Goals Set and Met. Now What?

Two For The Road

It's already been quite an eventful year in Linda-Land just four months in. Chock-a-block full of ups, downs, and ins and outs. I just reached my 60th year with mixed feelings so I thought a look back might help me make a little sense of it all.
I'd set a few goals for myself in 2014, one being that I didn't want to enter my 60's overweight so I set about to loosing around forty pounds, and fortunately did it. Everything feels better now, although I'd like to have ten more pounds gone by mid-summer. Small goal, but a goal nonetheless.
Another goal, and you might think me silly for having this, was, along with the weight loss I wanted to be able to fit into a pair of jeans that had belonged to my dad, by the anniversary of his death on Jan. 26th. Eleven years ago I was back in Indiana helping to care for him when he was dying. I hadn't packed many clothes because I wasn't sure how long I would be there. I flew in Xmas eve,stayed until the first week in Feb. and had gotten really tired of wearing the same things everyday, so dad offered a pair of his pants to me. They fit and I got a little change of wardrobe to take my mind off of the saddness. After he died I took them with me and put them away. Due to some side affects from the anti-depressants I took after returning home from this life changing event, I put on some weight...and then ballooned up to a really health damaging weight.
Two somewhat related goals were set and then met. As I said in the title, now what?
A dear friend fell down the stairs and broke her ankle badly Dec. 28th and then four days later on Jan. 1, her husband, another dear friend of mine, died. I've been renting a living/studio space from them since May; after knowing them several years and working on two art books with him, it made perfect sense to me to do my best to help her recover, not only from the physical injury, but from the emotional loss. Doing this has also helped me to deal with my own grief. I've stayed busy enough to stay a few steps ahead of it.
Just recently I got back to making some artwork...little scratchboards, mostly rv's or trailers to satisfy my desire to someday own one and hit the road like a nomad. I'm also revisiting the mixed-media 'little house' series. There are a few examples shown here. I hope to sell a lot of them at the spring version of The Little Craft Show here in Northwest Arkansas. It's May 30, downtown Springdale. One day only. I'll add more information later as the date comes closer. It promises to be a great sale.

Oh yeah, I also got a new car. After almost forty years of owning trucks of one kind or another...I got a little suv. You might say, "what got into you?" Oh hell, who knows? It was a reality check of sorts, I had an older truck with 218,000 miles on it and plenty of expensive future repairs just waiting to happen. The money I'd been saving for an RV was there and willing to be spent. My days of hauling tools and lumber around are pretty much over, so a truck is less important to me than it once was.
So, here I am. Wanting to get through the memorial service for my friend on the 26th, really hoping that all will begin to heal. There's a goal worth having, mentioning, and reaching.
 What's next? Art, of course, always. And staying right where I am for a bit until I figure it all out. Keeping the weight off, would be good, of course. Mostly I do a little work and thinking about all of this everyday, so I figure I'll come up with something. If not, at least I've been working and thinking.

One more thing; I need to get some commission work going and so I'm officially declaring April half-off month for pet and people portraits. If you've ever wanted one of my scratchboard interpretations of your pets or people, now's the time to jump in and book them. Normally a 5"x 7" framed scratchboard is $150.00. All of April they are $75.00, including shipping unless you're out of the US and then the shipping is extra. So give me a holler and I'll get started on your custom drawing.

July Is The Cruelest Month

I've just come through what has been the darkest July I've ever had. (I'm sure there may have been darker times in my life, but this is the most recent, most painful one so let's leave it at that.) There wasn't any one thing that I can put my finger on and say, "This is it, that's what's causing all of this crap!"  No, just a general feeling of sadness, and failure, and even loss of faith in the path I'm on. Good god. Or maybe not good god. Art sales have been slow, and I haven't had any 'mailbox money' in a while. I'm not destitute yet, but have been feeling like something must change, and soon.  Last night I was even searching want ads to see if any jobs were out there for this 58 year old broke down woman contractor/artist without a college degree. Wah-- Poor me....right? Well, this morning I woke up and took a little ride on my bicycle and thought some things through. (it was a beautiful ride) I'm closer to having a plan of positive action now. I'm sure I'll keep all and any of you folks who read this blog posted, because I'm a sharing kind of gal. The last few months I had pretty much given up and had been feeling discouraged about my path. This is interesting because during that time I've also finished up the Cat Scratchin' book and sent it off to the designer, and had a successful little poster project fund on kickstarter. Go figure. None of that seemed to matter when I was feeling lowest. That's how it works I guess, the spiral down into that dimly lit cellar of hopelessness. Don't worry, I'm on my way back up now. I guess I had to fall down and get scuffed up a bit so I would figure out a different way to achieve the things I wish to do. Ultimately what I realized was that I could get a regular 'day job' (or two or three) and hate every minute of it, or do what it is I feel I'm meant to do and just love doing it, most of the time. I'm choosing love. It's going to be a little more work, but I'm pretty sure it's worth it. And I've been doing it for the past twelve years so why give up now?
The above photo is a fabulous mixed media sculpture (reflective traffic/construction materials etc...) hanging on the wall at the Hive restaurant at the 21C Museum Hotel in Bentonville, Arkansas. I went there last week and had lunch with a good friend and then we went on to Crystal Bridges to see the Angels and Tomboys exhibit. The food was good. The exhibit was ok, I wish there would've been more Tomboys, but that's just me. I thought it was kind of a weak show. (Great classical paintings, but give me 20th and 21st Century art any day of the week and I'm happy.)
Ok, here's my message for today; Don't give up...just don't.

Art For Love And Money

Ok, I'll make this quick. I am an artist, a professional at my craft. When someone recently, oh, like, maybe a city in Texas that shall remain un-named asked me to design a poster for a festival, for free, I didn't exactly jump at the project. But, being the good soul that I am, I thought about it for a minute and said, "sure, why not."  Good Exposure, right? Uh, yeah, right. Well, I made the design, even hand delivered (after I had sent a photo of it to make sure it was what they wanted). They then started back-pedaling on the whole deal after I dropped it off. At least they had the 'grace' to call me and say they wouldn't be using it because they couldn't line a up place to hold the unveiling and auction. (they auction off the artwork to help fund the festival...but not to give funds to the artist...I'm.not.commenting.on.that).
So, reportedly they are shipping it back to me. We'll see if that happens. Here's the good outcome from all of this. If I don't know you or support your 'cause' it will be so much easier for me to say, no, not interested. There are some very good folks who I will always donate a piece to, every year. But the above, might I say, a$$hats? Forget it, don't ask me, again, ever.
That being said, I'm headed back to the Fayetteville this week. To get started on the cat book drawings and do a 24"x24" dog drawing for 'Petcasso' the big fundraiser for Animal Trustees of Austin which takes place in April. Wah hoo!

Song Bird and Royal Black Cat

Just so you don't think I've gone over the top or around the bend with the monkey thing...here are 2 new scratchboard drawings just delivered to Wally Workman Gallery here in Austin, TX. http://www.wallyworkmangallery.com/

These are both kind of new image types for me. 'Royal Black Cat' and 'Song Bird Time' were both inspired by a couple of old ads from a vintage magazine I had in the studio. The Gallery is selling these 5"X7" pieces like crazy. I am a happy scratching gal! Need to scratch out 3-4 more in the next few days.

Black Bird Scratchboard and Art Shows!

Been working on a 16"X20" Scratchboard. Photos are beginning basic layout and finished product. All I have to do now is put the 1X2 framework on the back and prepare it to hang...hopefully in Wally Workman Gallery. Went to several openings on Saturday. Open Studio of my pal Terrell Powell. Love his work! He doesn't have a website but if you google him you can see examples. Stopped by house/studio of Kelly Newhouse, She's young and up and coming. Really like her style. I picked out a small colored pen drawing for my collection. Kelly is one of my favorite employees at Jerry's Artarama here in Austin. Don't think she has a website yet. Will post it if and when.

Another friend had a solo show at Wally Workman's...Cheryl Finfrock. Her website is http://www.cherylfinfrock.com/ Wild colors and wild subject matter! She makes her dreams come alive on canvas. Great show, great turnout.

Finally I stopped by Progress Coffee http://www.progresscoffee.com/ for the opening of a photography show by Rui Cavender. Great black and white images. And I got to pose for a photo with two guys who were dressed up in 80's porn star disco outfits. (they were going to a theme party later) They were decked out in skimpy colorful bathing suits, brown vests (with no shirts) and big sunglasses. What fun! I'll post that photo later!

Scratchboard drawings for the slow economy

The Wally Workman Gallery is having a group show called 'A Grand Affair' this month. I've contributed 12 5x7 scratchboards priced at $100.00 each. The show features artwork under a thousand dollars, by most of the gallery artists. I think I've sold about 8 of the 12, 5 the first night. So, not bad for a down economy. Of course I'm barely making cost on these but what matters is I get to make and sell art! Life is good here. I'm going to be doing a demo at Jerry's Artarma in March. Scratchboard of course. I think it will be fun and maybe I will 'convert' some folks to this medium I love so much. Here are some of my pieces...