The Upstate Book Project Update

 

Well, here we are a year and four months later. The Upstate Book Project is finally upon us. Sixteen months of working lunches, endless hours of playing devil's advocate, explaining the rules, re-explaining the rules, marketing, planning, printing, building the website, communicating with the artists, explaining the project to numerous people (including the artists), emailing art outlets, printing flyers, leaving flyers, formatting, re-formatting, uploading, downloading, photographing, editing pictures and words, ordering, tracking, researching, designing, drawing, judging, sorting, filing, opening the bank account, processing payments, checking the PO box everyday (and begging them not to close my PO box because all of the submissions exceeded the size limit), printing and designing the business cards, distributing the business cards, and most of all pleading with the team not to kill me for including them. 

It has been one wonderful, exhausting project that turned out to be a fantastic voyage. We thought we were building a box. It was more like building the Hoover Dam. Whew! What a ride it has been. I would like to thank all the people and organizations that contributed to and supported such a complex project.

The exhibit goes up Monday, March 19th at The Showroom at Hub Bub in downtown Spartanburg and will run through Saturday, March 24th. Please join us for the reception Friday, March 23rd from 7-9pm. Please join us if you can. It WILL be worth your time.

I Know, I Slacked Out!

OK, so I've been missing in action for a while. To be honest I took on more than I could process. As usual. I started the "Omo" series of sculpture last year and got sidetracked by the igniting of The Upstate Book Project which I did not realize would be so time-consuming. Also, the same thing you have delt with for the last 3 months. Aunt Jeanie needing Tylenol instead of Motrin, cousin John is a vegetarian activist, "we should've had turkey instead of ham" ...yadda, yadda, yadda, bills, etc. Oh yeah, I got a dog. Not to mention trying to release the Shadowland book the same week I have the opening of the Alice in Shadowland show at Gallery East in April. And of course, I started doing a body of abstract paintings during all this as well. I know this sounds narcissistic but believe me, it's anything but that. It's about making something happen when your industry seems dead. A quote from Frederic Lord Leighton comes to mind, "As for waiting for inspiration I have no faith in it.  I am guided by the nature of the task I have in hand.  I take the thing as it comes...Waiting for the mood, being unable to control oneself, is the stamp of amateurism.  My principle is that one ought always to control oneself." I'm still working on the "one ought to control oneself" part of it.

Abstracts? I Hate Abstracts!

Last week I was digging through my studio trying to organize the hundreds of paintings that seem to just keep growing. I pulled out a couple that I had started and never finished. At that point I started playing with the idea of painting over them. I stared at the two that I had decided should be something else. Nothing. So I sat one on the easel and stared at it even longer. Nothing still. An hour or so later I sat down at the easel determined to make something happen. I decided to just paint a bunch of color on it and see what happened. All of a sudden, Bam! A burst of energy, creativity and life filled my whole being. It was a creative frenzy. The canvas came to life with a feeling and expressiveness like never before. Several hours passed as I worked nonstop til it was complete. I was in love. I grabbed another canvas and painted over the next piece and the next. When I looked at the clock, I had been painting for 10 hours without hesitation or distraction. The energy was incredible and would not subside. Restless, I went to bed. I dreamed of painting these pictures all night. When I woke, I went straight to the art supply store and bought 5 more canvases. Big canvases. 36"x 48" to be exact. I painted with this extreme energy I had never felt before for five days. I couldn't stop. I continued to nit pick them for a couple more days until I was completely satisfied. When I stopped I felt like I had been in a car wreck. I was exhausted but had an entire new body of work. Abstracts. I hate abstracts. But there they were, all ten of them. I posted one on Facebook and within minutes I had sold one. Wow. How strange? Several days later I returned to do another one and it was like pulling teeth. Gone. As artists, we know it can come or go at any time. I hope it comes back.

Shadowland Update

Its official. Shadowland is being edited as we speak. I have been experimenting with Copic markers as a possible medium for visual accents in the book. I'm Shooting for April as the target month and a book signing has already been offered. (that's what I'm screamin') But don't get too worked up. You know how it goes. Even the best laid plans... I had planned to have an exhibit of the original Shadowland paintings (previously unseen) as a host to the book release. As it turns out I have been asked to exhibit the"Alice In Shadowland" body of work as well (never exhibited in Spartanburg). With a little luck I will be able to have both exhibits at the same time at two different venues. How cool will that be? I have had the first run of "Shadowland" shirts printed and am waiting on the next run. Hopefully I can get them on the site for sale soon. If you just have to have one you can always email me.

Economy? What Economy?

As the economy changed and the mural business slowed down I found myself worrying about where the paychecks were going to come from and had a momentary blur of what the future was going to hold. Twelve years straight of jobs with people waiting up to nine months for me to get to them turned into a few jobs a year. Well, obviously the time space continuum had just shifted. I have been doing this long enough to know that just because a well dries up doesn't mean you're going to thirst to death. Within weeks I had a whole new set of challenges. New classes, a lot of antique art restoration, as well as time to concentrate on some other personal projects. Namely, Shadowland as mentioned in my previous post. I have not only had time to get that off the ground but have had time to do The Upstate Book Project, work on the "OMO" sculpture series, my first sculptural work in over seven years, contribute to a worthy cause and learn a new medium. Never confuse closure with finalization. I guess what I'm trying to say is just because you're comfort zone changes doesn't mean its not going to be alright or even better. One of the best things that ever happened to me was getting fired two weeks before Christmas. So when the door closes, turn around and walk through the other one. Now.