been busy…

turned out that august was a busy month and now september is shaping up to be as well. i’ve been active in the studio, which is always good, and i’ve had some #wins that i want to share in case you don’t follow me on social media.

the first is that i finally, after so many years of studying and practicing abstract art, came up with an intuitively abstract 20×20″ painting on canvas that i actually like! now don’t get me wrong, i’ve liked a lot of parts of what i’ve produced in the various classes i’ve taken, but i’ve rarely “finished” a painting and this particular style of abstract which i personally love and am drawn to has been elusive. this one happened quite by accident so who knows if i can do it again but i’m pleased with myself at how it turned out. i wasn’t quite sure for a while if it was done but i have decided it is. i’ll be putting it up for sale in my shop when i launch that probably in october. it is currently unnamed – lemme know if you have an idea for a good name for it! (i am working on a few other pieces in a similar color palette in different sizes, too.)

second is that new design i posted about in my last blog entry that i think might end up as stickers and maybe a tshirt. it’s simple and not terribly original but feels timely. it’s funny how ideas come to me sometimes in different media. the eyeball with “wake up” first came to me in folk art form after a weekend vacation that included seeing a lot of great folk art in atlanta and columbus, georgia; i painted up a few small canvases to work out the design and phrasing.

next i took to a linoleum block to carve up a small 2×2″ version to print onto similarly sized cardstock – tiny prints that i think i’ll end up using as business cards! and then seeing those, i realized, oh, this needs to be a sticker, so i’m in the process of digitizing it to place a sticker order.

and yesterday, before a pop-up pro-democracy protest in my neighborhood during evening rush hour, i painted (with fluorescent paint!) a version of it to make a posterboard sign which i mounted onto a wooden ruler. there was no chance drivers whizzing by couldn’t see this sign! lol

i think a silkscreen of the design might be next, for tshirts and possibly signs.

another project for the past few weeks has been spending a lot of time combing my extensive (75000+) digital photo archive looking for photos of my stickers slapped up in public spaces…. specifically my queer-themed stickers. street artist jeremy novy of stencilled koi fame, who has been a longtime inspiration, is curating a history of queer street art exhibition november 7th-9th at impell gallery in palm springs as part of palm springs lgbt+ pride. so far he’s got 56 queer street artists from around the world that he’s collected over the past 15 years. i sent him a packet of stickers and am working on an artist statement, though i have no idea if he will include me. i’m a little late to the party and a lot of the artists he’s been teasing on his socials do more than just stickers, many do paste-ups and larger work. but i’m hopeful nonetheless. i don’t really identify or call myself a street artist because i don’t really live that life – i’m a little stealth – but i have always, since the early 90s, used my art and design to interact with the streets and the public via stickers, stencils and tags and it’d be cool to be included. so we’ll see.

and lastly, louise fletcher’s creative reset – her free 10 day course that leads into her paid 12 week course find your joy, which i took in 2023 – just ended. i wasn’t sure i really wanted to do it but i signed up and watched some of the lesson videos and did a few of the lessons, which were a good break from the paintings i’d been working on and a reminder of louise’s style of teaching and her focus on emotion and enjoying the process of creating. i intended to do more of the exercises but just haven’t had time, though i did have fun with the “ugly painting” and blind selfie drawing exercises. maybe i’ll go back to them or maybe just remembering my past experiences with them is enough. it was nice to revisit louise and hear her instruction, but i won’t be signing up for FYJ another time despite the hefty discount for alums. i don’t have the time this fall to devote to it and i’m not sure i feel i need to revisit that entire course, though i sure did enjoy it the first time around.

so that’s what i’ve been up to. heading into the next month of a very busy petsitting schedule, i’m not sure how much creative time i’ll have but ya never know. i need to be making work for a hopeful holiday sale and/or to launch my webshop with, and i have the jazzfest application in the back of my head which happens in november i think. it’s definitely the busy season. so stay tuned!