Weekend Round Up

Indigo Blue Path, 2006, Oil on Panel, 12x12










I ended up having to take a drive down to Woodstock, my very favorite place, on Friday. I had a piece accepted into a regional show at the Woodstock School of Art and due to my recent disorganization, I had neglected to write down the delivery dates on my calendar, so I missed the delivery date by a few days. A terrible faux pas, one that I apologized profusely for until the girl there began to look at me as if I had a mental deficiency. When I got back home I still had to work for a few hours as well as prepare for an event on Saturday.

A friend of mine, Susan, and her husband Jeff, run an organization called Wildlife Learning Company, which provides science and environmentally based programs to students as well as presentations at various local public events. This year they were the official planners for the Otsego Lake Festival, which is an event designed to bring attention to our lake and its environmental needs. Susan asked me if I would be interested in putting together a children's art booth and in a crazy moment of nostalgia I said I would. When I lived in Utah, I worked with a non profit arts center and during those years I helped to organize more kid's art projects then I can even remember. They are a ton of work, exhausting, but worth doing, because kids really enjoy making art and/or a mess. This event was suppose to be held at the lakefront park in early July, but the park was still partially underwater from the flooding in late June and so it was rescheduled for August 26. We (two of my kids were to help me all day, they started out well, but when friends showed up, they both bailed on me) put together a booth with a dozen workstations and visitors could use watercolors, crayons and colored pencils to paint a picture of the lake. Naturally, they painted all kinds of things and there were some beautiful abstracts too, which I totally encouraged. I love how children are not afraid of watercolor, uh, like I am. They just jump right in and enjoy it. I didn't keep track of how may kids came by, but we went through a package of 250 pieces of paper. Pretty good turnout on a rainy day for a dinky little town in the middle of nowhere. That event pretty much took all day, but when I got home I still had to work on the frames on some of the pieces for the Enderlin show.

On Sunday I did all of the paperwork, packed sixteen paintings for Enderlin and four paintings for Carrie Haddad Gallery and headed for Roxbury. At Enderlin, we set up all of the pieces along the wall and it was really nice to see them as a group in an uncluttered setting. My studio is so small and crowded with stuff that even if I could find room to display everything, I can't really get a good idea of how the group looks together because there's so much junk! So usually I just cross my fingers and hope that they all fit together. Anyway, the gallery director seemed pleased with the work and I was really happy when I left to have finished up another thing on my list. I headed for Hudson to deliver a few pieces to Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson. Carrie has recently turned a back room into an area to display work by all of the artists she represents and so I wanted to give her a few new pieces. I also had a chance to see the space where I will be showing my work in November (more on the show later) and there is a spot that will be perfect for a really big (well for me anyway) painting. I am thinking 48x60 and although I will have to move some things around, I think I can manage to make enough space for a big panel. Maybe.

Finally, after being super busy for the last several weeks, today I can go back to being just regular busy. Normally I would spend this week having a proper meltdown and avoiding my studio, but I have to get right back to painting. At least I will have some time now to clean the chicken house and weed the flower gardens. Yippee.

One Fish, Two Fish

I meant to post yesterday, but some joker sent my husband a huge file and told him it was ok to open it. Well, it wasn't really. Our computers moved at a snail's pace for the rest of the day and so doing anything on them was impossible.

Anyway, the last few days have been so hectic. I know I always say that, but really, they have been. I am crazily trying to finish up a 48x60 panel in addition to three 24x36 panels so that Doug can deliver them to the gallery in Soho tomorrow. I still have to paint the edges, photograph them and put the hangers on. At least I am finished painting them. I was still doing that yesterday!

I would have spent all weekend working on them, but on Saturday I was in charge of running an art project at the Otsego Lake Festival, a local community event. I did this same event last year and while it was fun, it was also draining. I had thought maybe I'd bow out this year, but in a fit of insanity I said I would do it again, when the organizer asked me.

This year I decided to do fish prints on t-shirts, cloth or paper, using real, but dead (and gutted) fish. I used to include this activity in the events I put together in Utah and the whole painting a dead fish was always a popular project with the kids. Here, very few people who came by on Saturday had ever seen this done and so I think I cemented my reputation as a creative, if a bit kooky, artist in these parts. While last year my booth was busy, this time it was downright packed from start to finish. It was all I could do to keep up with rinsing brushes, wiping down the fish, hanging the prints up to dry and explaining the process to the participants. Luckily Doug came to help and my daughters and their friends were so helpful too and stayed with me nearly the entire afternoon. Even though I was utterly exhausted after being on my feet and feeling frantic for almost 6 hours, I have to say that it was a really satisfying day. The kids (and adults) who made prints seemed to really enjoy themselves and even the endless jokes by parents about the fish smell and fish for dinner were funny. Well, for the first few hours at least. Heh.

Now that my feet don't hurt anymore, I am feeling very happy about the whole thing and I suspect I will be doing it again next summer....