It also amazes me how nowadays you can actually communicate with people you’ve seen on television just like they were anybody else. I left a comment on a wall recently commending some people on a TV show I’m currently following, and two of them actually responded– not directly to me, but still they responded to something I posted. How weird is that?

Someday, will someone do that to me? Think, Wow! Paper Man just responded to my “like”! . . . Funny.

My visit to SAM on Sunday was very pleasant. I got lost in front of the Bierstadt, as I thought I would; I honestly don’t know how long I spent in front of it. I stood back to take it all in, I moved close to examine all the tiny details, and every so often when my eyes found another perfect spot on the canvas, my brain cried Look at the light! How did he capture it so beautifully? I am amazed and humbled. I have a visceral response to that painting that I really can’t explain. I am engaged emotionally in a way I haven’t been with many other works. For me, there is something magical about it. I might even be having a relationship with it.

Funny aside: I took advantage of the Member Appreciation Days 20% discount and bought a couple of books. Turns out I bought a Taschen book on Turner that I already own– and had bought from SAM two years before. What a dope!

I’m really enjoying watching Work of Art on Bravo on Wednesday nights. It’s amazing to watch how these creative people work. I also like having the bird’s-eye view; the artists comment on each other and their works behind each other’s backs, and sometimes they’ve misread the person and sometimes they’re just being bitchy. I wonder sometimes what they thought of themselves and the things they said when the watched the video back. Were they embarrassed?

Art is so weird. It’s completely subjective. In most of the arts, such as fashion, dance, haute cuisine, architecture, there are standards and usually a set of rules most people have agreed on to determine whether one’s creation is, in fact, fashionable, enjoyable, edible, etc. In visual art, SO much is entirely subjective that it really depends on who’s doing the judging. I’ve seen a lot of art I don’t like, or understand. I’ve seen a lot of art that takes my breath away. Who decides whether it’s art? And then, who decides whether it’s good art?

Art is what happens between my work and your brain (don’t quote me on this; I’m quoting someone else and I can’t remember who). If there’s a reaction, it’s art. If there’s not, it isn’t. But only to you. Someone else might respond to something that left you cold or (worse!) indifferent.

I could go on, but it’s late and I have to get up early. Note to self for next entry: wunderkammer.

Did you know there are virtually no actual tattoo training schools? Apparently, the most common way to become a tattoo artist is to apprentice another artist/studio. In other words, on-the-job training. To me, that’s a little scary. After all, tattooing is a little like surgery; someone is tearing up your skin and opening you up for infection and pathogens. What if that’s how doctors were trained?

I’m only concerned about this because I just got a tattoo and I’m finding dozens of different recommendations for after-care. What makes one set of instructions better than another, if the process is basically the same for every tattoo? Here are some of the recommendations from various tattoo artists and wearers:

• Use antibiotic ointment for 3 days
• NEVER use antibiotic ointment
• NEVER use petroleum jelly (a.k.a. petrolatum)– this is a pretty standard recommendation. Tends to lift the ink.
• Use A&D or Aquaphor ointment (both are petrolatum-based) for 7-10 days
• Don’t use lotions
• Use Curel or Aveeno lotion for 7-10 days
• Don’t rub the tattoo, pat it
• Rub the ointment in like it’s lotion

Fortunately (for me), Washington State is going to start regulating the industry. I don’t know what that will do for after-care instructions, but it would be really nice if people could get together and use science to maybe figure out what’s the best way to heal a tattoo while maintaining the ink.

K and I decided 2009 was the year to buy a house, and so we did! We started looking in May, made an offer in July, and moved during August. It has a lot of pluses, but the biggest one for me is a semi-finished garage I’m using as a studio. My own studio! The house needs a lot of work (ever see The Money Pit?) but it’s going to be great some day.

Now that we’ve got rid of the mold in the wall of one room, re-plumbed the kitchen to bring the water shut-off valve inside the house (no, really! I kind of wonder how the inspector missed those two pretty important repairs), and pulled out most of the blackberry bushes, all that’s left is the dry rot (same wall as the mold), dishwasher that leaks and is wired in so Lowe’s won’t install a new one, crappy Pergo flooring in the kitchen, refrigerator that (now) makes ice but won’t dispense it, and redoing the wiring so the outlets are all configured correctly. Oh, and it would be nice if the doorbell worked. And we’ll need to repave the driveway.

Oh, well, at least it’s ours (and the bank’s).

No art came from my studio in 2009. I did, however do a presentation at the NWCS on Artist Trading Cards and ACEOs, which was fun, and, apparently, successful. A couple of people asked me if I had ever considered being a teacher.

This year, if I can get around to it, I want to enter the Lynnwood Library Gallery themed show “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” I have permission to use the reference photo I like, now all I need is the time to work. My job is extremely busy, and what with the new commute, takes up a lot of my time.

Backtracking:

June 2007: I had a piece (Three Crows) accepted in the Lynnwood Arts Commission Library Gallery show “Orange Crush.”

July 2007: I sold L’École des Mystères at the Mukilteo show! I was absolutely stunned. My first real sale! 

September 2007: Got the great new job at restaurant company. Despite a few stressful days, I LOVED it. I loved my boss, I loved the company, I enjoyed my work, and I liked my coworkers. I continued to work part-time for the old company doing some bookkeeping. I liked the extra money and I actually liked the work.

January 2008: Participated in a collaborative event with where the Collage Society created collages to go with poems written by members of the Cancer Lifeline writing group. It was a wonderful experience. I showed Grief, which, I am told, almost won a prize.

June 2008: Showed and sold Spinnaker at the Lynnwood Library Gallery themed exhibit “Mellow Yellow”.

August 2008: My daughter moved to Seattle! Now I get to see her fairly regularly.

October 2008: One of my kitties had to be put to sleep. He was 17 and pretty sick. It was an extremely difficult decision and I miss him terribly. I cried like a little girl for days.

November 2008: I got laid off from my terrific job. I was devastated and still feel very sad about it.

December 2008: Went back to work full time at present job, which is the former job I had in 2007. Nothing has really changed except the economy has affected us here, too, so the stress level is even higher. But at least I’m working.

Also December: Daughter married her sweetheart. He is a GREAT guy and I’m really glad she found him. They are blissfully happy.

January 2009: K & I adopted a dog. She’s a beautiful yellow Lab. She’s gi-normous, but very sweet.

So, still working (thank the gods), still making art, still hanging on and rolling with the punches.

She took the City job, natch. So far, she’s doing ok. We’ll see. We both decided that she’d kick herself if she didn’t take the opportunity, since she’s been trying to get on there for two years now, just not necessarily in that job. Thing is, she asked me if I wanted to give the restaurant company my resume. I said sure. The job is in IT, which would be cool; basically you sit at a computer all day and help code restaurant Point-of-Sale computers. I know, there’s more to it than that. But she loved the company and the people, and just didn’t like the work. We decided awhile ago that we should have just switched jobs!

Anyway, I have an interview with the restaurant people on Friday. Hey, they offer insurance and food! What could be better? Plus, I wouldn’t have to cross a bridge to get to or from work. Doesn’t sound too bad, until the bridge is up and you’re waiting.

Ok. Tomorrow, I deliver one of my pieces (Mandala #2, Sea) to the Edmonds ArtsNow NWCS Fall Members’ Show. Yay. I also had two pieces accepted into the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival (L’École des Mystères (The Mystery School) and Forgotten Music, which started its life as Purple Prose and has been imaged and cropped and enhanced in my CafePress.com store (HINT, HINT) and has become Music Squared and Unavoidable Delays, which has absolutely no reference or significance but just sounds pretty cool. Been taking photos lately, too, and some of them are not bad.

Been busy with that, too. I entered three pieces in the the Northwest Collage Society Members’ Show, had two accepted, and one actually one a prize. Can you believe it? I’m stoked. No, I’m not on the web site yet, because I haven’t had the chance to send them a JPG and a bio. I just got some lights so I can take better pictures of my work. Some of the people in my office building like the work of mine they’ve seen, too, so I’m going to get a portfolio together.

Here’s the criterion for whether or not you’ve found your ideal work: Would you pay someone else to let you do it? If you can say yes, congratulations, you’ve found your calling. I love art!

Check out two of my favorite contemporary artists:

Wolf Kahn and Stephen Quiller

• Most “digital art” turns me off. If you took a fantastic picture and used PhotoShop to punch it up a little, than I believe that’s art. If you sliced-and-diced a couple of digital images so it doesn’t look like a photo anymore, that’s doodling. If you take a picture and reverse the colors into color-negative, that is not art. It is doodling. Yes, I know I have digital art on my Gallery, but I don’t for one second take it seriously, and I will most likely be using those enhanced photos as reference to do actual paintings. Just my opinion.
• Art (on eBay) that is categorized as “brut”, “folk”, or “primitive” should actually be categorized as “I never learned to draw.” Do a search and you’ll see what I mean. “Outsider Art” usually means the same thing, but it often shows a lot more skill than the others.

The job interview I had last Thursday (the arts job) went very well, I think. I got a really good vibe. I could be wrong. After all, they haven’t called me back. I sent a nice thank-you letter to the lead interviewer. I would have sent one to everyone on the panel, but there were six of them and I could only remember five of their names. I thought it would be crass to leave one person out, so I just asked the lead person to thank the panel for me. I probably won’t get this job, mostly because I really, really want it. Oh, well.

I’m trying to finish my current collage because I’ve been in the mood to paint, and I can’t get out the paints until I get all the collage materials put away. Believe me, collage requires a LOT more space than painting. Not quite as much as printmaking, but close. The collage is going pretty well; I’m satisfied with the composition and the execution, but now I’m working on the finishing. Paintings are pretty easy to finish; either varnish them or frame them under glass. Collages require a little more thought. For example, I don’t want the finish on this one to be the same across the image; I want part of the image to be matte, some texured, and some to be more satin-finished, and possibly some gloss. This means I have to apply different acrylic mediums to different portions, and I probably won’t be able to varnish the finished piece and will need to frame it under glass, which has its own set of problems. I wanted to start working on Claybord so I could varnish my collages and not worry about glass, but I didn’t think about varying the finish. Decisions, decisions.

I was reflecting this morning while listening to an article on NPR about the National Book Awards on how my love for art supersedes my love of writing. Writing, I observed, is very hard work. It is demanding. It takes months, even years, to complete a novel, especially a good one. But you could spend a year writing drivel, and you’d have lost a year. You didn’t learn anything. Writing has been described as “embracing the beast.” You sit down and face a blank page or a blinking cursor which demands you to suddenly be brilliant. I love the finished product, but I don’t like the process, which is, I’ve come to realize, why I’m not a published author.

Art is completely different for me. It’s easy, but challenging. Even if I’m not in the mood to work, within five minutes of taking up the project I’m immersed, engaged, involved; enthralled. I become the process. Unlike writing, I can see almost immediately when something’s not working. I can change it, or scrap it, and I’m out only a half-hour or so. Art allows me to be much more prolific. I turned out 31 works of art (of varying degrees of skill) in a month. Every piece I work on teaches me something new and valuable about the medium, the technique, and about myself. Books about writing bore me. Books about art amaze me.

I’m not saying that art isn’t hard. I’m just saying it’s a much more enjoyable occupation than pretty much anything I’ve ever done.

Funny aside: I told K that I was waiting at a stop-light near the house when some OCD guy walked up the corner and smacked the “Walk” signal button 15 times, twice. She said, “15? You counted?” “Yes, ” I said. She replied, “And you thought he was OCD?”

I wish it was overcast and gloomy today. The sun is shining brightly and there isn’t even a spooky wind to scatter the leaves. Oh, well; I’ll just have to imagine it. You know, in a couple of years when I’ve really developed my artistic techniques, I’m going to do some beautiful autumn and Halloween art!

I think I’m going to buy an ACEO/ATC every week. I love knowing that I’m going to get art in the mail.

I’m trying to decide if I want to order the Acryl-A-Miser palette which will allow me to keep my acrylics available to paint when I want to, which I can’t do right now. Problem is, do I really want to spend $11 in shipping? That just seems so freaking expensive. So I’m waffling. I don’t think I’ll be able to find it locally. It took me two months to find the Derwent Inktense pencils, and I still wound up spending $40 on them.

Well, Happy Halloween, everybody. May you get more trick-or-treaters than I will.