To celebrate the completion of the new studio space (which hasn't actually BEEN completed yet, but will be by January 1st) I've just jumped onto two 2010 group shows in Brooklyn:

The Fiction Project
This project is a sister project to The Sketchbook Project. The Fiction Project sets its sights on literature and creating a narrative book that fuses writing with art.Each book submitted will be exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Library in Red Hook.

The Self-Portrait Project
Be part of a massive exhibition of self portraits from artists all around the globe! Create an 8x10 inch drawing, photo, collage, or anything that represents you. Send it back to us and we will cover our gallery walls with all of the portraits. We're not sure what the actual record is, but we think it will be one of the largest portrait exhibitions ever! Submissions will also be included in a book to document this enormous effort.

I've been creating new things, mostly written work and videos lately, but the journal here was somehow pushed to the back burner. I'll pulling it back to the front and preparing to crank up the heat!

Over the past six months, the husband and I have been working on renovations to the house - including the installation of a dedicated studio. All of my printmaking gear will be easily accessible, the drawing station will be used solely for that, and there is even a place designated for sewing and textile work. We're nearing the point where the drawers and countertops are added and the end is finally in sight. (pics to come)

The point of this entry: expect more to come from this journal soon. I have added five gallery showings to my CV in 2009 and have MORE in the works for 2010!

I haven't created jack in nearly a month. I've let everything else in my life sneak in and take over ALL of my time. The Farmers' Market kickoff is quickly approaching and I only have done about one tenth of what I need to do.

I'm exhausted but I am determined to get back to work.

There hasn't been much time in my schedule for even the quickest of updates lately. Warm weather seems to bring about so many extra things that the family has to do - softball, Girl Scouts, clubs, whatever. Maybe it just seems like more in the Spring and Summer.

I got my first "commissioned" job. All digital and EASY. Another Entrepreneur Mom I know that makes some really awesome vintage-style stuff with retro fabrics and oilcloth hired me to knock her socks off with a new logo and the layout/design of her line sheets. Her business is really picking up and she's been approached by some BIG retailers that want her stuff but she has no marketing materials to give them. Leave it to me. Oh, and she's paying me with merchandise and I'm TOTALLY okay with that. I'll be handing her the logo samples tomorrow.

I've been doing some linoleum cuts lately and have (so far) done two short print runs. Part of one is going in as another contest entry and the rest will be matted and framed (evilegg, I could use some advice on this - or hire you if you're willing to ship) to sell at the Farmers' Market this summer. Speaking of the Market, I've been scoping it out every day they're open and have yet to see anyone else with original 2-D artwork. There were a couple of potters and a woodcarver, but that's it. That bodes well for me.

I have a juried show that I'm about to submit entries for that I'm pretty excited about. The deadline is looming (05/31) and I'm supposed to be getting some kid-free time tonight to work on that. Cross your fingers for me!

That would be me. I think that the competitive aspect of the project motivates me just enough to keep me from giving up.

This contest is for CD cover designs. They give random imaginary album names and song lists for the mock-ups and basically you have freedom to do whatever. I LOVE my imaginary album - I don't think I could have asked for anything better. Did I mention that the prizes are $1500, $1000, and $500? Damn right I'm gonna get my hopes up.

Here's my submission (click for a bigger view):

I have a stack of shiny new addressed and stamped postcards waiting for the mail.

I also have an envelope, cover letter, and entry form all prepared for the exhibit submission I'm sending. To go with that, I also have a nice and short edition of 15 prints to include as my entry. The prints dried overnight and are just waiting to be signed and numbered. This is also probably the only self-portrait I've ever done, or at least it is the only one I can remember. They were a pretty good hunk of work but fun to make and well worth the effort.

Paint has been hitting the canvas. Slowly, but surely. I'll have another abandoned painting done by the end of the week if all goes well.

Where are all of the drawings I "should" be doing? Well, they've been bumped down the list of priorities while I take care of backlogged projects, the occasional seduction of some new medium, or the tending of those new sparks of ideas that pop into my head and just burn bigger and brighter until I take action on them - like last night's prints. The drawings will get done eventually. Maybe I'll knock though this block and pull some great ideas from the back of my brain, who knows?

Well, I was right. I'm extending Week 9 another week. This is a tough one, all right. I can't shake the thoughts like "You shouldn't be sitting here reading email, you should be drawing/painting/sewing! Don't be so lazy about it." I'm not lazy, I'm getting through a block.

The weekend was dry artistically except for a handful of photographs and some "playing" with watercolor and pencil I did on Sunday.

My email this morning greeted me with an invitation to enter a print exhibition starting in Seattle that will travel and be shown at five or six different locations before it is retired. I've done tons of printing over the years and am actually quite interested in and excited about this show. I've never entered MYSELF in any kind of show - juried or non - someone else has always done it behind my back. Nice, huh? Now I get to take a big first step without ever having made a plan for this kind of thing. Seat of my pants, that's how I roll.

I've actually got a piece of work in my head for this show that I'm hoping to get to tonight. It will be a two-process print: wood block followed by screen printing. I'll be sure to post a pic as soon as there is one!

I'm stuck on these mock-ups that I need to send back to the Interested Publisher. I don't have anything together yet. I feel like I need a nice, big chunk of time to work on them (which is hard to come by) because of their level of importance. I could be making excuses because I'm blocked and the ideas are drying up. IF I can manage to get the kids to nap today, my plan is to just start some random doodling - you know, the kind that happens when you're on the phone - and just see what happens. I'm hoping to have one image spark an idea for another and so on.

I forgot to mention that I finally ordered the postcards for the second mailing on Tuesday. They have already en route to me (speedy!) and will definitely hit the mail before the May 14th postage rate increase. I just HAVE to use all of the 23-cent stamps I have sitting around. Hey, whatever motivates you, right?

I was up again this morning at the crack of dark to "sneak off" to the attic/studio. That's really saying something as I'm about as far from a morning person as you can get. I think that it has been helping me to get my brain in the right gear to get through the rest of my day without going completely nuts.

It seems the Crazymakers in my life are at it again. Some people really need to open their eyes and see that all of the negativity that they muddle through every day is INVITED NEGATIVITY. My mother is at the top of this list and is always using her favorite passive-aggressive techniques to fish for sympathy and to get me to volunteer to solve her problems for her. Sorry. Until you decide that YOU are going to change YOUR OWN LIFE, don't expect things to start looking up.

I've been doing some online "socializing" at a great bulletin board for artists. It is very motivating to hear about what others are working on and to see how supportive they are of each other. I feel like this group (of THOUSANDS!) is a very healthy place for me to be at this point in my recovery process.

I think my fountain of imagination is running low. Either that or I'm just not willing to make the effort to come up with something fresh out of my head. I HAVE been working, though, and even got up at the crack of dark this morning to get a jump on a new project. I also made some progress on another of the abandoned paintings that was no more than a primed canvas with a chalk sketch on it. It now has paint. Three colors, even.

A sketch I did this morning of an American Goldfinch (from a photograph):

One of my favorite creative tools, the PrintGocco from Japan, has been discontinued. I am very sad to hear about this. This is the BEST tool for making limited edition prints and greeting cards. It is clean, fast, and easy desktop screenprinting. I had wondered why things I needed were always "out of stock" at DickBlick.com when I went to order them.

This means I'll now be competing with thousands of others for replacement screens and other supplies on ebay :(

The abandoned painting that I was stuck on? I touched up one thing last night and dubbed it "finished". It's all varnished and signed.

Now, on to another!

Thanks to everyone for all of the virtual High-Fives from yesterday!

I just started Week 9 - Recovering a Sense of Compassion. In a nutshell, you're supposed to lighten up with yourself and realize that the reason you're not producing artwork is because you're blocked - not lazy. You're supposed to be nice and supportive of your inner artist.
This is going to be my toughest week yet. I've been beating myself up and doing exactly what I'm NOT supposed to do for YEARS (thanks, Mom, for turning me into a self-hater.) I'm thinking I'm going to have to stretch this "week" out to three or four to be sure that I've got the new habits down pat.

I shook my brain a bit last night to see what would rattle out in regard to the mock-ups I'm going to send back to the publisher but so far nothing has come out. I think I'm frozen with shock and fear. I don't even know what I have to be afraid of - they've already shown some interest in what I have to offer.

I'm going to be fighting with this for the next few days. I'll update as soon as I reach a turn in the road or some kind of breakthrough.

I gathered the mail from the box today with not a single thought that there might be a letter in there from any of the publishers I contacted through the postcard mailing a month ago - but there it was.

It's from one of my top 15 choices. It's a very eco-friendly greeting card publisher. They don't do assignment work but encourage the artist to use their imagination. They don't buy all the rights to an image.

They like my "quirky" style and want me to send them five to ten mock-ups.

SHIT! I'VE GOT TO GET TO WORK!

I've been plugging along with the abandoned paintings and have reached a stuck point. I've left one on the easel since Thursday night and am waiting to see if it "feels done" or if something needs more work. I hate doing this because it usually means that I'm unhappy with the progress of the piece, I'm subconsciously stalling the decision-making, or I'm letting the Inner Critic talk and talk and talk to try and convince me that it's crap anyway. That Critic just will not let it rest.

I've been "Filling the Form" everyday with some gardening while the weather here is still cool enough that I can tolerate it. I like to get everything arranged and planted before May so it really has a chance to grow and fill-in the beds so I can just sit back and enjoy it in July and August. Did I mention that the Summer heat and humidity in Virginia would REALLY surprise most people. It kills me.

I've been fighting through some self-inflicted guilt recently about not drawing every day. I pulled the sketchbook out and it's been sitting at the kitchen table staring at me threateningly all morning. I'm just going to have to feed it regularly to make this guilt go away.

I'm trying to decide on an image for the next postcard and hope to make a decision before Wednesday. It may already be too late to get them mailed before the postage rate increase, but I've got to get it out there anyway. I've only got about three images I'm trying to narrow down, but that damned Critic has really been tearing them up.

I'll try to do this with the kids fighting in the same room and the toddler climbing all over me.

I finished another of the "loose end" paintings last night. I haven't made an official count yet, but if memory serves I have only four still waiting. This second completed painting should really be motivating me to push forward, but for some reason it is not.

"The Artist's Way" talks a lot about ups and downs while embarking on a creative recovery, referring to both productivity and emotions. I haven't really hit a down point until now and it's a really LOW down. I'm at the point where I'm ready to numb myself to everything around me to not have to use my energy to deal with the day to day. I'm going to have to eventually dig myself out of this hole somehow.

I've been motivated by my return to recreational painting and have decided to devote some time to completing those abandoned works I was talking about. I promised myself that I'd tackle at least one a week until the studio was free of those nagging, unfinished canvases. So far, so good. I'm also a bit surprised at how much better I feel about their quality now, too. I don't really think my techniques have improved much but my way of looking at my work has changed considerably. That's what this recovery is all about, right? Motivation and acceptance.

I'm still drawing. I've let myself be more relaxed about the quantity, though, since I've decided to work on wrapping up the old stuff. Painting takes so much more time, and it's time that has to be DEDICATED to painting (you can't just carry a 24 x 36 canvas with you on errands in case you get a few minutes.)

I'm trying to decide on a drawing for the next postcard. I hope to have it in the mail before the end of this month so I'd better get moving. Right now, I'm leaning towards the surfing pie. We'll see.

I painted LATE last night and EARLY this morning. It's something I enjoy doing but one of those things that I start and can never seem to finish. I have a stack of about a dozen unfinished paintings in the studio/attic that have been waiting for me to work on them for nearly a year now.

The painting I started last night I actually FINISHED and I think I know why. I made sure that any time my critic showed her nasty little head that she was promptly bound and gagged. I painted to ENJOY PAINTING, not to have a piece to hang in a goddam gallery or grace the walls of a museum. It turns out that I actually prefer the way this piece turned out more than any of the pieces I worried and fretted over "getting right" before.

I also discovered today that I am absolutely hypnotized by Mexican folk art. I love everything about it - the vivid colors, the primitive look of the subjects, the geometric designs, EVERYTHING. When I look at the paintings I've worked on in the past couple of years, I can definitely see some of that influence.

I'm afraid I'll never be able to visit Mexico for fear that I'll be in a years-long trance looking at a mural on the side of a building somewhere or something.

I haven't been posting much about recovery lately, but rest assured that I'm still on track. I'm heading into Week 6 now and am feeling very optimistic about my progress.

I submitted my paperwork to register as a vendor with the 17th Street Farmers' Market last week - this is the fourth year in a row I've registered and I have yet to even go attempt to sell. I am going to make this summer different. My first scheduled Market weekend is June 16-17 and I'll be taking along postcards, greeting cards, framed prints, and some original paintings - ALL MY OWN WORK. I'm not letting fear (even disguised as laziness) get the best of me. I'm even trying to drag lucky_fool along with some of his lovely metal and wood handicrafts!

The wiring for the ceramic kiln was finally installed yesterday. I picked up everything I need to get a big batch of tiles cooking and will be starting that project with the daughter this weekend. I think I'm more excited than her. I can vividly remember the magic kiln transformation of a glazed clay dinosaur that I made in first grade that had me wanting that magic at arm's reach ever since. Now I have it.

I updated the portfolio page of the website to give it a better mix of work - none of it really is going to be new to you folks, you've seen it here first. I've got postcard #2 in the works and will schedule its mailing sometime in late April. I promise to plug away at some more drawings. I'm getting more and more satisfied with their quality as I progress.