll get it right in the painting, sure, but what's really important to me is capturing that dog's soul.

And the art I saw at the California dog show was MUCCCCH more conservative than mine.  Beautifully done, sure, but...personally, YAWN...

So I went to the Denver show in February with my new little vendor tent, with its DALMATION SPOTS and giant paintings of pink French Bulldogs and wondered if I would be drummed out of the show because my stuff was too wild for those potentially stodgy dog people to handle.

And...NOT SO!

It was totally awesome--tons of people saw my art, and EVEN BETTER, tons of people BOUGHT my art!   And people seemed TO GET what I'm trying to do--in terms of communicating the animal's soul!  And, even better, if they didn't LIKE my art, THEY DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING!

So I am making sure that the dog show people know that yes, yes, yes I want to come back and am not above resorting to bribery to do that!

Which means I am REALLY busy now!  Hooray!  I'm even painting horses!  What the hay (ha ha ha).

Okay, now that you're wishing I'd taken a permanent hiatus from this blog, let me get to the point...

One of my new clients wants me to paint her lovely (but deceased) Lhasa Apso.  She came into my booth and really seemed to like my art (which at this point is all NEW acrylics--not the old watercolors/kid art style I have been doing for years).  But when she went home, she looked at the paintings in her house--all watercolors and oils and thought, well, maybe my style is too crisp.

She even sent me photos of the art in her home and wanted to know if I'd ever worked in any other media besides acrylics.

And since I spent years and years painting watercolors, I said absolutely and I sent her a few images of pieces I'd done (including the one above, which I call "Mazatlan Floral" since I took the photo at the lighthouse in Mazatlan and there are flowers perched on AN OILCAN.  Which kind of epitomizes Mexico and its approach to environmentalism, if you ask me.)

So she went for it.

And NOW I AM FREAKING OUT.

I just tried a rough sketch using my old watercolors (which I practically needed a blowtorch and a pair of industrial bolt cutters just to OPEN) and I have to face it.

I TOTALLY SUCK AT WATERCOLORS RIGHT NOW.

Which would really throw me into the depths of despair IF I DIDN'T HAVE A BUNCH OF OTHER WORK TO DO AND I DON'T HAVE THE TIME FOR A CRISIS.

Plus...at ONE POINT, I DIDN'T SUCK.  And I can even REMEMBER not sucking at watercolors.  It wasn't all that long ago.

Clearly this is going to be a bit of a re-learning curve!

On decisionmaking...

Why do we make the decisions we do?

I've been wondering about that a lot this week, partially because I've been wearing ruts in memory lane for about 10 days.

You see, last weekend was my 25th college reunion!!!  And Jon and I made the trek back to Williamsburg, Virginia.  I was never very good at taking the advice that Steely Dan gave me, and I DID, after all, attend (and graduate from) the College of WIlliam and Mary in 1986.  

We had a total blast, wandering around the college and partying with friends in Colonial Williamsburg (a place I never had the disposable income to frequent back when I was a student) and kicking leaves and going to a late-night fireworks/open-bar/dinner/dance-party in the Sunken Gardens that was AWESOME!

As I was dancing to a WHOLE BUNCH of Michael Jackson cover tunes at said party, I suddenly remembered a time, 26 years earlier, when I was a student, living in one of the old dorms near to the Sunken Gardens.  

And the Homecoming alumni party was going on REALLY late, and I NEEDED TO STUDY.  Those old fogies just WOULDN'T STOP! I quite clearly remember thinking the words "old fogies."

Now I'm one of them.  Which you could think of as sobering, but I mainly think of as HILARIOUS!

Anyhow, there we were, hanging out in this beautiful place, and I was channelling the Talking Heads and asking,

"Well, how did I get here?"

It was quite a leap from a small mining town (mostly converted to tourism) in the Rockies to go to Tidewater, Virginia, a place I had NEVER BEEN.  So I got to thinking about it.  Why on earth did I end up there?

My EXCELLENT American History teacher, Mrs. Klusman, had gone to Williamsburg the summer I turned 16.  And she brought back all sorts of pictures and raved about how awesome it was...

But that wasn't really why.

Then, when I became a senior in high school, I was inundated with all sorts of promotional literature from colleges ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.  My PSAT scores were high, so everybody except the ATHLETIC places were trying to recruit me.  I had POUNDS AND POUNDS of promo packets from all shapes and sizes of places from all over the country.

Deciding among all that was a tough thing.  And Mr. Fowler, my high school counselor, was little to NO help.  He might have been okay as a football coach (although how would I know?  I only went to half of all the home games and that was only because I played in the band at the halftime show), but his counseling skills weren’t great in terms of helping you make a logical decision about college.

Mr. Fowler thought my scores were AWESOME.  And he really really pushed me attending Smith or Wellesley.  I don’t know why.  Maybe his wife had gone to one of the Seven Sisters or something.  So, okay, thanks to Mr. Fowler and generally being overwhelmed with all the information, I sent apps to Smith and Wellesley.

Which, incidentally, although I was accepted, were two schools that I COULD NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS HAVE AFFORDED.  But I didn’t really know that, at the time.

Add to that, the fact that, despite all my reading, I was a kid in a tiny Colorado town, and the only places outside Colorado that I’d ever been in my life, besides a few trips to Kansas and Wisconsin to visit family, was backpacking down the Paria Canyon.

And the Paria did not have an accredited college.

But I did kind of want to see something different.

So, in addition to expensive Smith & Wellesley, I also applied to the Colorado College, JUST IN CASE I won the Boettcher Scholarship, which provided a full ride to any school in Colorado (and I did not win the Boettcher).

To be honest, I also WANTED TO GET THE HELL OUT OF COLORADO.

So I applied to William and Mary, almost based on a whim.

The photo I included with this post is VERRRY similar to one that was in William and Mary’s promo pamphlet in 1981.  It was of one of the campus’ old brick buildings and a picket fence next to it.

I REALLY liked that photo. 

That’s why I picked William and Mary.

I remember that Mr. Fowler was less than impressed at first.

I had no idea at the time (and neither did he) that William and Mary was the second-oldest institution in the country, or that George Washington/Thomas Jefferson/etc. had all gone there.  I didn’t realize it was considered one of the best public schools in the country.

I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WAS IN VIRGINIA UNTIL WE MADE THE PLANE RESERVATIONS TO FLY THERE WHEN I STARTED SCHOOL.   (The geography standards people would probably have a field day with that, but there IS a Williamsburg in West Virginia…)

I fell in love. Williamsburg was a great choice and William and Mary was a great match for me.  And I am still in love with the College and the colonial part of town and the wonderful professors and students I worked with!

(To be totally truthful, I sort of hate the New South crap on Richmond Road, where I worked at a sweatshop/pancake house full of ex-convicts the summer after I graduated and it gave me a new perspective on Southern living that was closer to “Deliverance” than I’d received from studying at William and Mary.  And a lot of writing material.  But that’s another story.)

And it all hinged on that one photo, which I can still see, clearly as ever, even through all the years and the many miles.

Decisionmaking…it’s funny!  The power of an image is IMPRESSIVE!

Happy Halloween!

Early morning ramblings...

Holy cow. It is taking FOREVER to load this image.

Maybe it's because I'm on the road and off the mainland, sitting in the lobby of a Hawaiian hotel (the only place in the building that they have wi-fi and I CANNOT HANDLE THE WHOLE CABLE CONNECTION THING WITH MY MAC, which is all they have in-room).

Plus Jon's asleep upstairs. Did I mention it's 3 in the morning? Even though that's 7 AM in Colorado, it is PITCH BLACK here. And I very rarely SEE 7 AM in Colorado, anyway.

There's a surprising amount of activity here for 3 in the morning. I have already deflected one guy who came in off the street, looking for some action (although, as I would define it, I am not exactly looking actionable since I just rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes before I staggered down to the lobby. I still have those CRUSTY things in my eyes, for Pete's sakes).

And WHY am I here? TOO MUCH KONA LAVA JAVA ICE CREAM last night.

Jeez. I have NO caffeine tolerance. At least my PULSE is racing, even if the Internet connection is NOT.

I should probably apologize for the long hiatus between posts. Basically I have been travelling a ton. Last weekend was Vegas, for a wedding and I had a deep objection to paying Planet Hollywood an extra $14 a day for internet over their extravagant weekend room rates. Then it was immediately to Hawaii, where I have been on the running track at King Kamehameha School during EVERY SINGLE WAKING HOUR and sleeping the rest of the time. So I have been giving my cell phone a workout in terms of email retrieval.

And I just SUCK at typing with my thumbs.

Anyhow, since I finally HAVE access, I thought I'd post this beautiful image painted by my friend, Tabetha Landt-Hastings. I bought the piece, called "Red Rocks," almost two weeks ago--although I had been eying it for some time. And I finally thought, "Okay, I am going to go ahead and get it." It's an original oil painting, and I know folks have been looking at it in Tab's gallery for YEARS.

MWAHAHAHA, folks! It's MINE! All mine!

Although you can get prints if you like! Check out Tab's online store at:

http://tabetha-landthastings.artistwebsites.com/

Aloha for now!

The overlord does not approve...

Smokey is not impressed.

My portrait of Tripod, the three-legged Australian Shepherd who blasted past me at the Lucky Mutt Strut last week, is MUCH LESS IMPORTANT than, oh just about anything else she can think of, including spiders and the lint ball that's under the desk.

It doesn't matter that it's still in the ugly underpainting phase. Even if it were finished, it would lack her approval. It's just missing something...interesting in the way of subject matter, I suppose. Like a CAT.

Which got me to thinking about artists and approval of our work. I used to think I needed EVERYONE ELSE'S approval, OR I WASN'T AN ARTIST. This wasn't just when I was a kid or a teenager. It lasted well into my forties. I am AMAZED I got as much done as I did, given that I felt I was sneaking one over on everybody every time I touched a pencil or a paintbrush.

What a load of garbage.

So I wonder how many other artists have put off producing because they either a) didn't get the recognition they felt they deserved for their art, so they invalidated themselves (Geez, those drunken frat boys didn't notice the brilliance of the dialogue in my play, so I guess I'm not REALLY a writer) or b) had their art invalidated by somebody (Don't quit your day job.), somebody who probably considered themSELVES once a potential artist of some sort, but then gave up to become that most talentless of all professions, a CRITIC. I know that, for YEARS, I was UNBELIEVABLY critical of artists who actually had the COURAGE to be artists. All because I was pissed off at myself for being such a COWARD.

You recognize this, don't you? We've all been on the giving end or the receiving end of this at different points in time.

Somehow I got to the point where the only approval that really matters to me is my OWN. Sure, I WANT people to like my work--it's only possible to have a viable art business when your work communicates to people and they like it enough to buy it. But really, whether somebody approves of my work matters only to THAT extent. And if somebody else doesn't like it, fine. Everybody's entitled to an opinion; just don't expect me to agree with you. No matter WHO you are.

Smokey's Santeria Cat Shrine

And...after having SAID all of that about the Santeria Cat Shrines, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here's Smokey's completed shrine. You can see that we have ACTUAL plumbing pipes (unUSED, in case you are wondering) as part of the whole water feature theme. I really love the way her fur glows in this painting. She is a VERY silver cat in real life, so I mixed some aluminum powder with the paint when I painted her fur and it really shines! Using the mixed media and wood panels, rather than canvas, really frees me up, expression-wise!

If you also have a cat that you worship, and would like me to construct their very own shrine for you, please contact me!

Much easier than expected!

Wow! Uploading a photo was SOOOO much easier than I expected!

So this is a photo of me with Norma and Megan Smith, at Megan's Bat Mitzvah celebration on May 20! Megan is holding an original painting I did, called "Megan's Garden." One of the themes for her mitzvah was bees--and Norma, her mom, also told me that Megan loved gerbera daisies!

When Norma first contacted me about the painting, I DID NOT GET BACK TO HER in ANY sort of a TIMELY MANNER. Because I had NO idea if I could paint a picture of a bee that was not: a) totally cartoon-ish, to the point where I was disinterested and where DreamWorks and Jerry Seinfeld would come after me for copyright infringement ANYWAY, or b) absolutely TERRIFYING, like something out of SWARM, which would send a thirteen-year-old screaming for cover and hopelessly emotionally scarred.

I tried to call around to relatives and find out whether Megan had any PETS, since that's what I'm focusing on now. And, of COURSE, she HAD had a kitty-cat, which, UNFORTUNATELY had exited this earthly plane in December, due to old age. And it was kind of a PAINFUL subject, so I wouldn't have been earning any brownie points for poking at that wound!

So I found out, much against my will, that I could paint bees! And gerbera daisies! Honestly, at this point, I don't know why I ever had any doubts! That is one awesome bee! (I know, I know--you can't see it very well in this photo. Which is why you need to check out my Facebook gallery or my website for a detail!)

So if you would like to commission a painting for a special occasion, I am up for it, now that I am a honeybee expert!

Although I don't know how I'd do if your theme was stinkbugs or vultures. You might not hear from me for awhile until I figured it out!