Artist's Magazine Finalist!

I just got some very exciting news.  My self portrait, "Yes, this is me." has been chosen as a finalist in the Portraits/Figures category of The Artist's Magazine 29th Annual Art Competition.  It'll be published in the December 2012 edition.  It's the first time my work has been accepted in a national arts magazine.  It makes me smile with glee!

I have submitted work to The Artist's Magazine and Pastel Journal before, at $15 a pop - it ain't cheap - and haven't had work accepted before, so I was a bit skeptical about trying again, but I decided to try anyway.  I'm so happy that they chose my piece.

The portrait is done in pastels over top of an oil painting with a very active surface - that's why it has an unusual texture.  I've used the technique a couple of times and like how it works.  The painting is done from a photograph my husband Chris took of me one night when I was trying to get some images to paint from.

I do art because I have to - it's how my brain processes the world - it takes information in as images or feelings or thoughts or facts or whatever and spits it back out as images created in paint or graphite or whatever else.  I didn't use to be an artist - had no clue that I was - but now that I've realized that's who I am, the world feels very different.  I recognize that this is how I fit into the world.  I can comprehend the world better once I've processed it through expression on the page (sometimes in words, but I think more effectively in images).  When I'm having strong feelings, I turn to the easel.  When I see something I am not familiar with, I paint or draw it to learn about it.  When I want to fully understand a concept, I conceptualize it visually and it becomes clear. 


One sure sign I'm an artist is because if I don't do something creative on a given day, I end up feeling very grumpy and irritable.  My kids lovingly suggest I might want to spend some time in the studio to help me feel better when I get like that.  It virtually always works!

Another sign is that when I go on vacation and have nothing I have to do, I pull out my art supplies and play.  When we were at the beach a few months ago and I was done in, exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to sleep and read and relax, I felt compelled by the beauty outside of the window to draw it!  I set up the easel right away and began drawing.  And it filled my soul and took away my exhaustion and fatigue.

I am so thankful to be able to live my life as an artist, doing what I feel so compelled to do.  It is a rich blessing.

hanging the show

I'm guessing some of you haven't given much thought to how an art show at a gallery happens, so I thought you might be interested to learn a bit about it.

Yesterday Chris and I re-hung Sacred Flesh at the Visual Art Studio here in Richmond.  I had a showing of it in October, but, because I have a lot of paintings, we decided to put new pieces in for this month's opening/exhibition. 

This past week I took some time to try to arrange the paintings on the virtual walls I created in Adobe Photoshop so I would know which paintings to take and, perhaps, how I would hang them.  I also typed up the models' stories and printed them out so I'd have them ready for the show.  Still to come, I need to send the gallery owner, Anne, an Excel file with titles, mediums, and prices in it so she can print out the labels.

At 2 PM we began loading the minivan with canvases then went to the gallery to show my brother-in-law the exhibition.  (He was in town for a mere 23 hours, so we had lots to cram into such a small amount of time!  What a joy to see him!)  After he left, we loaded a few paintings into the minivan then headed back home to get the rest of the paintings, the computer, and the tool box with hammers, hooks, nails, tape measure, level, etc.

Returning to the gallery around 3:45, we unloaded the car then began what turned out to be the most difficult part of the process - figuring out where everything should go.  I think it's exceedingly important to place the works well so the viewers get led around the room in an interesting way.  I also want the pieces to relate to each other in terms of color/size/subject matter/scale or any of several other ways.  The schematic I had developed in Photoshop was a good place to start, but what we ended up with was NOT what I'd designed there!  We had to work around windows and heat returns and thermostats and light switches and all sorts of things like that.  Being there is the only real way to be able to set up a show.

The left wall was the hardest to hang because there are two windows which we covered with cardboard and sheets then hung the pieces using fishing line from hooks in the ceiling - not quite the safest-feeling way to do it, but so far it's worked.

Another challenge to this month's show was that we decided to group the pieces a bit more tightly and to double-hang some.  It took some time to figure out at attractive grouping of the pieces.  I ended up feeling delighted at the groupings and how handsome they look.  This image of them doesn't really do it justice because they're not laid out just quite accurately, but it'll give you a feel for it until you can come see for yourself!

After we got things laid out and the first part of the above wall hung, I was out of energy, so we walked down to a restaurant for some restorative repast.  That was very helpful - it is Restaurant Week in Richmond, so many of the best restaurants in town are offering a $25.02 three course menu with $2.10 of each meal going to the Food Bank.  Nice!  We weren't hungry enough to go for that, but we profited from their outstanding offerings and enjoyed our meals greatly.

Then back to it...  The front wall, the one you see when you enter the gallery, was next.  There were light switches and a telephone jack and wall outlet plus the lettering to work around on that wall, but I think we came up with a terrific design.  I love it that people see Frances' Joyful, Joyful when they walk in, flanked by new life in Lolly's Pregnant and Waiting, all accompanied by Lara, a woman who's inbetween the two women in terms of age and where she is in her life.  Chris framed Lolly's Pregnant for me this week, and it looks amazing.  I'm thrilled with how beautifully it turned out.

The right wall was next.  There we were working with a heat return and a window as well as a very small space to the left of the return.  There is a nice stretch of open wall between the return and the window, though, so I made the most of it!  I had planned to put another painting in there as well, but Chris felt it was too crowded with so many paintings, and I had to agree (even though I didn't want to!), so we took one out and allowed the pieces some breathing room.  Several of these pieces (Mother and Daughter Jocks Bound by Caution, Yes, this is me, and Sleek Back, Saucy Shadow) were in the show last month, but the rest are new this time around.  The one to the left of the Jocks, Classical Beauty is brand new.  I just finished it last week! 

The only other space we had to fill was the front window which I don't have a picture of, but I put Woman in a Chair and Don't Mess with Me! in there.  I really wanted to put Don't Mess with Me! in the gallery itself, because I don't think people take the time to really examine the window pieces as much as they do the wall pieces, but it just didn't fit color-wise.  The colors in it are so different than the others that it really  needed its own environment.  I figure both of those pieces will also do a great job attracting folks to the show (unless Don't Mess with Me! scares them with her look!)

After all that, we were DONE!  In more ways than one!  We got home at 9:30 PM, ready for relaxation and rest.  Of course, I didn't quite give it to myself - instead, I wrote emails to the models to let them know which pieces are in the show so they'll know if their piece(s) is/are in it, then sent out an invitation to people about the show.  There's a lot to do to launch a show, so much that the viewers don't realize, which goes into making it a beautiful, interesting, intriguing experience for each person who walks into the gallery. 

Sometimes I wish being an artist were only about painting and drawing, but I think that's nothing more than a fantasy.  I realize I also like the marketing efforts which go into it as well as the public aspects of talking about my work and having shows.  It felt very satisfying, too, to have created a beautiful space last night.  I'm happy with how the pieces look all hanging together.  It's great having the women on display for all to see.

Thanks to each of you for helping me realize my vocation of being an artist.  I am grateful to you each and every day.

Susan

On Being an Artist

It's an interesting thing, this being an artist...


Yesterday I tutored - a lovely job which I enjoy completely. It's wonderful working with teenagers and trying to help them understand academic material. I also love the one-on-one connection with each of them and feel enriched by each student I teach.

But that's a different world from the one I inhabit when I am at home. I change out of my "nice" clothes and into my paint-splattered jeans and ratty sweatshirt I got in 1987 from Freiburg, Germany. I go into the studio where I am alone either in blessed silence or with whatever noise I choose - music, NPR, my own voice. I stand in front of my current canvas and breathe in the essence of what I am trying to do - honor and evoke the spirit of a multi-dimensional human being with paint, on cloth, supported by wood.

I set to the tasks...

Mix paint, match colors, squeeze tubes. Globs and squirts that morph into smooth skin and flowing hair.

Choose the right brushes - filberts of different sizes and materials - hogs hair for large, crude details; synthetic for smaller areas; sable for the smallest finest smoothing over of surface of skin.

Absorb the photograph, look at a particular section of it, find it on the painting, compare the two to see if I am beginning to capture what I see with the efforts of my self.

I feel satisfied, complete. I feel frustrated, scorn my efforts, re-assure myself this too will pass. I dip into more paint, apply it madly, dash it on, touch the canvas gently, scrub with the heel of my hand, whisper delicately with the tip of my little finger, stand back, gaze, rush forward, splash, apply, wipe out, delineate carefully. All in the course of a moment.

And so it goes. Moment after moment. Entranced by the process - master over it, slave to it, one and the same. Captivated by the woman I'm painting, loving her story, loving her self, loving her beauty, whining about the toes so difficult to paint, the fingers gnarled by time or flowing delicatedly from slender hands or scarred by life or thick with flesh. Joy in the moment, the rush of pure essence, at one with the creation of beauty.