Downtime…
March 31, 2010
…is exactly what I need right now, and exactly what I’m not gonna get.
Apparently my kind of focus lasers in on whatever I’m creating, period. That means it excludes ALL nonessentials, such as keeping the house/yard/car/studio tidy, paying bills (oops), stopping to smell the (insert odiferous flora & fauna here), changing the sheets (which is OK because I don’t sleep anyway), grocery shopping, behaving civilly to passersby, etc., etc.
Lessons in artsmanship: Dealing with galleries
March 28, 2010
It’s official: I’ve had my first “me” show in an art gallery, where I was one of the attractions instead of one of the crowd. And boy did I learn a lot, mostly about what NOT to do.
(For the record, the show is at Guardino Gallery on Alberta Street in Portland–if you missed the reception you missed a really nice party and a really beautifully laid-out show, including Leah Wilson’s wonderful paintings. It’ll be up until April 27.)
Biggest lesson: It’s one thing to send a couple of pieces to somebody else’s show. It’s quite another to BE the show. [Read more]
Waiting for rejection
March 28, 2010
She was almost exactly as wide as she was tall, and (apparently) humiliated by it. The first words out of her mouth were “I used to be really thin.” She whipped out a picture of herself as a teenager to prove it. Mind you, she was 45, happily married, the mother of a little girl and a college freshman.
What do you say to something like that? What do you say when a woman begs you to accept her for what she was, and ignore what she is now?
And what the hell does it say about ourselves? What does it say about a world where rejection is so fast and unthinking that a vibrant, intelligent woman feels she must distance herself from herself to be credible?
I saw her eyes watching me, waiting for me to reject her out of hand, and I was ashamed.
Partied hearty
March 25, 2010
No idea who these folks were at the gallery tonight, but when they saw me snapping iPhone photos for the blog, they wanted to be in the shot and say Hi.
Wow. That was fun.
One thing I discovered tonight: People like to pet cast glass. "It's silky. How did you get it like that?" "Four pieces of wet-dry sandpaper and two full-length movies," I replied, and she shook her head.
Leah did her paintings in a town about 100 miles away, and we only met once. We were amazed at how well our work paired. I guess that's a sign of a great curator. This is Wave Vessel, in Bullseye pate de verre.
Just got back from the reception for my first advertised art show, and I had a ball. The work got a pretty positive reception, I loved the way it fit with my gallery partner Leah Wilson’s paintings (so did she) and people couldn’t have been nicer. The folks at Guardino Gallery (and the myriads of friends and family who showed up to support me) made it a wonderful experience.
Riverflow, sitting under my favorite Leah Wilson painting in the show, probably took the award for "most petted sculpture." I used a pre-show shot because people's hands were usually in the way during the reception. The piece, BTW, is about 25 inches long and 5 inches tall, 3 inches thick. It's in Gaffer lead crystal, so it weighs a ton.
I got a kick out of watching how people responded to the work. Most saw it as extremely tactile, which surprised me. I’ve spent most of my life struggling NOT to touch the art in galleries, but tonight’s crowds pretty much petted everything. Obsessively.
Come to our party: March 25 at 6PM
March 19, 2010
Hey–
I’m having my first mostly-me art show next week (haven’t yet had the panic attack but am expecting it in about five days). Y’all are most welcome to come if you’re in the area (or even if you’re not but think nothing of flying/driving/training your way into Portland on a Thursday night).
Here’s the formal invitation. And here’s the location:
Guardino Gallery (View map)
2939 NE Alberta
Portland, OR 97211
503 281-9048
Hours: Tues 11-5, Wed- Sat 11-6, Sun 11-4
Oh, and the reception takes place during the “Last Thursday” street fair on Alberta Street. Good food, other galleries, Halibuts down the way for jazz…and all the sculpture I’ve been blathering on about for the last few months. Assuming it actually reaches the gallery intact.
Uh-oh. The panic’s setting in….
Castuwhine
March 18, 2010
Currents Repose in wax, just before investing. She's hollow with multiple layers of wax. A coat of French Red goes in first for strength in delicate areas, then the cheaper Victory Brown bulks out the rest. This one's in Kat's kiln.
What’s worse than Castuary?* Castuary squared. What’s worse than Castuary squared?
Obviously: Castuary cubed.
I am in Castuary for three simultaneous firings, and it’s driving me nuts. I’ve stuffed my own kiln to the gills, along with Hugh’s kiln and Kat’s kiln, as if I’m in some goofy and rather spendy race to see which spits out sculpture the fastest.
And it’s teaching me a great lesson in the whole artist/show/gallery thing: Procrastination costs bigtime money and biggertime anxiety.
Perspective
March 18, 2010
This video was done for an imprint of Penguin Books, originally for a sales conference, but it resonated so much they’ve released it virally. Obviously there’s some hopeful cheerleading going on, and it’s true that the old publishing industry is tanking. But the new? Wide open. I’ve heard the first half of this video from a LOT of people…and I only hear the second half from people who understand what customers (and content) are really all about.
And, incidentally, those are the folks who seem to make a success of social media marketing. So…watch and enjoy.
Mohan
March 16, 2010
“I’m really not a cab driver,” he confessed, as he negotiated a sharp left on what felt like two of the cab’s four wheels.
“You can’t imagine how surprised I am to hear that,” I said drily, clutching the armrest for dear life. “So what is it you really do?”
Boxed in
March 13, 2010
I’ll admit I’m a gadgethead, love ‘em to death. But when did gadgetcool become “couldn’t open it with an IQ of 265 and a sledgehammer?”
Apple’s famous for making gorgeous-but-difficult packaging: Both my MacBook Pro and my iPhone came in boxes with no visible openings. Not even Microsoft, which tends to eschew supercool for nerdish efficiency, escapes the packaging problems: Office 2007 for Mac came in a clear acrylic puzzlebox that took as long to open as the software did to install. Love the software but by the time I got the box open I very nearly returned to typewriter and paper.
But Motorola just won the dumb packaging of the year award with the Motorola Endeavor HX1 Bluetooth headset.
An arm and a leg or three
March 11, 2010
I’m tempted to ask if this is what is meant by “a buttload” but, seeing as how I’m a classy chick, I’ll refrain.