Sunday, March 28, 2010

Sunday Roundup. Structuring Life to Make Art

Grouping of several of my pieces. The top four, and the center piece on the bottom, use my late grandmother's ca 1920 portraits. I found her negatives in a vintage candy box, as well as old envelopes and dresser drawers. I wouldn't be surprised if I have still more to find packed away, put away for "safe-keeping" 70-80 years ago and then forgotten about. Click on photo to enlarge.

O N   W O O D — Although every piece I do is an individual stand-alone, I really enjoy seeing them grouped together. The photo above shows my livingroom ca 2007, with several of my pieces interacting together. When I finished hanging my first solo show last summer, LocalColour, I looked around the large gallery at the 77 pieces I had chosen to show, and the feeling that came over me cannot be described. From the comments I received in my guestbook by the end of the month-long show, my viewers 'got' what I'm trying to say with my work, and that was gratifying in the extreme.

I've been working on this type of art since 2005 when my boxes and boxes of 'someday' art became the raw materials of my TODAY art. I've been gearing up for this phase of my life since my teen years. With family commitments, jobs, life etc always getting in the way, in 2005 I decided that NOTHING would get in my way anymore. I've given up most aspects of a 'normal' life these days, concentrating almost 100% on creating my art, digital and physical. 

I'm satisfied in a way I never could have imagined. I am virtually destitute. I am virtually a shut-in. There are days and days on end when the only people I talk to are the nice people that work at the grocery store and the not-so-nice political talking heads on TV I enjoy yelling at. I haven't driven my car in more than a year to save insurance and other attendant costs, which isn't the easiest way to live in my suburban coastal Connecticut town. I walk or ride my bike to do all of my errands, a tedious undertaking as I can fit only so much in my backpack. I depend on a small cadre of friends for rides when my primary mode of transportation isn't feasible, and they understand! I've tried to eliminate everything that isn't essential to breathing and creating art.

I am going to create all the art that's been in my head for decades, before it's too late. Dedicated doesn't even begin to explain the way I feel about the way I've now structured my life.

A section of one wall of my show last June, LocalColour. Seeing seventy-seven of my pieces hanging together for the first time ever,  I realized I was on the right track, that all of my sacrifices had not been in vain. Click image to see larger. Click twice to see really large, lol.

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