White Oak Studio

I spoke yesterday to Barb Blissett, my contact from the City Clerks office, City of Kalamazoo. Her comments were "The artwork is beautiful." What a huge relief!

It's hard to explain but when a customer comes in with a custom request - and yet does not understand the limitations of the medium - it's sometimes hard to feel that I can created a piece that they will love. Add to that the "corporate point of view" that sometimes expects "miracles"  - like an original art piece created from scratch in two weeks. And you have a delicate tightrope situation to work with.

Yet, this is the truth of an artist that accepts custom orders, especially in a culture that is somewhat "spoiled" with multiple options. Once, people had the choice of ordering from one catalog - the Sears & Roebuck Company. Today, buyers have the ability to choose from a huge selection of merchandise from multiple stores, the Internet or from the artists hand - an almost unlimited choice.

It's both a challenge and a pesonal satisfaction for me when the job is done and the customer is happy and satisfied with the work.

Today I am delivering an 8" X 10" canvas to the City of Kalamazoo / Sister City/  Numuzu Committee. They commissioned a handmade paper and canvas piece with a ghinko leaf design. They specifically wanted me to use City of Kalamazoo trees for the symbolism involved.

The interest in my work stems from the Japanease cultures revereance for handmade paper. The Japanese have a very early and long tradition of hand papermaking. I have also made several sales previously of handmade papers, and handpainted tissues papers to persons traveling to Japan. One woman bought 12 packets of tissue papers to give as "house gifts." She said she wrapped them inside of her clothing and said that they were so lightweight and flexible that she easily stayed within the weight restrictions.

The "Sister City" committee criteria included;

• The final cost to stay under $200.00
• Utilize a canvas small enough that it can be packed in a suitcase for travel
• Use the City of Kalamazoo tree leaves (for the symbolism involved)
• Created with artist-made, handmade papers

Actually, I created three similar canvas pieces and am allowing them to choose the one they like. Hopefully that will give them enough laditude to make them happy and satisfied.

I would have preferred to make a 12" X 28" piece as I think it would have been more visually interesting but I did need to meet their size specifications.

I feel that it will be quite a "feather in my cap" to have work in the collection of the City of Numuzu, Japan!

My only regret was due to the short timeline I did not get professional quality photographs of the artwork taken.

I delivered my canvas work this week in Kalamazoo to Amy Zane's Housewear, www.shophousewear.com. They took 3 canvas pieces, (12" X 22") pieces and a framed, hand colored, black and white infrared photograph.

I observed that Amy and her gallery manager, Dianadra preferred the unusual shaped canvas, both horizontal and vertical. I can't blame them as I have been working in this format ever since I discovered them. This shape sings! 

This gallery, located on the downtown Kalamazoo Mall, is one of two galleries owned by artist/entrepreneaur Amy Zane. (Amy is a jeweler who once had her work in my gallery!) Amy seems to be a rising star in the downtown retail community AND she definitely knows how to get publicity!

Best of all is her great downtown location (a streetside shop with large windows), a website, she advertises frequently in the local papers, distributes 4-color postcards and makes a recognizable style of jewlery (that I see on the Channel three news women.) These are the main reasons why I selected her gallery over other Kalamazoo consignment choices out there.

My goal for this experience is 1) Continued Kalamazoo exposure 2)  Continues sales (hopefully from contacts who knew me from my old life.)

I must admit that I am surprised that she only accepts work for a four month period though. Intellectually, I realize this is to keep fresh work continually in the gallery. Having owned a gallery, I also know that it often takes longer than that to make a sale for a high end, 2 dimensional wall piece. Well, we shall see.

Next I need to forward jpegs and info. to be included on her website. My next task for today!

Recommended Strategies for Contacting a Gallery About Consignment:

• Visit the galleries web site initially
• Visit the gallery in person to see if the fit of your art is right for the venue
• Call the gallery owner (or e-mail) to set an appointment
• Create an inventory sheet of your artwork
• Create a biography and an "Artist Statement" and offer to send jpegs of your artwork for the galleries website
• Follow-up on a monthy basis

Today I am submitting my artwork to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Area Show. It has been about 10 or 12 years since I have submitted any work in the Area Show. This is the first time that my collages made of handmade papers on canvas will be shown publically in Kalamazoo.

I selected two, 22" X 28," pieces on canvas. The first piece "Whisper in the Woods" features an original nature photograph (a slide of a catapillar on a leaf) transferred first using the Daylab and then to re-transferred onto handmade paper and incorporated onto the canvas piece as its centerpiece.

The 2007 judge, Loius Marinaro, is a "content driven sculptor" (and a bronze sculptor himself) so it will be interesting to see how he reacts to my work. 

The second piece titled, "Impermenance" is a 22" x 28" horizontal work that incorporates calligraphy of a Buddist quote, ghinko leaves, a bookmark and a delicate, flat stone.

My goal, besides getting this work into this show, is Kalamazoo exposure and to win the $100.00 Handmade Paper Guild award. Web site:
community.mlive.com/cc
/handmadepaperguild

The Guild has been very positive in recognizing the work of local papermakers and IF, my work is selected, the publicity would be terrific. As a former member of the paper guild, I hope that my unique work will be recognized and appreciated. I have been told, and it is also my belief, that no one else is using handmade papers on canvas.

Now that the gallery is closed I plan to do more regional show exhibitions.

After a lifetime of rising early at first light and quickly getting right to my work, this winter I have a new and unexpected pattern. Instead of waking at 5 a.m. by my "busy mind," I am sleeping until 7:30 or so. For a "early" morning riser this is quite unusual.

I wake naturally (a feat in itself) and lie quietly in bed and then reach for my book and read for a half hour or so. What a luxury to start my day according to my bodies natural rhythm! I typically reach for "Meditations for the Mat" by Rolf Gates, a book of yoga meditations. While I am waiting for my left knee to heal (I injured it in November stacking a cord and a half of firewood) I cannot physically practice yoga every day, but I can work my practice at the interior level in the meantime.

I realize now that for the past 30+years I had felt a deep sense of urgency to get up promptly and start working and keep working until I dropped at the end of the day, whether I had had enough sleep or not. I have never been one to sleep in, in any sense or shape since I was a teenager. After all these years of intensity and over-working I am sleeping like never before. (I imagine I am still recovering from 6 years of carrying a load that would have dropped many a women.)

I find it interesting that my sleeping pattern has so drastically changed of its own accord. It also reminds me of the early 1970's when my son's were little - another time when I was not stessed by owning a business and managing it all alone. (The early child rearing years were a period of concentrating on just one job - raising my sons and keeping house - a healthy period for me.)

The early morning of this wintery February morning has a softness and stillness that is like the ambiance of church. For all of the anxiousness of the previous months and years, this period of calm is a blessing.

February is definitely a "bump in the road" of life.

Sometimes when we begin to clear our consciousness and change our thinking, we stir up a big mess. (Think of the turkey pan after Thanksgiving dinner. There's all this baked grease, so we fill the pan with hot soapy water and set it out to soak. Then we begin to scrape the pan, and boy, do we have a mess. However if we keep scrubbing, we will soon have a nice clean pan.)

This is where I am now.

Deep snow has made me housebound, a frozen pipe and water all over the floor has rendered me unable to work in the studio and the renovation/repair has made me have to cancel any personal plans and yoga that help to keep the depression at bay. For now I am pampering myself with the "simple things"; oils, the hottub, meditation, reading a good book, a fire in the fireplace and doing my affirmations. And, trying to keep the latest crisis from getting to me.

SOON I will be back on track with my twice weekly yoga, monthly garden club meetings, and an occasional personal day of fun. The mess will soon clear, the gallery will be clean and frshly painted -  and this life will again be better than ever.

"All is well. Everything is a working out for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come. I am safe."

When I reach a "roadblock" in my own artwork or need a dose of inspiration... I like to watch a movie about an artists' life and work. I've seen movies about painters and musicians (most typically after they have died) but never a documentary of a living artist. Recently I watched Sketches of Frank Gehry, quite possibly the most famous architect alive.

I woke up Sunday morning with a tiny voice in my ear that whispered..."Check the heat in the gallery."

When I walked over to check the therometer I found the furnace off and the heat at 34 degrees. The cold building led to a broken water pipe and water pouring in like a spring waterfall onto the floor of the gallery. PANIC!

I spent the next three days of hard work of moving everything in its way, drying it out, dealing with plumbers, insurance people, ServiceMaster of Kalamazoo and others. The following week was filled with wallboarders and painters scheduled to do the finish work and a meeting with the Amerigas officials to try to determine what is wrong with our furnace. (Three years in a row the furnace has conked out due to fine white dust that is clogging it.)

Once the dust settled, I asked myself what is the lesson I am meant to learn here?

It feels that this "crisis" (or as the Chinese might say this "opportunity") is a symbolic washing away of my old life as a gallery owner and a purifying of the space for the new life of solo artist to come. It also seems to represent the fledgling shift in my thinking and my daily energies that I feel taking place. I feel my mindset changing from being a gallery owner whose focus was on finding artists and selling their work - to - being a solo artist who is focused on creating and selling my own artwork.

Hopefully the soft yellow paint "Provence Creme" that I selected will give the studio a fresh new look and reflect light as well. It looks like I will be spending the rest of the winter getting things moved back into place, sorted, freshly oganized and ready for my new creative work.

I am grateful for this amazing building I was blessed to build and to create art in. I am also grateful for the time and space to live this phenenomal creative life. Living the creative life, for me, is my spiritual practice.

"i DON'T THINK WE HAVE TIME TO WASTE BEING UNHAPPY," From Everyday Sacred, by Sue Bender

Have you seen the DVD called The Secret? See it - tomorrow.  The secret is about the "The Law of Attractions." The "Law of Attractions" helps you to attract people and resources that you desire and need. All of your choices have attracted this current situation you are involved in, to you.

The energy you put out into the world is going to be coming it back to you. Look at it as if you are at a restaurant and you place an order and you expect it to come just as your ordered. So what kind of energy do you place in the orders of your life?

Do you say I'll never make it as an artist? I'll never be out of debt? Or, I'll never be in a good relationship? You just placed YOUR ORDER. The universe will send to you whatever you order.

Instead ask for what you want and need!!

Focus on the life you desire. That might be a life as a successful artist or a successful business owner.  Focus on creating the freedom and life you desire.

Make your action plan - Write out your plan, print them out and tape them to your mirror and read them out loud every morning. Keep those goals in the forefront of your mind at all times. Whenever anyone asks how you are doing. Reply in the positive.

Ask the experience "What are you here to teach me?"

If as an artist, you are living the talents and gifts you have been given - you are successful.

The new year is traditonally known as a time for change; a time for renewal and rebirth; a time to resolve ourselves to improve something in our lives; a time to grow.

This year, I am in transition having closed the art gallery. I have found that the first days following such a decision are like a release from the hospital after a protracted illness. One carefully learns how to walk again; slowly and wonderingly one raises one;'s head. I am in good health but I am innerly exhausted. I need a block of time to "not work," not strategize or think - time to rest and to recover. This included time off from daily blog writing.

After a two-month sabatical from this blog I have returned to this blog, a bit clearer headed. While I had truly intended to do nothing, I have been busy these past two months with creating my new website and this blog, yoga classes, painting, cleaning and learning mosiac work. In addition, living in the snowbelt, means removing a LOT of snow.

This renewal period has been a much needed time to recover from the long and physically challenging 2006 season.

Taking a break from my primary craft of papermaking has been challenging as well as fun for me, mentally and spiritually. At first I felt like I never wanted to work in paper again and now, I am anxious to finish the mosiac birdbath and garden benches to begin a specific paper project. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder!

I have long been interested in the beauty of mosaic, having carried the work of several mosaic artists in the gallery over the years. Not only has this lovely, unique work sold well, it focus on using recycled materials like tiles, mirrors and china to create something beautiful - a process that has always intriqued me.

"Art is not what you see, but what you makes others see." Edgar Degas