awesome!

so many people came through Slingshot yesterday! it was amazing! and here i was, all set to spend the day quietly crocheting, greeting the few people who might come in to look around, drink tea from the coffee shop next door, and just kick back in such a beautiful space for the day. nope! my retail you-had-better-greet-every-single-person-who-walks-in-that-door experience kicked in and i did not get much crocheting done at all! there was a constant flow of people all day long. so many people from the neighborhood came in to wish us well on our venture and express their hope that we'll get to stay in this space for a long, long, LONG time. i can't tell you how many people told me that it was wonderful to see a gallery pop up that shows this kind of art. awesome!!! :D i can't even tell you how good that makes me feel.

we are already busy planning the december show. it is the last month we are guaranteed to have the space so we want to do the best job we possible can. it's such a wonderful opportunity and just so rewarding. the beautiful artist Meagan Donegan is at the gallery today. i love her drawings of sheep. LOVE! if you're in the are, pop on in and say hello!

sunday afternoon (2-6pm) is the reception for 'tiny' at Studio Gallery which i am very much looking forward to. i love just being in jen abd rab's space. it just plain ol' feels good to be there.

i tell ya... the last few weeks it has felt so amazingly wonderful to be a working artist. :) i am so so so thankful.

november will be an awesome month!

i cannot believe it is november already. the 2nd to the last month in the year. geez. doesn't it seem like it was new year's eve just a couple of months ago? doesn't it feel like we should only be in april? don't you feel like we should have a bit more time to get rolling on all those straggling new year's resolutions we made? ha! but maybe this is how i know we really are gearing up for winter: joining the chorus of people talking about how quickly the year went and how each year seems to go by faster than the last. this one sure did! and next year will too! AHHHHHHH! remember how long a day seemed when we were little? how large time felt, how expansive summer break was? summer break felt like an entire year.

but november is actually quite an amazing month for me and i am looking forward to each and every minute of it. the install on saturday at Slingshot went amazingly well. the space looks absolutely gorgeous. it really does. the funny thing about art exhibitions is that once everything is curated and set in place, it always looks better than you could have imagined. always. and there is this wonderful moment that comes where you are actually impressed with yourself. :) it's a great feeling! and i pretty much spent the entire weekend feeling pretty impressed with not only myself but with the other artists i'm showing with. it feels fucking fantastic to have your work in the same space as the work of other artists you respect. i've wanted to show with freya for 3 years and now it's happening and i am ecstatic! if you are around, please come down and share the joy! the whole thing is quite an experiment - we are the people actually physically running the space for the next few months. it's our gallery for a time. the space has been lent to us temporarily and we are turning the magic on. i'm not sure what day is mine to sit the gallery but i'll let you know as soon as i find out. the opening reception is this saturday november 6th from 6-8pm at 890 Valencia. come on down and bring a friend and make some new friend too!


cell phone pic sneak peek!


after setting up, i went across town to Studio Gallery and dropped off 5 pieces for their annual "tiny" exhibition, a show that is definitely a san francisco favorite. all the work in the show must be 7" x 7" and under and is price capped at $400. it is the place to be if you want to give art as a gift for the holidays or if you want to start a collection of your own. it's an amazing show that i'm so happy to be a part of again. i think it is so important to encourage people to see the arts as a very human activity, not something rooted in elitism and removed from daily life. this show helps to bring art in to the home, to make it accessible and comfortable to acquire. the first reception for the show is sunday november 14th from 2-6pm. here's a little preview of the work i've got in the show, priced at $200:



fall (2)
6" x 6"
oil on canvas, 2010


and the afternoon/night before the reception at Studio, from 4-9:30pm there is the reception and live action benefiting Visual Aid, the annual Big Blue Deal, to attend. i have a piece on the auction block again this year (Visual Aid is one of my absolute favorite benefits and deserves its own blog post!)


Private Romance (Angela, age 19)
42" x 35"
oil on canvas, 2010

and i hope that you can make it out or, if you are an artist in the greater san francisco area, donate a great piece of work to their cause. it is such a fantastic and important way for artists to help support their own community. it really is. please click the link above and check them out. Visual Aid is am amazing foundation and i feel absolutely honored to be able to do something that may help other artists in need. this auction in particular hits very close to home.


LOTS of great stuff this month! and i hope if you're willing and able to make it out to any of these events, that you will introduce yourself! it would be so amazing to meet you! sincerely!!!! :)

whooo...

i am beat! i mean BEAT! i slept and slept and slept and didn't manage to drag my silly self out of bed today until 9 o'clock. yikes! that's like... 4 hours behind schedule! oops. looks like The Jog will have to wait until this afternoon. by the time i'm done drinking coffee it'll be much too hot for the little girl to spend a solid hour running and hiking around in the blaze of the sun. i do not want to stroke out my little dog. so in the mean time, painting will be the order of the day. my usual. :)

yesterday, i spent the day in the city and it was absolutely wonderful. WONDERFUL! i met the lovely mina dresden (highlight of my day, week, month!) and the show she's got up right now, Jet Lag, is stunning. if you like work with a solid conceptual core, you'll love this show. the work is just beautiful!

after that, i dropped Lineage 2 off at the gallery and joked around with all my buddies over there. it's always such a great time at HANG. it really is. everybody who works there is super cool and not bourgie in the least and loves to talk as much as i do... well, almost as much as i do. i wake up talking, so... i'm a bit hard to beat when it comes to that sort of thing. :)

and then after that, i went over to the Studio Gallery to pick up some old work of mine and talk with jen and rab. they are such sweethearts. so positive and happy and light-hearted. it's always fun stopping in to talk with them for a bit and see all the new work on the walls.

i had an awesome day. awesome. and by 9 o'clock last night i was completely wiped out and heading to bed. i slept a solid 12 hours. dang! super dang! guess i needed the rest, huh! ha!

anyway, my maids need some attention. it's sunny and bright and a good day for working outside. i like working outside in the beautiful natural light and people stopping by to check out what i'm doing and my dog sniffing around and a glass of wine from the neighbor during break time.

art and stuff...

the last three days have been so friggin' wonderful i hardly know where to start! first, i dropped off two big gulp paintings at SF Studio the other day and Jen (the owner) was so thrilled to have them for next months show. she is such a sweetheart and such a funny, welcoming woman that i feel honored to have been invited to show at her gallery again. and the new space she moved the gallery to is beautiful! congratulations, jen!

after that, i swung by HANG to see Freya Prowe's solo show Blackwater (i missed the opening on first thursday because i was under the weather). she offers us beautiful, haunting work, completely rendered with a black and white and grey palette (squeal!), and influenced by old german folk lore and fairy tales. stunning work and i was so bummed i missed the opening reception! congratulations on an awesome show, Freya! here's one of my favorite works in the exhibition, the title piece of the show:


Blackwater
35" x 35"
oil and ink on zinc
Freya Prowe, 2009
photo courtesy of HANG Art Gallery

if i had the cash, i'd buy every piece in the exhibition. i've always been a huge admirer of Freya's work and she is such a warm, kind person in addition to being a wonderful artist.

also, i'm toying with the idea of closing my Etsy shop... i'm starting to think that it might not be the right fit for my work after all? i'll think about it awhile longer but, at this point, it just doesn't seem like a good idea and could possibly be detracting from the galleries i'm involved with. at very least, i'll wait to close the shop until the listings expire in a few weeks but after that, i'll just be a shopper at Etsy. i love the site and i've found so many great artists through my involvement with Etsy and i'll continue to support the site by buying other people's work. we'll see... i like leaving the door open to the possibility of having a change of heart but i'm just really starting to think that i need to give my complete attention to my galleries.

ahhh...

still knee deep in my cleaning/weeding/sorting/discerning/discarding extravaganza but i'm sufficiently stocked up on coffee and managing to hold on to the initial inspiration that jump started this whirlwind of change and renewal.

today i took it a bit easier than i had the last few days and made time for painting and drawing. i finished another big gulp painting and will be taking two of those little sweeties to jen at SF Studio tomorrow afternoon for the march exhibition "Delicious". i'm so thrilled that people like those funny little paintings! yay!

and i started a sketch book - something i have tried and failed at many a time. this time around, it isn't just for quick sketches, notes, and doodles. i'm taping in old postcards from art shows i saw and admired, bits of poetry, scraps torn out of newspapers and magazines, and some real honest to goodness painting as well. i figured if i jammed all my little tokens of inspiration in to one place, it'd not only help me control the chaos that is my studio, but also become an extremely useful tool in terms of reference and ideas. i'm tired of losing good ideas because i don't have a space to store them. my neurotic, obsessive mind isn't good for that. :)

i've also made a huge pile of old artwork that needs to be gotten rid of. it's mostly stuff from the early years of studying art and really, really bad. some i'll keep because it's always good to hold on to a few pieces from a different time in life (to laugh at, at least), but i've saved way too much old art and i simply don't have the space for it all. and, back to the ritualistic outlook of this cleaning spree, i don't want the past following me around quite so closely anymore.

i'm an entirely different person than i was 4 years ago when i first moved to the Bay Area. i mean, i still laugh at farts and tell off-color jokes and have a wardrobe dominated by the color black. i still have my romantic fixation with broken, rusted objects and used books and hand-made sweaters. i still talk people's ears off and stay up way too late and drink way too much caffeine. but i've also got a much deeper set of ethics than i had before moving here and going to CCA. i've got a much stronger sense of self, a clearer idea of right and wrong (as it applies to my own life, anyway), and a much more forgiving, patient, compassionate demeanor. i've grown up alot and i suppose i just feel like it's time to let this new person flourish, not crowd her with relics from the past. i even threw out some old journals! GASP! it just wasn't worth waking up old ghosts to find snippets of good writing. so... in the recycle bin they went and, hopefully, their next incarnation will be much brighter and happier than their life with me was during those years.

as for today, i am feeling great. i feel positive and capable and happy. inga (my dog) and i have still been pretty diligent about going for jogs and hikes. we never miss more than a day at a time and those missed days are becoming fewer and fewer. i feel healthy and strong again. life is good.

always hopping on board at the last minute... but it seems to be working for me

yesterday was quite a day! absolutely wonderful, actually! i swung by SF Studio Gallery in San Francisco prior to going to the reception at HANG and managed to get two paintings in to the TINY exhibition they've got going on there. The show itself features an enormous amount of artwork - everything from paintings, to prints, to jewelry- all of which is under 7" x 7"... hence the name TINY.

Walking in to the gallery yesterday, it was such a treat to see the walls completely covered (salon style)in art. and Jennifer, the owner, is so sweet and smart and welcoming that i'm just so pleased to be working with her. here's one of the painting's she took:


little girls
6" x 4"
oil on canvas
2008

i've been trying, mostly without any real success, to get the little girls back in to my work for awhile now. but this past month, it's finally started happening for me and i am glad to see them again. i missed them... and maybe i'll continue to let them keep their heads this time around. :) no promises though.

and even though i DID bring the camera to the reception last night, i left it in my bag. i guess i'd just rather be part of the event than let a camera mediate my experience of the event. i like being in the mix, mingling with new people and having conversations. i was just having too wonderful of a time chatting with the other artists in the show to break away and shove a camera in their faces. i don't know, sometimes it seems taking pictures just ends up being the proof that you weren't really taking part. not that i don't love photography, i do! but i guess this is probably why i'm not a photographer.