North Coast Open Studios

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Its Open Studios Time.   This coming weekend, June 6 and 7 from 11am to 5pm at my studio.  

2286 Ralphs Ct., Eureka, CA.  This is an annual event held in Humboldt County and was started many years ago by a few of our esteemed local artists.   It has now turned into a big event from Garberville all the way to Trinidad and beyond.    Come by my studio to see new pastels and oils and to take advantage of special offerings from the studio wall!   See you here!

An Award that Has Inspired Me

There are artists in my extended community who truly blow me away with their energy, intelligence and abilities.   I am constantly amazed at the level of commitment and tenacity, not to mention the level of artistry I am presented with by my peers and by artists who come to me for coaching and career consultations.  I am also in awe of how legions of artists have learned to take their careers into their own hands by utilizing websites and blog formats.    My blog is still in its infancy and I’ve yet to find the right formula to share information for artists while showcasing work for my collectors.   I do LOVE the fact that this little blog has so much potential…..we’ll see where it goes.   I am working on it.

Today I was happily surprised to be  given an award for my blog by an artist/blogger/colleague/friend  Casey Klahn.   Casey is a pastel  artist and super blogger from Washington State.   His exquisitely minimal pastels remind me of why I chose to work with this medium in college.   I was influenced by an exhibition of George Segal drawings and sculpture at CSU Long Beach.   Segal produced a series of simplified figures in bold pastel colors.   Casey’s work has a similar immediacy.  He has a kinship with Wolf Kahn but I always think of those George Segal drawings…..Thank you Casey!   You have inspired me to blog and blog some more.

 The Noblesse Oblige Award is given for the following accomplishments:

1.The blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances of different cultures and beliefs.
2. The blog inspires, strives to encourage and offer solutions.
3. There is a clear purpose at the blog and it is one that fosters a better understanding of social science, politics, economics, the arts, culture, science or belief.
4. The blog is refreshing and creative.
5. The bloggers promotes friendship and positive thinking.

The rules are as follows:

1. Create a post with a mention and a link to the blogger who presented the award to you.
2. Display the award conditions.
3. Write a short post about what your blog has thus far achieved.
4. The blogger must present the award to blogs in concurrence with the award conditions.
5. The blogger can display the award at any location on their blog.

In kind, I am presenting this award to  intuitive artist, mandala maker and blogger extraordinaire  Sue O’Kieffe.

Los Altos Fine Art Fair and Crashing Mac

I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING SOME OF YOU IN LOS ALTOS THIS WEEKEND, MAY 16-17 FROM 10-5, BOOTH 301

LINCOLN PARK, FOOTHILL EXPRESSWAY, LOS ALTOS, CA.   THANK YOU TO ALL OF MY COLLECTORS AND FRIENDS!

Art Fair Season is upon me and My Mac is crashing.   Something about an unresolved kernel panic.   I am not good at this……But I’m excited about going to Los Altos next weekend and setting up to show my new pastels to a town that holds many collectors of my work.   For the past 10 years I’ve been attending this and other shows in the West, this year I’ll be at only a handful of select venues but Los Altos is always near and dear to me.   My supportive collector base has made me an invited artist year after year and put me in the #1 space of the show, right smack next to the entrance and for that I am humbly grateful.   Hopefully my computer will hold out this week – I’ll have to have a technological epiphany or read the manual and neither scenario is going to come naturally.

 Friday  5pm my favorite time of the week!   After working hard from Monday through Friday, including getting up every day at 6:30 am, making my daughter’s lunch and driving her to school for zero period at 7:25 a.m. and days filled with Wii yoga, treadmills, painting, emailing, networking, tweeting, facebooking, consulting, coaching, painting some more, ordering supplies, making dinner, talking to my sister on the phone (a rare treat),  grocery shopping with teenagers, watching softball games in the cold at 9:00 at night,  switching mediums mid-week from pastel to oil, ordering up a ton of supplies from Utrecht, coming up with creative dinners every night for the family, chaffeuring my daughter (who has quite a life), watching my daughter receive a certificate from the Bd. of Supervisors for committee work on Youth Relay for Life,  meeting clients, blogging, spoiling my labrador who thinks she’s a person,  monitoring every cough for the swine flu,  and checking in on American Idol to see what Adam Lambert is going to do next I  look forward to the break the break that is the weekend.        I finished this painting this week.   Another water piece but a departure somewhat.   I got lost in all of that activity in the movement of the water and how the light danced across the surface.   As they  say on American Idol “I had fun with it.”  I’m going to go enjoy my weekend now.   Starting with a little quality time with the husband.   I hope you all have a great weekend as well!

A Bit About Art Coaching

In addition to being a full time artist, wife and mom and other self induced labels,  I also have been a marketing coach to artists for years.   Locally I am a consultant to the Humboldt Del Norte Small Business Development Center. Its a great little gig…I get to meet with artists at various stages of their careers and help them launch further.     Its interesting because I’ve found that it has as much to do with coaching as consulting.   Artists sometimes need to know they are as ready and worthy as they think they are.   Sometimes they need guidance and a little remedial training before putting out a full scale effort.     Whatever the case may be I truly love watching these artists succeed.    In addition to the marketing advice (that is also available in freeaffiliatemarketingbusiness.com site) I am their hand holder, mother, guide, cheerleader.   I am truly inspired by these artists and their willingness to try at all cost to make their livelihoods creating art and for the most part I’ve been duly impressed by their work.

When I was just getting out of college in 1982 my expectations were low but I put my work in juried shows and had some beginners luck in establishing myself in the corporate collector market.  I parlayed that into further gallery exposure combined with teaching for a while.   In the late 1990’s the internet opened everything up and access to information was like a gift from the universe.   No more going to the museum bookstore to purchase the latest book on art marketing.   I was in heaven and completely overhauled my business plan.    I was about as happy as a parent maintaining a career could be until this bloodbath of a recession blew across the planet.  Though it has been rumbling for a while I’d say that for most it hit hard this past fall.   I’ve ridden through a few recessions in the past without incident but I dare say this could be different.   I have no illusions and neither should anyone else.   This is serious.  I’m still in the holding my breath phase as it hasn’t had a deleterious affect as of yet but I wonder about the upcoming months and even years.

  On the flip side its also a very good time to produce your best work in the studio, network, reassess, and revisit your business plan.    Social networking has produced a brave new world for artists to source out new audiences and perhaps new venues for exhibition and representation.   Take advantage of Facebook, Linkedin and even Twitter (which I am slow to learn.)    Or start a blog.   I admit, I’ve a little lax on developing my own but hey, I’m wearing many hats these days and didn’t feel the need until, well, last fall.   But I am the eternal optimist and I continue to plug along and encourage others to do the same.   Collectors still want their art and when all this messiness is sorted out we artists will still be here, producing away.   Ultimately its not about marketing at all but rather the creative impulse, the urge to forge ideas and visual delights.  I’m hanging in there and encourage everyone else to do the same.