There is No Place Like Home…

Well, I have been traveling and I got home at the beginning of this week. Whew… I just did two art shows in Kansas but before that Ken and I spent two weeks in France…. (Paris and the South of France).…
Right now, I have so much inspiration that my head is about to explode but I need to revamp my studio so that I will have room to work more efficiently. UGH.

I have decided that I am going to take a break from doing art shows and see what kind of work I will make without the pressure of having to get ready for hitting the road with a van load of art. Coming back from Paris, my urge to work large is intensified. Coming back from Kansas, my passion for rural women and their toughness is confirmed. So I sort of have a plan….

While in Kansas, doing my last two shows (at least for the next year), I was quite pleased to have won two awards…. IN the Prairie Village Art show near Kansas City, I won Best of Show…. quite the honor since I have never had that happen before.

 

And then in Salina, Kansas at the Smoky Hill River Festival, I won a $500 Merit Award.… I loved the idea that I was backing away from the Art Show world on a high note….

I will talk about Paris in my next post but right now, I need to undertake a massive revamping of my studio…. I left it in a mess when I rushed off to Kansas.

Time to Get Back to Work….

Well, it occurred to me that I have not blogged for a while so I came down here to the studio and thought I would see when the last time I posted something…. OCTOBER….. well.. HELLO… where have I been???  Well, not in my printing apron that is for sure. I feel like I have been lazy or uninspired. or off kilter….

In my defense, Ken and I did travel a bit in November….
We went to New York City and bought and sold postcards at the Metro Postcard show….

We stayed with our dear friend Susan Lane for several days and then stayed in Manhattan at the New Yorker Hotel where Tesla lived and died. This is the door to his room…. We  stayed on the same 33rd floor!!!!

We explored the City and took a walk on the High Line… it was extraordinary…

We saw the Statue of Liberty from the ferry (that’s our friend Charlie who spent the day with us)… We couldn’t dock on the island and look around because Hurricane Sandy took out the dock.

We went up to Rochester, New York to visit with relatives and on our way there we went through Seneca Falls, the birthplace of the Suffrage Movement and saw the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel where in 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton first spoke at the Women’s Right Convention calling for all women to take responsibility of the cause and read the Declaration of Sentiments. And we toured the Women’s Museum there. It was my first pass through that place and I have to go back….

In Rochester, Ken and I  visited my cousins.…and stayed with my Aunt Judie and Uncle Jay….

From there we went on to York, Pennsylvania to another postcard show…. We bought and sold more postcards and ate a lot of good food.

Then on to State College, PA, where we visited with Ken’s sister, Joanne, her husband, Paul and our two cutie nephews, Matt and Jon.
On our way home we spent Thanksgiving with our hilarious friend Brian in Branson, Missouri…

And in Arkansas, we got into the  Christmas spirit by feasting our eyes on these feathered Christmas trees…

and of course, in December, there was Christmas….

okay, Christmas wasn’t all month but for some reason, my brain shut down like it was on a month long holiday… Most of my artist friends were doing loads of art shows, trying to sell what they could to the last minute Christmas buyers.

What did I do? I sat at home, reading their frenzied Facebook entries and pondering the lint in my navel. Well, that is not entirely true either… I can hardly see my navel, which caused me to join the Y and start working out at their gym. You can look at me and know that I am not the athletic type but I am giving it a go. I would like to live longer and be able to do more physical things with my family, like going on a kayaking trip with our grandsons… So I am doing cardio and weight resistance training…

But about my WORK..

My brain has collected images, as well as I collected some great images on postcards at those two shows. So my plan today is to get back to work and burn a couple of  solar etching plates for an idea I have about a series on America the Beautiful …

more on that, if it works out.

On to the Next Project

I make my living by selling at large art shows and a few galleries… So, now I have to switch gears and start producing work for my upcoming shows.. I am getting ready for two events actually…. A Gallery show in Round Top Texas at the end of March and my first art show  Main Street Art Festival in Fort Worth, Texas  in April …

For Fort Worth, I always start by “Cowgirling Up”…

Since I have been working small, I want to stretch out and work a little bigger  for awhile …. I am going to make some monoprint collages that will be 17 x 17 . For these I have some old Ranch Romance magazines with wonderful graphics on the front.  I tore off the covers and will collage them into my monoprints along with bits of etchings floating around..

When I start, I lay them out and make my decisions about what will go into the monoprint…  Remembering  that I need a good strong composition to hold it all together,  I need to know where the pieces will be on the plate so that I will know where to paint the printer’s ink to make it all work….

Here are a few of the “starts” that I am working on today….

Ranch Romance Monoprint "Start"

These are waiting in the wings to be dealt with…. Instead of  just putting them in a stack, I spread them out so that I can keep glancing at them as I am walking by, in case an idea “spurs” me on (so to speak)… Right now I am in cowgirl mode but I have a few ideas for other subjects for these large monoprints so I am excited to jump right in on these and giddy up and go (oh, dear….sorry)…. 

waiting in the wings

 Off to Work… my Apron is on and I am about to put in the ear buds of my iPod…I think I will listen to Pink  today for these..

Yee Ha……