It Takes a Village to Plan a Show

"Coming to Get You!"  Acrylic 6x6"

I don't have a new painting ready to show you, so I am bringing this one forward.  I wanted to do this post to thank some people who helped me get my show together.  I would not have been able to do what I did without them, and for that, I am forever grateful.  I thought including this painting would be appropriate, because this painting "sold" at the show.  Actually, I was not ready to sell it, because I want to try to enter it in a show in March, but I promised it to a wonderful couple.   I didn't know for sure if I would ever be willing to sell this painting, but when the woman told me a beautiful story of how she rescued a lot of ducks, I was very moved and told her she is the perfect person to have this painting!

Now for the thank yous:

Meet Deb

 Deb heard me talking at work about needing a bio and a "sign-up for my newsletter" sheet for the table at my show.  She jumped right in, lifted my bio from my website and turned it into a file I could take to a printer.  She also designed my sign-up sheet for me.  Without Deb's help, I have every confidence that these two tasks would not have been completed, because I was on a FRAMING MARATHON!  Thank you so much, Deb.  You did a fantastic job!

Meet Jim and Sadie

Jim is the Program Director at the Asheville Humane Society.  He invited me to join the show and arranged for me to hang my part of the show on a Thursday night.  We had to meet after 8:30 p.m., because there was a class in the exhibition room until 8:00.  So, Jim met us at 8:30 p.m. and provided so much assistance with arranging my part of the exhibition that I could never thank him enough.  We kept him there till after 11 p.m., and I am sure he had already worked that day.   He told me he was going to go home to take care of his dogs in between working and hanging the show, and I can only imagine how glad Sadie was to see him when he finally was done that night!

My other helper, Cynthia, perhaps has not yet received my email requesting permission to post her photo, so I will wait on the photo and just tell you how much she helped me.  First, two days before the show, Cynthia picked up the bio and sign-up sheet files from Deb, took them to a printer, and figured out exactly what I needed in terms of paper, etc.  Then, she met me and helped me hang the show from 8:30 p.m. till after 11 p.m.  Cynthia was exactly what I needed that night.  She helped me figure out a nice-looking arrangement for the paintings and did all the configuring of where the nails needed to be and all the actual hammering and picture hanging.  All I had to do was hand her hammer, hooks, etc. as she called for them.  Good thing, cause I was exhausted by that point from all the other prep.  If not for Cynthia, my show would never have looked so nice.  Thank you so much, Cynthia!

(Edit 2/13/13:  Here's a photo of Cynthia!):

Finally, I am forever grateful to the Father of My Dogs for all his help with framing and preparation.  Without him, there would have been nothing ready to hang!  Thank you so, so much!

I am still painting and learning just how valuable the daily painting routine is.  I am finding myself a little rusty from taking a few days off.  Back to it...!


 

Sure and Steady

Acrylic, 8x10"

 
This is one of the paintings I had partly completed during the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge.  I happily finished it today.  I realized this morning that I still had five I worked on during the month of the challenge that were not yet finished.  Two were started before the challenge and three, including this one, during the challenge.

In thinking this over, I realized I have a tendency to avoid the finish.  I remember my art teacher asking me recently if I had difficulty starting, difficulty facing the white canvas.  My response, "Oh, no, I have difficulty when the painting is almost finished, I like what I have, and I am afraid of ruining it!" 

Friends, I must bring the rest of those paintings to a finish!  I am happy this one is done.  I need to be willing to risk ruining a painting I like, or I will never complete anything.  I find the issue is much more pronounced when working from photos than when working from life.  I will soon be doing more still lifes.

 I decided I need to seek permission from the model before putting this one up for sale.  I did have permission to paint it.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - How it Went for Me (and how did it go for you?)

Those of you who have been reading my blog this month know I have had a magical, incredible month beyond my wildest imaginings!  I attribute what has happened, in large part, to deciding to join the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge offered by Leslie Saeta on her blog.  Several hundred artists participated.  The challenge is now over, and Leslie did an episode of her Artists Helping Artists internet radio show all about it.  It was great fun to hear during her show about other artists who sent in emails to her of the results of their challenge month.  Leslie included my email among those she reported on the radio show!  Here is the link to the show:  30 Paintings in 30 days AHA radio show.  She summarizes my email to her right before  the hour mark (she does mispronounce my last name, but that is me she is talking about).  If you would rather read about it, below is a list of all the good that happened to me.  Warning:  Lengthy!  Because it was a great month....

I hope this all doesn't sound too "braggy," I am really trying to just recount, or sort of journal for myself everything that happened so I have it all written down in one place.  I am truly interested if my artist friends would like to tell me their own good news in the comments section!  To my artist friend who is for some reason finding herself blocked from my comment section, send me an email if you want and I will post the comments for you!  I know the artist I am referring to actually completed 30 in 30, too, and for that I applaud you!  (BTW if anyone out there can tell me why one person might be inadvertently blocked from commenting on my blog and how to undo, I would appreciate it highly, i.e. WHAT did I touch??).

1)  Above all, made friends with new artist bloggers and got to follow their work and see some fantastic paintings!

2)  Got into my first show!  The show was at the Asheville Humane Society.  I had two weeks' notice to get ready for the show (I'm not saying they gave me two weeks notice--I stumbled into this show sort of by accident.  You can read  how that happened here.  Great things happened to me through the show including selling some paintings, promising some paintings to other people when I am ready to sell them (including the painting above), and meeting a new artist friend who is helping me take another step in my art career.  You can read more about the show here.

3)  Was accepted onto the waiting list for a gallery, the Woolworth Walk.  Once accepted, an artist remains on the waiting list until a space becomes available.  I am looking forward to having a place to show and sell my work in this fabulous space!

4)  All in all, this month I sold seven paintings and have three more promised to others once they are available!

5)  No, I didn't paint 30 paintings.  As you can see from the above collage (which Leslie taught us how to make), I completed 6 paintings in 30 days.   I decided the better challenge for me was to paint everyday and let go of the idea of needing to finish a painting.  As I have said here before, this decision was SO liberating for me, because it freed me to get into the studio and paint even when I knew I didn't have enough time to finish a painting that day.  And in the interest of full disclosure, NO, I didn't actually paint all 30 days.  I missed a few around the time of the show at the Asheville Humane Society.  That could not be helped.  For example, the day I hung the show, I went to bed at 1:30 in the a.m. after a framing marathon, got up at 6 a.m. (quite late for me) for work, worked from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., finished up last minute things for the show from 5:30 to  7:15 p.m., had dinner w/friend who was helping me hang the show till 8:30 p.m., worked on hanging the show from 8:30 p.m. (earliest we had access to the room) till 11:15 p.m. , drove home from 11:15 p.m. till 11:50 p.m., readied my car and belongings for a hike, left my car in town and walked a half mile up my hill and got home about 12:10 a.m.   Had to leave my car in town due to a promised ice storm.  In the event of the ice storm, I had to know that I could get off my hill and into Asheville for the show, so I had to leave my car at the bottom of the hill I live on.   Needless to say, this is one of the days I did NOT paint!