The last day of March

Well, the framing is done, the driving is done. . . .and the judging is done, too. The ACA show at Arts Visalia was judged this afternoon by the curator of the Bakersfield Art Museum. There were around 90 entries and the gallery holds about 55 paintings comfortably, so quite a few were turned away. The good news is that all 3 of my paintings were accepted and will hang through the end of March. The bad news is that I had hopes of a placement or 2 and there were none. Not even an honorable mention. Oh, well, it's just like when we were showing dogs for years and years--every day is a different judging situation. The judge is different, looking for different things, and the competition is different also. I am pleased with all 3 of the paintings and, to me, that's what counts . . . . but it's nice when the judge and/or other viewers like them also.

The reception is Friday night, March 6th, from 5-8 PM. Hope to see you there!

The Blossom Trail

This is the time of year that I am thrilled to live on the Blossom Trail. Today, I had to stop the car and get out to take some photos of an orchard that I passed. It was a mass of white almond blossoms, as far as the eye could see. The orchard was beautifully maintained, near Ashlan and McCall, and I just couldn't resist. I didn't have my camera in the car, so these were taken with my iPhone camera, but they turned out amazingly well. The funny thing is that last weekend there were just a few isolated, usually singleton, trees in blossom. Today, a lot of the white orchards are in blossom and the pinks are starting to come. Tomorrow will be gorgeous and so will next week. Next weekend is the Blossom Trail official weekend and they will be beautiful but maybe on their way "out" by then. If you have a chance for a drive in the country to the east of Fresno and Clovis this weekend, I'd highly recommend it! The sights and fragrances are fantastic. If you're out, be sure to stop at The Art Stand Gallery at Highway 180 and Frankwood Avenue in the area called Minkler.

The bright pink quince blossoms are on a small tree in my yard. You see white, light pink, medium pink, almost red, and the orangish-pink quince blossoms all at this time of year.

Thursday evening

I am still finishing the framing for the ACA Visalia Show at Arts Visalia, with receiving on Saturday. It is a beautiful gallery, in a very old building right across the street from the long famous Depot Restaurant. It is close to downtown which is home to many wonderful restaurants, the old Fox Theater and some other historic buildings. I will try to take photos to post while I'm there on Saturday and again at the reception on March 6th, from 5-8 PM. You are, of course, all invited!

The address for the gallery is 214 E Oak Ave in Visalia, California, 93291. The phone number is (559) 739-0905 and I would advise calling ahead to check on their open hours, normally on Tuesday through Saturday, usually with some evening hours during each week.

The framing saga continues--

Well, last night, I told you I had 2 out of 3 paintings framed for Saturday's show. Tonight, everything was going well on the last one--I trimmed the foam board, cut the white top mat, added the light green inner mat, secured the painting, stacked everything up, cleaned the plexiglass, and stripped off the blue plastic on both sides. Then, after cleaning off every cat hair in the house that came to socialize on the surface of the white top mat, I took one last long look before adding the metal frame strips. The bad news was that there was a defect in the plexi and I couldn't finish the job. :( Darn. So, tomorrow, I'll have to take that piece back and get another. See why I didn't wait until Friday? (Although I have many times in the past!) I guess the good news was that I did see it and didn't continue and have it go up at the show with a noticeable problem.

If it's Tuesday and I have 2 out of 3 paintings framed for the show Saturday. . . . .

. . . . . I must be WAY ahead of my usual pace! Often, I am cutting mats and putting frames together into the wee hours the night before the show in the morning. I am determined to NOT be doing that this week on Friday night. So, I gathered everything I needed early in the day today and have cut 2 double mats (30" X 38") and lots of little mats out of the scraps and have 2 of the paintings ready to go! Can you believe it? Tomorrow night, just one more and I'll be done! Then if I run into a snag, I still have time to take care of it. The 2 that are finished I am pretty pleased with. I think I won't post photos of them until after Saturday, plus I should have photos of the 4 paintings that are at the photographers this week to put up also. Are you photographed out? Is anyone talking to me any more? I need feedback and conversation now and then. :) To be a happy camper. . . . or a happier camper!!

Philosophizing after a Monday in the mountains

Today was a "sitting" day for me at the Timberline Gallery in Oakhurst, California. It was rainy all day, dark and quiet with not a lot of visitors. Still, the shift (10 AM to 4 PM) went by quickly because I had things to do and I also had a lot of new pieces to study. That can occupy a lot of time for those of us who are part of the gallery  (as we study and enjoy new work bimonthly at each gallery change) and for our visitors.

On another note (but a somewhat similar one), I love today's quote about art, taken from the bottom of my blog. Stella Adler said: "Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one."  Sometimes life does beat us down, for whatever reason, and enjoying art or creating it lifts us back up again. Illness, depression, poverty, crime, loneliness, and natural disasters--these are but a few of the things that quickly come to mind that beat us down and verge on stealing our souls. Even at the lowest times, looking at something beautiful or putting our heart into creating a small piece of art or crafting an object or piece of clothing can bring us some measure of satisfaction and peace and reassure us that our soul is undamaged. 

Perhaps I should have added "doing taxes" to the list of what beats us down because that's what faces us this week. And it's not just taxes, but getting all of our paperwork in order. That includes my art-related paperwork, so in the upcoming days I will be happy to remember that I spent most of last week soulfully creating new paintings as I endure the stressful moments to come.

Tips for Artists

This is a LONG list of wise suggestions that I thought you would enjoy reading and/or having in your files. I want to keep it and posting it is a good way to insure that I can find it again later.

"WORDS TO PAINT BY" by Irwin Greenberg 

(From Robert Genn's "Twice Weekly Newsletter" for artists)

1. Paint every day.
2. Paint until you feel physical strain- take a break and then paint some more.
3. Suggest.
4. When at an impasse, look at the work of masters.
5. Buy the best materials you can afford.
6. Let your enthusiasm show.
7. Find the way to support yourself.
8. Be your own toughest critic.
9. Develop a sense of humor about yourself
10. Develop the habit of work. Start early every day. When you take a break, don’t eat. Instead, drink a glass of water.
11. Don’t settle for yourself at your mediocre level
12. Don’t allow yourself to be crushed by failure. Rembrandt had failures. Success grows from failure.
13. Be a brother (or sister) to all struggling artists.
14. Keep it simple.
15. Know your art equipment and take care of it.
16. Have a set of materials ready wherever you go.
17. Always be on time for work, class and appointments.
18. Meet deadlines. Be better than your word.
19. Find a mate who is really a mate.
20. Don’t be envious of anyone who is more talented than you. Be the best you can be.
21. Prizes are nice, but the real competition is with your performance yesterday.
22. Give yourself room to fail and fight like hell to achieve.
23. Go to sleep thinking about what you’re going to do first thing tomorrow.
24. Analyze the work of great painters. Study how they emphasize and subordinate.
25. Find out the fewest material things you need to live.
26. Remember: Michelangelo was once a helpless baby. Great works are the result of heroic struggle.
27. There are no worthwhile tricks in art; find the answer.
28. Throw yourself into each painting heart and soul.
29. Commit yourself to a life in art.
30. No struggle, no progress.
31. Do rather than don’t.
32. Don’t say “I haven’t the time.” You have as much time everyday as the great masters.
33. Read. Be conversant with the great ideas.
34. No matter what you do for a living, nurture your art.
35. Ask. Be hungry to learn.
36. You are always the student in a one-person art school. You are also the teacher of that class.
37. Find the artists who are on your wavelength and constantly increase that list.
38. Take pride in your work.
39. Take pride in yourself.
40. No one is a better authority on your feelings than you are.
41. When painting, always keep in mind what your picture is about.
42. Be organized.
43. When you’re in trouble, study the lives of those who’ve done great things.
44. “Poor me” is no help at all.
45. Look for what you can learn from the great painters, not what’s wrong with them.
46. Look. Really look.
47. Overcome errors in observing by exaggerating the opposite.
48. Critics are painters who flunked out.
49. Stay away from put-down artists.
50. If you’re at a lost for what to do next, do a self-portrait.
51. Never say “I can’t.” It closes the door to potential development.
52. Be ingenious. Howard Pyle got his start in illustrating by illustrating his own stories.
53. All doors open to a hard push.
54. If art is hard, it’s because you’re struggling to go beyond what you know you can do.
55. Draw everywhere and all the time. An artist is a sketchbook with a person attached.
56. There is art in any endeavor done well.
57. If you’ve been able to put a personal response into your work, others will feel it and they will be your audience.
58. Money is OK, but it isn’t what life is about.
59. Spend less than you earn.
60. Be modest; be self-critical, but aim for the highest.
61. Don’t hoard your knowledge, share it.
62. Try things against your grain to find out just what your grain really is.
63. Inspiration doesn’t come when you are idle. It comes when you have steeped yourself in work.
64. Habit is more powerful than will. If you get in the habit of painting every day, nothing will keep you from painting.
65. There are three ways to learn art: Study life, people and nature. Study the great painters. Paint.
66. Remember, Rembrandt wasn’t perfect. He had to fight mediocrity.
67. Don’t call yourself an artist. Let others name you that. “Artist” is a title of great weight.
68. Be humble; learn from everybody.
69. Paintings that you work hardest at are the ones you learn the most from, and are often your favorites.
70. Read values relatively. Find the lightest light and compare all other light values to it. Do the same with the darks.
71. Grit and guts are the magic ingredients to your success.
72. Let your picture welcome the viewer.
73. Add new painters to your list of favorites all the time.
74. Study artists who are dealing with the same problems that you’re trying to solve.
75. Have a positive mind-set when showing your work to galleries.
76. Don’t look for gimmicks to give your work style. You might be stuck with them for life. Or, worse yet, you might have to change your “style” every few years.
77. If what you have to say is from your deepest feelings, you’ll find an audience that responds.
78. Try to end a day’s work on a picture knowing how to proceed the next day.
79. Don’t envy others success. Be generous-spirited and congratulate whole-heartedly.
80. Your own standards have to be higher and more scrupulous than those of critics.
81. Pyle said, “Throw your heart into a picture and jump in after it.”
82. Vermeer found a life’s work in the corner of a room.
83. Rembrandt is always clear about what is most important in a picture.
84. If, after study, the work of an artist remains obscure, the fault may not be yours.
85. Critics don’t matter. Who cares about Michelangelo’s critics?
86. Structure your day so you have time for painting, reading, exercising and resting.
87. Aim high, beyond your capacity.
88. Try not to finish too fast.
89. Take the theory of the “last inch” holds that as you approach the end of a painting, you must gather all your resources for the finish.
90. Build your painting solidly, working from big planes to small.
91. See the planes of light as shapes, the planes of shadows as shapes. Squint your eyes and find the big, fluent shapes.
92. Notice how, in a portrait, Rembrandt reduces the modeling of clothes to the essentials, emphasizing the head and the hands.
93. For all his artistic skills, what’s most important about Rembrandt is his deep compassion.
94. To emphasize something means that the other parts of a picture must be muted.
95. When painting outdoors, sit on your hands and look before starting.
96. Composing a picture, do many thumbnails, rejecting the obvious ones.
97. Study how Rembrandt creates flow of tone.
98. If you teach, teach the individual. Find out when he or she is having trouble and help at that point.
99. Painting is a practical art, using real materials -- paints, brushes, canvas, paper. Part of the practicality of it is earning a living in art.
100. Finally, don’t be an art snob. Most painters I know teach, do illustrations, or work in an art-related field. Survival is the game.