Almost there now!
The opening of the trail preview exhibition went well, I don’t know if anything sold but it was a good turnout. It is up until Friday the 15th when we have to come down for another festival exhibition, photos of Don McPhee.
So it’s just the actual open studios now…starting this Saturday!! I have the day off work tomorrow to sort out the last few bits, and list and price the work that is for sale. I have the snail room almost hug just waiting on two more prints coming back from the framers. I am liking the long back wall where I have put all the crawling snails, it’s very snaily and traily. I will post some photos when I get the last piece up hopefully tomorrow. Oh and I mustn’t forget to buy some wine.
Not long now! I have to hand in for the exhibition tonight, its gona be an old fruit oil…I think, well I don’t think I can change my mind as Mike is working late and I won’t get the chance to get anything else ready. I am a bit nervous I asked a lot of people to the last opening and not many turned up this time I asked more and I think everyone is coming.
As for the house stuff I have started getting ready to hang my Snail Room. I have been painting edges and tiding up a few things, if the edges are dry enough I will start to hang properly this weekend. I am also going to put a few misc bits in the hall and will have the rest of my work to browse in my loft studio (must remember to make some mind your head posters!)
I have started three new canvases that I of course don’t have a hope of finishing but I think people will be interested to see work in progress. Two of the pieces I am very excited about because they are the beginning of a new theme of earth angels….I think this may be another blog as I suppose this one will be coming to an end soon.
Oh dear the kids have been away for 3 days and I thought I would get so much done, but I still had to work all except one day and I still feel like I have so much to do.
The open studio is only 3 weeks away now!!I thought I had my art centre exhibition piece sorted but I can’t use that piece now so I have to think again…..oil painting or print?, old fruit or snails?, big or small?
I am also trying to re print a lot of stuff because the water soluble inks that I tried out just don’t give me a strong enough print, can anyone suggest a good lino block printing ink? I am going back to oil at the moment. I am rushed off my feet, stressed and wondering why I started with this but I think some part of me is really enjoying it.
The other thing I am worried about is what I do with the kids for two weekends while I have the open house, if they are around they will jump up and down making noise and not let me talk to anyone who comes. Mike will have to take them out a lot!
March has disappeared on me, gulp! I have been working some extra hours in my job (computer game art) because of ongoing milestones. This means early mornings and leaves me rather tired for working (on my art) after the kids have gone to bed. We have also just been away for a few days so my list of work I wanted to get done for the open studio will have to be reduced. I can’t believe it’s just over one month away now and I still don’t know what to put in the exhibition!
I am going to try and get my studio space sorted this weekend as Mike my partner has just finished a cupboard he was building for me. I should also take some bits in for framing.
I won’t get much time next week as its Easter holidays but the kids are going to their grandparents the week after which will give me the “whole” evenings and maybe one whole day! As for the kids I got an email from Andrew Bryant yesterday asking about art and parenthood and how this impacts my career/practice. Well they do impact everything greatly. As you can see from this post already any time I have to make art has to fits around them. My, kids, my art, my partner, my job it all has to fit and it’s difficult, but the edges blur and I find it’s more a case of weaving it all together rather than trying to keep things separate.
I could moan on about lack of time and if I read my entrees back I probably do but the truth is, before the children came along I was so absorbed in my career in computer games that I wasn’t making my art at all and it was burning a hole in me. It was on maternity leave with my second child Frankie now 3 ,when Mike and I both got made redundant that I started again. When I did go back to my job after my first Molly now 6 I dropped to a 3 day week. After the redundancy and 17 months off with Frankie I got the job I am in now doing 4 days a week (I would have liked 3). The reduction in my hours at work mean I will probably not and don’t really want to progress career wise in my job. I will stay in the position I am in, a 3D Environment Artist rather than a lead which I used to be or a management roll. With the career path heat off my job, I can carry on pushing that drive and effort back into my art my ideas my painting, printing, sketching, my kids, the big passions in my life. Having the children has made my time so precious I just have to try to manage it well.
Overworked, stressed……and I can’t decide what to put into the next exhibition in May. I wasn’t happy with my work in the last exhibition. I only want to submit one piece but I just don’t feel like anything is good enough.
I am having a complete crisis in confidence; I am a bit rubbish really I know, but I will carry on anyway…ho hum.
The exhibition is being hung on the 1st of May and will run through the first two weeks of the festival so I have a little time to think about it. I didn’t sell anything in the last one but my small watercolour shell was coveted, and Fiona at the White Gallery has offered to take some of my prints. So you never know.
