It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like - Thanksgiving . . .

                        
              From Where I'm Sitting.

It’s a good day in the studio when I can work non-stop for less than an hour and find I’ve moved a piece along to a point where I can almost see the final vision emerging.  It was one of those days last week.

Knowing I had less than an hour between meetings, doing errands and taking the dog to the dog park before dark descended, I rushed over to my studio, put on my coveralls, got out my acrylic paints, oil paint sticks, brushes, water and went at it.  45 minutes later, I stood back and took photos to share with Jim.

Here is a short slide show of the progression of the third panel of his commission. You can stop at any point by clicking on the pause button.

This preliminary sketching is all done on very cheap white butcher paper. The real piece will be done on sturdy Ampersand Claybord where I can layer, scrape, paint, scrape again, layer again and not worry about the undercoating disintegrating. Because they are oversized panels, 24”x36”, I couldn’t find them in any of my local art supply stores.  So I ordered them online from Dick Blick’s and hope they’ll arrive next week.

It’s beginning to look a lot like . . .well, no, not Christmas . . . more like Thanksgiving.  I have so much to be thankful for this year  – all the new art associations made via Leah Virsik/Alyson Stanfield's Art Marketing Salon, especially Egmont van Dyck, my blog mentor; my new artist buddy at the studio, Tyrell Collins who is part cheerleader, part mother confessor; the new collectors and admirers of my work who keep me both buoyed and motivated; my new cyberspace connections via friend @fritinancy (a.k.a. Nancy Friedman) who keep me smiling and involved in this amazing new world; and most importantly, my dearest partner in life, my husband who continues to have faith and supports me in my artistic endeavors, and who can smooth over the worst day with the best homemade tuna tartare and the most loving, empathetic listening.  


At the moment, however, I am most grateful for the growing anticipation of getting to work on new, clean, smooth, all white surfaces, which always has a way of stirring my creative juices. 

So here's to Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, and the coming week, when life will be all about the continued appreciation of good friends, good food and more good days in the studio. And if all goes as planned, I'll be giving thanks well into 2010. Here's hoping you will, too.

A Studio of One's Own . . .

Or What Happens When You Come Down with 'Commission-itis' . . .

It was not one of my best days in the studio. No client and a client I unwittingly stood up. Still, when I left for the day and looked back, I saw the space was mine once again. My work table was cleared of all the materials which covered it since the middle of August – materials I had put there to work with my client Jim.

I closed the door and smiled.  Tomorrow will be a better day.

As of last Thursday, our collaboration moved from one on one in the studio to checking in once a week via phone or email.  Jim called me last Wednesday to say he wouldn’t be coming to our regular meeting the next day as he had a doctor’s appointment. He was going in to schedule another minor surgery sometime this week to repair a malfunctioning wire, which is inserted in his back to alleviate pain.

It was obvious, at least to me, his studio visits had come to an end.

We spoke about the next steps, the images I needed for him to send me to complete the 3^rd section of the triptych; the pictures of my preliminary sketches which I would send him for his perusal; and the type of artists’ wood panels I plan to use.  I promised to email all the information and call him to let him know I’ve emailed.  He doesn’t check his email all that often I found out.

I sent the email Friday.  I called yesterday. No reply yet. 

Now, knowing Jim’s as I do, his MO so to speak, I won’t worry or take this personally.  I’m prepared to get on with the project, hoping to have it completed before the first of the year. 

OK - so I have to admit it (although not news – see August’s post ‘The Shades Are Up Here in the Cyberstudio’): No matter what the project, it helps to have the studio all to myself to do the work.

In the mean time, I think I’ve come down with a serious case of  ‘commission-itis’.  After working non-stop on ceramic and now 2D commissions since June, (for which, I am totally grateful, don’t get me wrong) I think unconsciously, I must be yearning for a B. Altman Art fix – ideas, images, forms, content, all pumped up from my own creative well. Even though my husband sometimes mocks my attempt to ‘multitask’ at home, I can’t seem to do this in the studio. I have to work one project at a time. Jim’s piece first. Next, the lovely little two-dimensional piece I’ll be doing for a friend, using her and her husband’s dear grandmothers’ photos. This will take me into 2010 for sure.

So in my ‘commission-itis’ frame of mind yesterday, I completely forgot I had made an appointment to meet a possible client at the studio.  He wanted a ceramic artist to create a base for his tabletop fountain.  I only remembered this after I arrived at the studio over an hour and a half late. I was briefly mortified. Then, somehow relieved. I realized I really didn’t want to do this project. Still, feeling fairly guilty, I called and apologized, left the message that I was in the studio and told him he could come by. But to be honest, I was secretly glad that he hadn’t by the time I closed the door to leave - when I looked back and smiled . . .

once again, knowing the blessing of having a studio of one’s own.

One Gal's Brush Off is Another Gal's Kick in the Butt . . .

After my last session with Jim two weeks ago, I was so encouraged, I continued working on the preliminary sketch, trying to flesh it out with color, adding a few of the images and the words so it would be ready for his collage once he completed it.

But Jim didn’t show up at our schedule meeting this week, even after I called to make sure he was going to make it and even after he said absolutely he was.  And then he didn’t. (See previous post:  Maybe He Just Isn’t That Into Me . . .)

In the past, when I’ve been ‘stood up’ by Jim, I’ve been so deflated, I’ve either just stayed there in the studio puttering around doing a lot of nothing, feeling sorry for myself; or I’ve taken photos of old work to remind myself that I am a successful artist and have been creative in the past; or I’ve organized the mess which sometimes but not often makes me feel better; or as a last resort, I’ve munched on stale energy bars waiting to see if that would get my creative engine revved up. Mostly, that never happens.

Yesterday, surprisingly, I spent only five minutes feeling like crap – feeling rejected once again. I went to that psychological place for only five minutes and then I just said to myself, “F--- it. I don’t need this guy to get this project going. I have enough to work with right here.”

And that’s exactly what I did.  For three hours.  Uninterrupted.

It was creative bliss.

Instead of waiting for Jim to make his collage, I took the images he would have used and put them in the preliminary sketch as I saw fit.

I don’t know if this will be the final configuration, but I’m beginning to like how it’s shaping up.  To be honest, when I do my own 2D work, I rarely if ever do preliminary sketches.  I take images I want to use and begin working right there on the good paper or canvas, creating as I go. But this project seems to need a first draft, so to speak.

What I did in the studio yesterday may not be anything like the final draft.  But today, it feels like a good start.

Maybe He's Just Not That Into Me . . .

Yesterday, after trying since August to get this project up and running with energy, enthusiasm, and genuine interest from my client, Jim, I was brushed off the second week in a row.  Jim called the studio five minutes before he was to arrive to say that he had tripped over something on his way out the door and now his knee was hurting and he didn’t think he could make it.  OK, does that sound like a legitimate excuse or one you would make up if you really didn’t want to be somewhere you promised to be?  He didn’t show up a week ago either because he had a bad night with no sleep.  That’s an excuse he’s used before and one I can certainly understand, being that he’s still going through physical therapy and does have residual pain.

Maybe I should have read the book “He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys” before I started this collaboration? Maybe I could have bypassed all the emotional ups and downs I’ve had in the past couple of weeks if I had realized from the start, I needed to understand this, in fact, may not be just a client/student relationship. Maybe this is a guy/gal relationship with all its vagaries?


Or maybe not.

The beginning of October was truly exciting for me as the project began to take shape.  Jim came that first week with more images for us to use and seemed to be really taking great interest, after not showing up the week before due to physical problems. I commended him on how well he looked, using only his cane and not the crutches he had used the last time I saw him.

But since our meetings were not as regular as I had hoped they would be (we hadn’t met twice in a row yet), I was wondering if maybe he had just lost interest in being so involved in the project? Or even though he was four and a half years out from the accident, maybe all of this reliving his life –what he was, what he’s lost and what he’s gained - was becoming too psychologically painful for him? Maybe his sleepless nights before our meetings were more about this than his physical pain? 

So I asked him point blank if he really wanted to continue working toward creating his own personal collages to be used in the piece. I assured him that I didn’t want him to feel pressured into doing this and that I felt confident enough to work with the images he’d collected to finish this on my own. He assured me this was a wonderful project for him and absolutely, he wanted to continue.

Taking that at face value, I decided to try and hook him even further by starting work on a compositional preliminary sketch of the ideas we had bantered about verbally. That was a wonderful day in the studio for me - getting out my prisma colors, acrylic paints and just having at it on a 6’ x 3’ piece of white butcher paper. It always gets my creative juices flowing to start drawing and especially drawing large.

When Jim arrived the next week and saw this sketch up on the wall he seemed not just pleased but even more enthused. We talked about my vision and how it would manifest into a finished piece. We looked again at the pictures and words he had collected, the ones I had put on the handmade paper I plan to use to, in order to imagine how we'll place them in this new composition. 

And as he was leaving, I said to him, “OK, next week we’re going to start on your collage.  I think we’ll only need a couple more sessions to get your part done.”  He agreed, with a smile and a handshake. As he left, I was already looking forward to our meeting the next week.

I haven't seen him since.