Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t like isn’t fond of salmon? My Nordic DNA evolved in the fish eating gene pool. My ancestors consumed mackerel like M&Ms. Stinky, fatty fish is my birthright. Go Vikings!
And take your damn fish with you. Because I DON’T LIKE IT. Unless it’s tuna salad loaded with pickles and mayo. But even then I have to be in the mood.
I thought I was in the mood today. I stopped at my favorite organic deli on the way to work. Bought a little bitty oh-so-tiny piece of smoked salmon. Line caught. Finest pedigree under the sea. Because it’s good for me. Can you tell I was feeling virtuous? Oh, yes indeed I was. I even bought some kale salad. I like kale salad. Like it a lot. But I didn’t used to. It was only after I started eating kale regularly that I developed a genuine fondness for it.
I was am hoping the same thing will happen with salmon.
I took my virtuous lunch to work. Did I mention I bought potato chips too? Yes I did. They were my reward for choking downsalmon eating healthy.
I’m so glad I got those chips. Big thick Kettle crinkles. With sea salt. Solid. Substantial. Greasy. WONDERFUL.
The salmon sucked. Too dry. Way too fishy. The kale needed some better dressing. Too boring.
Yesterday I said there might be some new collages to show off today. Guess what–ain’t gonna happen. Umm-hmm, that’s right. I overestimated my super-human artistic capabilities when it comes to time. Tick-tock. The wheels on the clock went ’round and ’round while I was running my butt all over town.
Apologies to little children everywhere for mutilating their beloved song.
So where did I go that was more important than making stuff? How about here. The Artists’ Studios in the Foothills, AKA, As If Studios. Had never really been there before. Thought it was just a place where artists rent studio space. They do but it’s much more than that. There are classes, a gift shop, a gallery. I’d discovered their shows are not limited to resident artists and that the current one, the Small Works Holiday Show was taking new work. Because the stuff sells off the walls for Christmas and they’re constantly replenishing.
Well, turns out I had a bunch of small pieces (4X4) I made a couple years ago for the studio tour and the ones that didn’t sell were banished to the attic. Basically forgotten. I dunno why. If buyers only KNEW what was up there, they’d be banging on my door begging for a look see upstairs.
Trouble with these pieces is they don’t photograph well. Covered with gloss medium that looks great in person but sucks when it comes to reproduction. Rather than risk rejection with the photos I just stuck the pieces in a grocery bag and headed on over.
Pretty ballsy, eh? Just walking into a gallery with a sack of art and saying here I am. So unlike me. But the very nice owner/manager Amanda told me to leave the bag and she’d get back to me tomorrow. Then she saw what I had and said she’d take ten pieces for the show. Ten.
YAY!
So here’s a few of the chosen. Crappy Photo Alert.
The pieces are all based around the theme LIVE LOVE DREAM DANCE. The LIVE series consists of houses and symbols of self.
LOVE series speaks for itself.
DREAM series is full of pyramids, boats and other symbols.
And then there’s DANCE. I loves me my dancers!
So if you’re in the area come on by the AS IF Studios, 940 Idaho-Maryland Rd, Grass Valley. Lots of fun work by lots of good artists. Prices are good, just in time for Christmas!
Sometimes a girl just gotta have STUFF. Art stuff. Yummy papers. Things to cut up. To rearrange. To make bee-you-ti-ful pretty things to hang on the wall. Preferably someone else’s wall. Someone who pays me big bucks for the privilege.
Because this is NOT a hobby.
So I got me some pretty papers. Then I rummaged around in the closet and came up with some canvases that I’d done one thing or another to at one time or another. Half finished paintings from another creative lifetime.
Acrylics. I haven’t worked in acrylics, straight acrylic on canvas, in quite some time. Oils are my passion now. And wax. Craft acrylics on plaster. But straight painting of acrylic on canvas? Been a long, long time. And the stuff I did then was so different than what I do now. Night and day different.
So I took those canvases and approached them as I do oil and wax. I decided to work the surface. Paint. Roll. Scrape. Paint. Scratch. Scribble. Over and over and over until I came up with surfaces I was pleased with. I wish I had taken some ‘before’ photos. Didn’t think of that until I was well into the ‘after stage’.
But here are the ‘afters’. Not the final afters. Because I started out with collage on the brain and these are for background. Here’s a few closeups.
I’m thinking these will morph into a collage series based on paintings I used to do of women and animals. But who knows what they’ll morph into. Tomorrow will tell. Check back in then and see what happens.
I just spent the last hour or so watching art videos on youtube. First one, then follow a link to another. And another. And another and another and another until I’m positively LOST–I mean, SERIOUSLY L.O.S.T. somewhere deep in the creative abyss of youtube.
And I learned something from each and every one of ’em. Like what to put in an instructional video. And what not to put in. And if you’re filming it yourself with a camera on a fixed tripod, well then point it at the PAINTING, not at your back. Hellooooooo–Miss Artist Lady, as nice as your sweater is FROM THE REAR, I’m really interested in what’s happening on the easel.
Y’ think….
By the way, I’m in the market for a video camera for, ahem…making some art happen on youtube. Any suggestions? For the camera, that is. Although I’m open to video art topics as well.
And now, before I call it an early night, I’m going to share one of tonight’s videos. Got to warn you, it’s almost 10 minutes. But it’s fun.
I collect things. Shells. Beach glass. Rocks. I don’t do anything with these collections, just scatter a few here and there throughout the studio and the house. Before I had a laptop my computer desk looked like a cross between a natural history museum and Disney does Burger King. Kid meal monsters shared valuable space with geodes and sand dollars. Feathers stuck out of the pen cup. A realistic toy aligator was glued to the printer.
All my kids had to do was give me a rock, make up a story about it and I’m tellin’ you, that was Christmas for me.
I posted a photo on FaceBook the other day. Turkeys. Wrote a whole post here but FB is where all the comments were. The comments eventually touched on feathers and that got me thinking about this whole collection thing.
Because I collect feathers. I’ve got at least one basket of them in the studio. Mostly white goose feathers I gathered along the lake where we used to live. After we moved to the foothills the feathers changed.
And so did the display. Most of these are from the wild turkeys. Maybe all of them, I dunno. Don’t come with name tags. They’re just there, on the ground.
I took this photo sometime during the winter. It was just….there, in the snow. Sticking up like you see it here. I don’t have a clue what bird this is from or what happened to him. Maybe the tracks leading from the upper left tell the tale. Anybody want to guess?
I collect bird nests too. Ones I find on the ground, usually in the fall after the residents have left and there’s nothing anchoring them down in the wind. At least that’s my theory. They’re abandoned and quite interesting but that’s another post entirely.
