It's June 23rd, 2018. What am I doing?
Working on 3 paintings that are each potential entries for the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize.
(Only one can be sent to consider for the prize. The others, along with another selection, will also be submitted to Beautiful Bizarre for consideration in publishing, as well.) Thanks to some great input from a friend, I'm also considering one older work as well, which has been on loan and up for sale over the years and is one of my favorites- "Smoker". The three in progress works as well as Smoker (2012) are shown below.
Possible Entry 1 - Blue Canvas (New - in progress)
Possible Entry 2 - Yellow Canvas (New - in progress)
Possible Entry 3 - Black Canvas (New - in progress)
Possible Entry 4 - Smoker (2012)
I also just spent the better part of two weeks putting this website together. What I had hoped would be a one or two day sprint of work turned into about 15 days of hard work creating over 20 new pages of content. If it were not for Squarespace, I wouldn't have been able to do this. I fell off of programming for the web a long, long time ago.
I spent a lot of the last 15 days creating images for layout and navigation, but also organizing and re-organizing my portfolio. This last portion ended up being somewhat daunting, but very, very helpful (so much lens correction on photos over a decade old...). I've worked on design and art with some varying professional level since I was about 19, have been a student since I was about 15 and an amateur since I was about 5. I've diligently recorded works since about 2005 and with design and painting projects. Total, it's about 150 design projects, 50 digital print projects and about 100 paintings. In the end, the portfolio I posted encompasses over 200 individual works from 2000 to the present, with many more pieces of branded content for the businesses I've helped found and support over the years.
Including my work as a student, the earliest piece that I'm displaying here on this site (and selling) is from 2000. That's 18 years ago. I remember finishing it in my dad's basement, just after high school. It felt a little bit like a "first album", since it was the first painting I did while in college (at NOVA Loudon)... There are a lot of things I like about this piece, about the concept and the execution... and I've been chasing the successful elements in this pieces ever since. I've done touch up on it probably 10 times, attended two colleges since then, have displayed it for sale nearly ten times... starting in 2001. At 35x56 on heavy canvas, it's huge. I've always asked for a large sum for it because I've always been fond of it and part of me doesn't want to let it go (unless it's for a fairly significant price).
Kadan/Neon | 35x56x2 | Mixed Media on Canvas | 900 USD
An illustration of a damaged neon sign with kanji reading "kadan (resolute)" set atop a splash of collage, typography and painted elements. Tiny slivers of mostly blank canvas run around three edges, like the painting is somehow "offset".
During the past two months since I left my full time IT job, I've worked on about a dozen paintings, some that have been in progress for over a year, some that needed to be covered and re-started and some that were so close to done that a coat of varnish would have finished them off. About eight of these works are fully brand new. Three are now completed and submitted for consideration in Target Gallery's upcoming Juxtaposed show. Another three have been posted for sale on my Etsy shop. The remainder include the works that I am pushing to finish for the art prize mentioned above.
It's important to reflect on how I got here. This is a challenge, because it means taking a hard look at some failures and mistakes as well as some great opportunities that I left on the table at previous moments.
It also means pushing forward. I've gotten some great feedback from some fellow artists and family and friends in the past months. It will be a challenge, but I am going to address it all and try to share as much as possible here, for context if you crave it and for records so that I don't forget.
Thanks for reading. More soon.