So the big news this week is I finally got a studio! I will be sharing a studio with Shannon Okey at the Lake Erie Screw Factory...hehe, screw. I figure that this will keep me from bumming around when I need to do actual work, as well as provide me with a cat hair free environment. Larger work to come? Quite possibly since space is no longer an issue. I will also have my studio open to the public, especially for the Open Studio events that my friend, and Screw Factory neighbor, Gina puts on. The building itself is an active warehouse and factory, but at night resembles the movie Mute Witness. At least I conquered the ancient freight elevator, and if I get really drunk, maybe I'll take some of the forklifts for a spin! Hoping to have moved in by late June, still need some dry wall and my "day job" work schedule is going to be crazy the next few weeks or so.
On a totally unrelated topic, did you know the singer from Glass Tiger wrote a motivational book? I'm glad I don't have cable, because yesterday I got sucked into some VH1 Classic and got this damn song stuck in my head. The video is a perfect example of what happens when Canadian musicians do too much cocaine at the peak of bad 80s fashion.
The open studios shindig this weekend turned out so-so. I think many of the artists and galleries are really miffed at the organizers, as they should be, for the fact the hours were not even posted until a week and a half before the event -- nor was the website updated with the dates. Hence why no one really knew about it as much as we tried. In fact, many artists didn't know about the event until they saw a stack of postcards with typos in their building lobby a week or less before. Didn't this exact problem happen last year? If I had paid money to the organization that puts City Artists at Work on, I'd be super pissed. Planning ahead can be handy because that way people know about stuff before it happens. Crazy I know.
Anyways, thanks to Kotori Magazine for this little write up of the recent show.
There are also a a few new prints in my shop.
Other than that, I finished a new painting for the upcoming exhibit at Art Whino in D.C. this August. She gave me a lot of trouble at first, she looked like Brooke Shields at one point which had to be corrected obviously. Boobies! I like painting boobies...
"Carlotta" 11x14 inches
This weekend is your last chance to catch "Poise, Posture and Profanity" and it will also be the last time I show in the Cleveland area for quite a long time. Never fear, City Artists at Work is taking place this Saturday and Sunday with extended gallery and studio hours.
Saturday May 16th, 11AM - 6PM
Sunday May 17th, 12PM - 5PM
I will be hanging around William Rupnik Gallery (formerly Artchitecture) in the late afternoon Saturday, so come say howdy! Lots of my artist friends will be showing work at their studios and such throughout midtown; you can find a full list of artists and buildings open to the public at www.CityArtistsatWork.org
Who are these people that charge stupid amounts of money to be your art "consultant"? Not all art genres and scenes are the same, not all approaches should be the same, not to mention any information you need can be found at the library for free. I've noticed most consultants have a spotty job history and are failed gallery owners; on average with two under their belt. I don't want someone who couldn't keep their own business going to be tell me how to run mine. I write my own bio, CV, design my own website and often I write my own press releases -- not the galleries. Why? Because I know me better than some person I just met who will base everything off a questionnaire. The best are the consultants that claim that they know the secret to writing good copy, and in the claim, they have glaring spelling errors or made up words like "impactful". Yes people "impactful" is not a word, stop using it. Twitter isn't magic, neither is blogging, and teaching a workshop on good art portfolio web design isn't a selling point when your own workshop website sucks.
I guess there are those artists that feel lost and out of the loop, but with a little research, they can do anything that paying a consultant can do. I never understood why bands paid PR companies for something they could do for next to nothing. I should know, I had a music promotions side company with my husband for a while. I felt like a fraud because what we were doing wasn't rocket science, anyone could do it. Perhaps they were paying for what my husband's reputation could bring them? In any case, the results we got made several bands very happy and they wondered what the secret was. Simple really: email someone personally. I know crazy right? Instead of an email blast hoping for it to stick!
I don't know, sometimes I just put it down to laziness. Trust me, I am lazy as hell, but somehow I can get stuff done if it is important enough to me. I always thought of people who got life coaches to be lazy for instance. It doesn't help I know a few people who trained to become life coaches, and they are some deeply disturbed individuals with a messy life of their own -- real messy. Maybe hiring a consultant or a coach of sorts makes people feel important? Like you are getting serious and down to business. Maybe they make really bad art and hiring help will somehow change that. Maybe I'm just incredibly distrustful; there are too many hucksters in creative fields for me to count. Maybe I'd rather spend $500 on an ad in a fancy art magazine, than have an unemployed former director of a gallery no one ever heard of tell me how to write an impactful biography.
After starting our celebrations on Friday night and ending them last night I think I feel normal finally. I'm pretty sure I did it a little too hard this weekend and my IQ points went down a tad. A brain fart isn't supposed to last for two whole days, is it?
Today I had a photo shoot with Herbert Ascherman Jr. for his artist series. Spiral kimono, saber tooth tiger skull, an oversize gilt frame and me with a champagne hangover? It's like I'm back in L.A. almost isn't it? I'm quite impressed with how fast the process was (less than an hour) and Herbert is great at directing people like me who will look bored and slouched over if not posed properly. We tried to do something that will look like one of my portraits, he also managed to talk me into taking my shirt and bra off for a few shots -- I'll let you know how it all came out.
My new digital camera arrived and it is black, and shiney, and small, and it almost gave me an orgasm. So far I have just been doing pictures of the cat, but I'll test some artwork out tomorrow. Going from 2 mega pixels to 13.6 mega pixels is like a whole new world for me. I really don't know how I've survived!
On the agenda this weekend in the Land of Cleve?
Pecha Kucha at MOCA on Friday, and
The Screw Factory Open Studios on Saturday.
Eight years ago I went and got myself married. A pagan ceremony on the Dana Point compass, in a purple wedding dress. We still like each other, which probably helps matters quite a bit.
