Forget Blondes, The British Have More Fun

'The best way to predict the future is to invent it' - Alan Kay

I love this quote; I stole it from the Secret Garden site, which I found through Hungamunga; these people are definitely having too much fun. Hungamunga does recycled art parties, among other things. "Arty parties without the arty farties". Wish I could go...

But here's a photo of me and Kristen having fun at the TAP show. Not as much fun as an art party...

8 Random Facts About Me

Technically, I wasn't "tagged". But I was, indirectly, invited to do this:

The object of the game is to blog “8 Random Facts About Myself.” Here are the rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So, here goes:

1. this is hard....that doesn't count as one...

1. Okay, I hoard chocolate. Or hide it; I guess that sounds less obsessive. My kids don't know where it is...I do this to the point that I will hide it in my purse as soon as I buy it, and they never see it again, if they saw it at all, and I rarely share it. I will only eat dark chocolate.

2. I hate computer and video games, and think of the Disney corporation as evil. (That's actually two things, but it came out as one thought.)

3. I like opera.

4. I am a really good speller.

5. Much to my husband's chagrin, I have very good hearing, so I can hear him mutter things under his breath.

6. I once had a huge crush on John Cusack, and have since fallen in love with both Ewan McGregor and Tobey Maguire. And Mr. Darcy. At times, I will obsessively watch movies with these people in them.

7. On a related note, I love going to the movies. I love that moment of anticipation when the theatre goes dark, the THX guy does his thing...and then the Columbia lady with the torch shows up...

8. I'm incredibly competitive when challenged by stupid things such as the other day, when my husband said that the English Beat wrote a certain song, and he was wrong, and I actually had to go find a cd so I could prove that I was right (which I was).

Is that 8 already? I'm sure there are other much more interesting things about me...like, well... hmmm. No, I guess that's about it. So they're random, but not necessarily interesting.

I'm supposed to list 8 people to be tagged to do this, but what I'm realizing is that I don't know 8 people who blog...
let's see...
Kristen, you're one. Actually, you're the only. Kelly? Becky? There's those Canadian women...Should I bug Luann, who doesn't really know me? This has an element of the ol' Chain Letter about it, and could be construed as annoying...
Well, I'll do what EH did on hers: if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. And if you decide to play, let me know...

Quoting Molly

Catching up on email and putting stuff away...
Here's something I found in Molly Gordon's newsletter from a few weeks ago, on selling:

"Selling is not about taking money from your customers' pockets and putting it in your own. Selling is an exchange, a transaction that marks the movement of energy in the form of money, products, and services."

Molly Gordon, MCC. Copyright (c) Shaboom Inc.(r) 2007. All rights reserved. http://www.authenticpromotion.com


Probably due to the fire, among other things, the Tahoe Festival of Fine Arts was sloooooow, and I did not sell much. But I like the quote above, because looking at selling art, in that light, makes sense to me. I put alot of energy into my art, and when someone DOES appreciate that, we exchange energy; art for money. When I'm doing work I like, I can feel good about that.

apres show

I'm recovering from the show; more content and updated info soon! Plus, secrets revealed!

Phew.

Big sigh of relief from over here...

Yesterday I finally got around to trying out my booth display. It involved setting up all the work, and pricing it before putting it back in the boxes, and I was dreading it. Make that DREADING it.

The REALLY COOL thing was that, once I had all the work out on the table, I had a huge grin on my face. I like the way it all looks together: bright, colorful, alive. I felt inspired to take some photos...I felt inspired by my own work; that was kind of a first.

The pricing was another story. I had a rough idea for how I wanted to price most of it, but it just feels weird to actually PUT the prices on. So...firm; decided. But they're on there...Phew.

If You're Going on a Roller Coaster Ride, Bring the Chocolate

How much can we blame on Mercury being retrograde, really? And how much chocolate can one person consume before becoming, well, fat?
These things were on my mind this week as I was getting ready for the Festival of Fine Arts coming up this weekend. Along with the more obvious things on my mind: the Angora Fire, some Blue Turtle Seduction tunes that got stuck in my head, and the burning question "who are the idiots who toilet-papered our house yesterday?"

So you can see that there's alot going on, but I'm still focused on the work, and besides the roller-coaster of emotions, I think I'll be ready. I've got lots of new work, including a new line of necklaces I'm trying out. I've done the best I could do in the time I had, and since my friend Kristen Schwartz (illustrator extraodinaire) and I are doing it together, it's going to be fun.

We're looking at this as a learning experience, and I can see that I've already come a long way from the last time I did this show 2 years ago. That was my first outdoor show experience, and I'm still getting together the materials I need for this sort of thing. I'm not sure how much I want to do outdoor shows, or what are the best venues for my work. I'm just moving forward. And I hope that things will become more clear as I go along.

Although Mercury is still retrograde. Better make sure I've got chocolate on my show checklist...

Fear and Watermelurns

"Watermelurn"

mixed media

2007

Not a great photo. Not my best piece. But I had to move on to other things. Actually, I did try to work on more than one urn for this show, but in the end, I had to focus on completing one, and this was it.

I'm reminded of a story in "Art and Fear", a book by David Bayles and Ted Orland, in which a class of ceramics students are divided into two groups, with one group being graded on the quantity of work they turn in, and the other group on the quality of work turned in. What emerged was this: the best work came from the "quantity" group.

"It seems that while the quantity group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

Hmmmmm.....

It's not "dead clay" but it would be fun to see where I could take it, if I'd had more time and more urns...Frankly, I like the name best!