Resolve

The Year of Story

Resolve, Equinox, Whirl (pink and orange one in progress), purple flowers on yellow green (in progress), and booth shots in progress- each of the three walls.

Has it really been a week since I last posted here? I don’t know where the time went. I did spend time in the studio this week and ordered a lot of paint. I should have enough to get me through the winter. Yesterday was Velcro’s birthday, and of course we had a dog birthday party with Gypsy and I made a cake for them.

My beautiful Velcro, nine years old.

It rained a lot, I have been trying to make progress on setting up my booth shot but I needed a few more pieces to make it look symmetrical. I finished one of those today, and I plan to paint over another canvas that has a not so great painting on it now.

I’ve spent even less time on social media and You Tube this past week. I don’t want to read any more posts about Charlie Kirk and MAGA and the Orange One. I am aware of what’s happening but I only listen long enough to get the basics. Pretty much over it, sick of waiting for people to WTFU and start influencing the GOP to push back on the Pendejo. Not gonna happen.

While I was painting “Resolve”, I was thinking about how we need to stand up to the dictator, and we need to stand up for others. In a way, those aspen trees represent white people and those who are in the majority group and/or hold privilege, power, or resources, who need to stand up for others who don’t have those advantages.

This week I had a few wins and successes. I got one of my paintings accepted into a juried online exhibition by a gallery in Santa Fe that I visited last year. It is a show for women artists. I will get the link tomorrow and share it in my next post. I found out I got a spot in the Winter Farmers Market again, which isn’t anything to do with the quality of my art, but it is getting more competitive to get a spot now. It does help to have been there in the past. Also, I am going to be hanging a new set of paintings in the Gallery at Gallipott as soon as I finish the booth shot, and we will have an opening event sometime this fall.

I was asked to speak at a local venue on the topic of art and healing. It’s an event put on by another artist I know in the Petrichor Collective. It will be October 14 at Wolverine Farm Publick House in Old Town Fort Collins. I will be speaking along with another artist that night, each of us will have our own presentation followed by a Q & A session. This week I need to finish my plan for the art class I’ll be teaching to the people getting ketamine treatment, and update my website with everything new.

I don’t know how I manage to get so busy so fast, the calendar was empty and now it’s full through October. I will have time to paint, though. That’s the important thing. And rest.

This year, I’ve resolved to do one thing better with my art, and that is to tell the story. It’s important for helping the viewer form an emotional connection with the artist’s work, and the artist themselves. Nick did a video on this last month and it lit a fire under my butt. I experimented with it in the Boulder show. I’m going to continue doing it with all of my paintings. Here is a sampling of the stories- I’ll be doing more and improving on them, but here is an example of what I did before the Boulder show.

First shot at storytelling for a few of my paintings.

I need to get up to see the trees before the leaves all fade and fall off. This coming week I will do that. Tomorrow I’ll meet with my friends Leslie and Crisann for a drink at the distillery, and again with my friend Cathy later this week.

September is almost over, fall equinox is Monday, and the days are getting shorter really fast. I’m not prepared for the shorter days, but I am glad to be done with the worst of the heat and the killer electric bills from the AC.

That’s where I am as of today. Sometimes it blows my mind how much work there is around an art business. I’m busy almost all the time. But it’s fun and none of it feels like a chore- except maybe the booth shot setup every year. My goal is to be done with that by the end of the month, if not sooner.

Before I forget… I have set up a page on my website where you can order cards by emailing me with the specific designs and quantities you want. It’s far from Amazon efficiency, but I’ve tried to make it as easy as possible. With the holidays ahead, these cards make great gifts. (Please share this link with anyone you know who might want to buy these cards.) Here’s a button that will link to the ordering info:

Everyone, happy autumn. Thanks for being here.