Diary of an Emerging Artist:
January 17th 2000
Well, here I am only 17 days into the new year and I still haven't made a list of my New Year Resolutions, so here goes:
(1) PAINT MORE !!!.
(2) Do less art teaching. Enjoyable though it is, it takes me out of my own studio.
(3) Spend more time at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (visit at least once a month).
(4) Enter fewer shows which are juried by slide, cost large sums of money to enter, and for which the odds of getting accepted are very low indeed due to the large number of entries.
(5) Apply for fewer one-person shows (I'm doing enough anyway).
(6) Get accepted for the Sausalito Art Festival again.
(7) Apply to galleries well outside the Bay Area, so that I'm still free to show wherever I want locally.
(8) Try to break into the print market.
(9) Create art which is not necessarily saleable, but which is thoroughly original AND sincere..
(10) Get myself an assistant to do routine office work.
That'll be enough to be going on with.
I look back on last year and can
hardly believe all the luck I had. I sold a huge number of paintings, making it
possible to equip my studio with 4 new sets of flat-files, buy a new computer
and printer, stock up with large quantities of paper, canvas, and paint.
My collection of art books has grown enormously, too. I had two very
successful Open Studios at which I met a lot of neat people, many of whom have
since taken my classes in collage. I took a bunch of delightfully eccentric
women to Xilitla in a remote part of Mexico, where we painted in the jungle by
day and tasted exquisite local food and margaritas by night. I'll never forget
the 9 hour public bus journey which tested our bladder capacities sorely, as
well as our nerves as the tortuous route took us round heart-stopping bends on
the edge of chasm after chasm. The Sausalito Art Festival was the best one I've
ever experienced, with thousands of enthusiastic visitors and perpetual
sunshine. I also built this website, which amazes me even now. Everything I know
I taught myself. It's been so exciting, having the chance to communicate with
other artists and art-lovers all over the world. How did I exist without e-mail?
For the first time I was invited to teach at the Amsterdam Art Tools of the
Trade Show, where I had an absolute ball and finally met Barb Dougherty, the
esteemed editor of Art Calendar to which I have subscribed for several
years. She taught me a lot. I was also given the chance to show some of my
Shakespeare series in a college in Michigan and was criticized in print by the
local art critic! Oh yes, and I painted plenty of new works, including the
Proust series which can never be displayed as a body of work because each new
painting sells as soon as it's finished. And I set off into the previously
uncharted territory of incorporating digital text in my paintings.
January 2000 has begun with a bang. I've already sold 8
paintings in just over two weeks. This frightens me, if the truth be told. I
look around my studio and I see ... mainly blank walls and blank canvases.
Partly this is due to the fact that I have a show of 16 of my larger mixed media
works at a local salon-cum-art gallery. I'm secretly hoping very few of those
will be sold, because I need them for my one-person show in Merced in April.
Just have to paint more!
The collage workshop at the Downtown Art Center in San Rafael
last Saturday was great fun - 10 extremely energetic, not to say obsessive
students. The standard of work they produced in just 6 hours was outstanding.
I've just got to stick a few more address labels and stamps
on the last postcard invitations to my show in Mill Valley so they'll be ready
for mailing tomorrow. If anyone reading this wants an invitation, let me know.
Back to the studio....
February
2000 Entry
April 2000 Entry
July 2000 Entry
December 2000 Entry