I don’t really have a plan.

So what have I been doing?!  Well first and foremost, settling into a new place.  Place being city.  I think we’ve now successfully passed the honeymoon phase and entered that really getting to know each others’ flaws part of our relationship.  For example, Philly has surely realized by now that I am terrible about buying tokens ahead of time.  Also that I don’t attend First Fridays hardly as often as I should.  And I’ve learned that Philly has a side thing (or I guess more accurately a full-on affair) with hoodlums and burglars!

Yep, finally after years of living in cities (4 years of Baltimore, 1 year of Phila) I have experience my first breaking and entering!  Goodbye PS3, goodbye laptop.  Also goodbye my new baby DSLR.  Gross, right.

It sucks, but it’s not actually as bad as it could’ve been.  I had a reasonable amount of my files backed up, as well as renter’s insurance.  I wasn’t home when the break-in occurred, and they really didn’t trash the place at all.  In actuality they left it all creepily in place, to the extent where we didn’t realize we’d been robbed until we’d been in the house a good 10 minutes.  Our little fluff Anderson seemed no worse for wear (although to be fair I think that little demon angel could withstand WWIII without caring).

But obviously it’s unsettling to know somebody was in our house.  You feel kind of bitter towards your fellow humans, wondering how somebody can do that without seeming to feel any guilt or remorse.  I was working on a couple of new WordPress themes for a paperpetual.com reboot and that was completely lost.  Photos from my grandfather’s funeral.  Some episodes of trashy ABC Family TV shows; a bunch of recipe bookmarks.  Bummer.  Ugh! 

But life goes on.

I’m going to try to use this as a literal start-over clean slate.  First task is getting in gear and getting paperpetual revamped.  Second (albeit most likely parallel) is starting to make new work.  On Saturday I applied with the super talented WomWoms-making Beki Basch for a booth at Holiday Heap, so we’ll see if we get selected or not.  Craft fairs are what I promised myself this past New Years, so maybe I’ll at least be able to make a little bit of good on that before the year is out!

So… what I mean to say is it’s all up from here!  And inversely (but not really opposite), time to buckle down.

1. What a 5-in-one is and what to do with it

2. Daniel Johnston

3. How to sponge paint without making it look like your gma did it

4. Juice with spinach in it can taste quite good

5. Scenic artists might be bitter and angry but they also band together, get shit done, and probably don’t hate their jobs as much as it sounds like they do

6. The best part of owning your own business is owning your own business, and the worst part of owning your own business is owning your own business

7. Muslin is less expensive than canvas and works just as well

8. It might be awesome/beneficial to learn how to airbrush (similarly, Painting the Secret World of Nature, John Agnew has some good tips on the subject)

9. The Hub is the only place worth going to in Tampa

10. I might want to look into getting into tattooing

I went into it thinking it would take me about a week if I worked steadily. Ha. In retrospect, that thought is hilarious. To be fair, I hadn’t exactly measured the space, and I didn’t have a concrete plan of what I was going to paint (albeit something beach themed). The first thing I did after getting to Palm Beach was measure, and as it turns out 30ft x 10ft x 6ft with 10 doors is actually ginormous when it comes to muraling. 900 square feet of regular house painting, especially if you have 10 doors worth of trim to attend to, takes forever. Then add in carefully measuring and taping off faux window panes, actually painting the murals, and then finishing everything with faux trim? FOREVER.

But I’ve finally finished, so here goes:

Continue to Page 2 for close-ups and details of all the panels and doors!

I came down partially to drive down their BMW convertible (I know, what a chore), and partially to transport the series of Florida bird paintings they’ve commissioned for this house.  I’ve completed three 24″ x 36″ paintings, and will perhaps do more.  But for now, here is the completed series:

(click for enlarged views of each painting)

The thirteenth in the series of watercolor chickens: a Partridge Cochin rooster!

Original watercolor, signed.
8″x10″

For sale, $40!
Or, prints available for $20.
Go to Etsy shop for purchasing.

The twelfth in the series of watercolor chickens: a Buff Cochin rooster!

Original watercolor, signed.
8″x10″

For sale, $40!
Or, prints available for $20.
Go to Etsy shop for purchasing.

But now I’m back settled in good old Pennsylvania, so updates will follow. I’m still working on chicken paintings, as well as a few commissions (two more 24″ x 36″ bird portraits to go with the herons, and one 36″ x 80″ painting of two penguins and two dragons playing golf together in a foursome). But I’m also planning on starting a couple of my own Projects. I’ve been doing primarily practice/busy work/commissions this summer, and it’s about time I give my brain a good shake and come up with something a little more conceptual. I get antsy if I don’t.

I’m also job-hunting. Which is depressing and hard, especially since I don’t really know yet what I want to do.

So more on both of those topics to come.

Well, I guess technically more on everything to come!

OK, this is kind of cheating b/c I’ve written about her before.  But whatever, when I re-do Paperpetual.com I’ll probably delete that journal, so here it is again.  And besides, she’s great enough to merit more than one entry of regard.  You see, Mary Temple is one of those artists of whom I am quite genuinely jealous.  This jealousy doesn’t spring particularly from her making something spectacular that I can’t help but wish I had the skill and audacity to complete (although this is certainly part of it).  It’s more because she’s doing exactly what I’d love to be doing; her work is a better version of some of the projects I’ve tackled over my last couple years of undergrad!

It’s one thing to discover another artist who makes work very similar to your own.  Realizing that someone else has already done a project you’re considering can be a let down, but half the time the circumstances are different, and it can give you a bit of fuel to go out and make your version better.  But Mary Temple is different.

Her shadow work isn’t an exact replica of an idea I’ve had – it’s more of a more eloquent and direct interpretation of the same things I wanted to discuss in my work.  It’s similar to some of the things I’ve worked with (most specifically hand puppet series as well as my brown center shadow installation), only better.  And if I could have thought on it longer, I’m sure I might have traveled in the same direction as Mary Temple.  Her work is what I wish I could have done, what I wish I could be doing!  It’s frustrating, but also kind of amazing.  I’ve been inspired by a multitude of artists over the past coupe of years, but it’s positively scary how akin I feel to her work.  It’s like we’re sharing brain waves!

Mary Temple, www.marytemple.com!

Is it obvious yet that I’m inspired by a diverse medley of artists?  I haven’t been doing this Sunday Artists thing for very long, but I already seem to have a nice variety on my hands.

I stumbled upon an Elizabeth Blackadder book in the Glasgow School of Art library when I was studying there for a semester two springs ago. As a printmaker, it’s kind of laughable how few traditional printmaking artists I’m gravitated towards.  I’ve tried a large number of traditional printmaking processes, and I’m pretty sure it would be impossible for me to ignore and/or lack respect for the printmaking greats.  Also in Glasgow, I was given the opportunity to see some Goya etchings in person; it’s kind of impossible for me to explain how incredible that was.  But even still, Rembrandt and Durer don’t make me want to make etchings.  But Elizabeth Blackadder does.

If it’s not already obvious, I adore cats.  I enjoy a variety of Elizabeth’s work (her flower studies are lovely), but I am absolutely besotted with her drawings of cats.  Cats are lively creatures with larger-than-life personalities, and I think she manages to capture their spirit exactly. 

And even beyond the subject matter, it’s her mark-making that truly hooks me.  There’s just something very vibrant and fresh and sincere apparent in both her drawings and her etchings.  I’ve done some intaglio, but I can’t say I was really hooked.  You can do some gorgeous things with etching, and I love the idea of aquatinting the hell out of something, but it never quite clicked with my own work.  I could make beautiful lines, but I always felt like the end product was too removed from that first drawing on the fresh soft ground.  In retrospect, I think I was too caught up in the classical etchings that are all about composition, rework, and revisions.  Elizabeth Blackadder’s etchings make me want to go back to etching and draw and draw and draw, embracing the spirit of that initial drawing.

P.S. You can see a nice selection of her work here, and/or google.  Or go to the Tate Gallery or the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Anyways, I stumbled upon Chris Gilmour on a recent Paper Forest blog post.  His sculptures are amazing, crazy pieces made of cardboard and glue.  The suspended piano and the safe are definitely my favorites; the irony makes their materiality completely appropriate.

Go to www.chrisgilmour.com for more.