What a great party.  Stevie said Best Art Opening Party Ever.  Some people just know how to have fun.  And hardly any mess, really.  These are my people.

Let’s do it again, soon.

3.3.13

Where am I ?  Where is my ART?  For the last 18 months I have been under the spell of the Vampire Albatross Co., a constant, blood-sucking presence that I tried to coax, coddle, constrain into something of value–only it was LAURIE who was constrained and drained.  What art have I done?  I spend all Sunday doing accounts instead of pruning pear trees.  I lost touch with my Calligraphy guild.  Such high hopes!  Such crushing isolation!  So many cool ideas unrealized, so many revolting, crappy t-shirt designs–printed!  Why?  This is not my beautiful life!  This is not my beautiful Art Studio!  Well, I think I am done with all that.  I think SMALL is the new watchword for 2013, I am going there now  .  .  .

While weeding out old photos, I found this shot of a work in progress.  Pastel and acrylic on black gesso’d canvas panel.  Took this to a class on glazing and it looks amazing now, but this is the preliminary “before” painting.

Yesterday I was in tears, overcome with emotion at the botch I have made of  this venture–So confused, such a muddle, so overwhelmed and unhappy.  I can’t go on alone.  The people I had “thought” would be involved, they are ill and unavailable and uninterested.  Today I release and discharge by salt and water and TEARS and my words, the sad sick story of utter abandonment,  failure, imprisonment to the extent I want to chew my foot off and escape, three-legged, into the forest.  Today I have staged the shop beautifully and brilliantly for the Art Murmur event, and ART opening–so sweet! So fabulous!  This is who I am.

Every page, blog, email, website I go to to try to add content or update or message keeps changing format.  You get something figured out, then some fool decides you don’t have enough glitter and Lindsey Lohan booking photos staring at you from the corner of the screen.  You click on a familiar button or tab and suddenly you are faced with an idiotic question or challenge, having nothing to do with the purpose of your visit.  Three hours later I  still haven’t gotten to the point I intended.  What’s the hell is wrong with the color of my teeth, anyway?

The building used to be a grocery store, so these transom windows hinged at the bottom, opened by one of those grappling hook poles from a hundred years ago.

Now there is a sort of drop-ceiling loft, at a level where the windows are readily accessible.

When the glass in one broke this summer,  Steve took them out and rehung them so they open sideways, using the original latches–snap!

Today we put up a chandelier in the downstairs front window, and Ann brought a string of twinkling white lights, too busy for home–here they almost compete with STICKY written in light rope to the west, and the Christmas tree lot to the east.

I have wanted to light these windows up from day one.  next plan, a word in my windows, too.  What will it be?

It’s more than just My Story, it’s embedded in the daily ritual passed on to me.  For the first year, either the Expert was there, showing me his way to do things.   Then he would come to “help”, when I really needed information, and he would send me on some frantic errand, upbraid me on some idiotic detail such as something I didn’t clean correctly, as if it were still his property, as if I were an idiot, an interloper.  It finally broke free for me when I found a big mess of ink in the back sink–which I just left, without saying a word.

I am still shocked when I see the original photographs, remember the details of the rusted sink, the darkroom light switch I had to stand on a riser to reach, the panic of running out of supplies I didn’t know how to replace, the anxiety built in to every little task.  Even now, just figuring out cool, new, different ways to do things, it’s based on something I learned from The Expert.

Constant upgrades and changes,  putting down colorful wool rugs, painting a purple wall, writing on it in yellow chalk, entering my own password in my own Imac.  My personal values of saving energy, making friends with people who come in or call, making a community, a community center, piece by piece.  I often find myself lost in routine rather than ritual, although the actual business is not nearly as time-consuming as it was even a few weeks ago.  The mental hamster wheel is gone, replaced by my own natural calm.

Just now I am beginning to go through my Prints, to sort frames and move the t-shirts into the background, really get my Gallery space realized for the holidays.

Pivotal to this will be finally getting the metal counters out, that will be a huge breakthrough.  I am composing a romantic craig-list ad, I have photos, I have dimensions–just do it!

Saturday September 1, 2012, marks one year I have been in business.  August was a wonderfully long month, the rent is paid with the deposit on the latest job (finished and home at 9:30 last night–with the Moon!) shipping out today.

I have a couple of helpers, although no one is getting paid but the landlord, the dentist, and the suppliers, and the utilities, and the dented can store.  The ink kerfuffle is sorting out,  my neighbor is donating a big glass display case–careful! !  Moving that sucker in.

I am still trucking things back and forth from shop to studio–the camera is here, the scanner there, the card-reader here, the email there, the blog here, the contact list there, the antique, squirrel-driven Mac at the shop, the PC at home, all wickedly, incomprehensibly incompatible .

When I find my camera I will take some photos to post the calligraphy job that came out so beautifully.  .  .  .  also at my facebook site

Months go by without a post, worse, without any new art.  There are sketches and

a simple sketch

scribbles in my notebooks-

I feel I’m not making much headway artwise .  At some point the tide comes back in and I start drawing again.  i turned this into a screen and printed a line of t-shirts.  It turned out very well.

Inevitably, what I am learning technically will translate into screenprints .  .  .  or vice versa

discharge, water base, and oil base inks