Lisa Call

To Houston!

As I mentioned in my studio newsletter a few months ago, I’m rewarding myself for the hard work I put into Dwelling: An exhibit of textile paintings by Lisa Call, by taking a vacation to see some art.

I’m headed to Houston for the weekend to see art, most specifically the Rothko Chapel but I’ll be viewing a lot of other art also. And getting a massage and indulging in room service. It’s going to be a fabulous break from life.

To that end I’m not bringing technology with me, no cell phone, no lap top, no nothing. No interruptions – my intention is to devote this time to relaxing and exhaling.

(okay – I admit – I’m bringing a DVD of Bones as its a rare treat to have a TV about – I intend to spend more time reading than watching but a bit of brainless relaxation is also nice).

Letting go any residual stress from the show preparation because when I get back on monday it’ll be time to ramp up on the next project and get moving.

I’ll also post the photos from my opening.

Happy weekend everyone!

Small Art

There are currently only 3 small textile paintings remaining with the house theme – they are listed on my artist card page.

A while back I wrote some articles about how to display these small works of art – you can see them here and here. And check out this cool idea also.

Postponed

As hopefully everyone that was planning on attending the show knows, my opening reception has been postponed until next week.

The reception is now Sunday February 28, 2010 from 1-4pm with my artist talk at 2pm.

Working with No Deadline

As a result of the postponement I’m having a relaxing day working in my office and studio without feeling any pressure of a deadline. It’s really quite nice.

And I’m getting a lot done, tidying up loose ends from the show, getting things scheduled for the future, dealing with things I’ve put off for much to long, etc.

I definitely prefer working this way – without a deadline. Without the pressure of having to get things done. And usually I’m good at working this way. I don’t procrastinate too much.

I think I procrastinate less. I set aside my work time and I just work with no temptation to sneak off and read blogs or watch Bones on hulu. When I’m under pressure I find I’m much more likely to do such things.

Maybe an act of self-sabotage? Since I’m already under pressure why not make it worse? It’s a game of sorts – to see just how close to the wire I can push things.

Basically it’s silly. But it is a recurring habit that I recognize that I have.

So I’m very happy to be deadline free at the moment as I really don’t enjoy that kind of stress.

Photos

Two of the items I’m dealing with today required photographs of me. I’m generally not fond of such things so I avoid these types of requests.

Fortunately last year my coach forced us all to get professional photos taken. I got mine back from the photographer in april 2009 and stashed the CD in a drawer and ignored it.

Today I pulled it out and was happy to note that they were actually much better than I remember. Big relief. I’m even putting it here on my blog, a rare thing to put a photo of myself anywhere, as long as I have it out and dusted off.

Next Up

Now that my deadline has passed what’s next for me?

On the blog front I am planning on writing the articles I missed on preparing for an exhibit as I have much more to say on the topic.

In the studio I’m going to be quilting some large pieces to enter into Quilt National and also making some smaller companion pieces to go with the work in my Dwellings exhibit.

On the art business front it’s time to get busy on constructing the foundations of the business. Getting all my paperwork up to date and clarifying the systems that keep my business running smoothly.

I also plan on focusing on makebigart. I’ll be giving a talk in April in Denver titled “Time Management: The artist and the internet” as a start on that project. (more details to come)

I have to say I’m feeling much excitement for 2010 – it’s going to be a fabulous year!

I have 1 week until I deliver the artwork for my solo exhibit. I have much much work to do in those 7 days. Fortunately 5 of those days are vacation or weekend days with no work. Starting tomorrow.

My plan was to come home from work today and jump right into my studio. But then I had a pretty crappy day.

One of the more notable events was discovering that I just mailed out 400+ postcards with a typo on them for the date of my solo show opening reception.

Big oops. I’ve now put a big banner on my website and blog to try to alert folks of the correct day – it is really SUNDAY, February 21. NOT saturday. I hope those wanting to attend figure it out and arrive on the correct day.

I also got a rejection from a show I entered and had some less than positive interactions with those I am close to and a bunch of minor stuff that usually doesn’t bother me but I’m clearly a bit touchy today.

So the result is I’m not working in my studio as I desire. I’ve now wasted 3 hours online doing absolutely nothing of value, expect feel a bit of panic over the incredible amount of work facing me in my studio. Although panic is not valuable so scratch that.

I don’t often post about the struggles of being an artist. And I suppose I don’t face as many demons in the studio as I could, and for that I am thankful. Days like today are rare.

I’m sure my lack of sleep (I’m running on 4-6 hours of sleep per night for the last 7 or 8 days) is a contributing factor. I’m definitely approaching burn out.

I knew that yesterday so I skipped my studio, took my mom out to dinner for her birthday (happy birthday mom!) and then came home and took a long hot bath and relaxed, went to bed early.

Guess that wasn’t quite enough. So I’m headed to bed early again.

I trust I will wake up refreshed and energized in the morning.

Art Auction Requests

Yesterday I received yet another art auction request. This is an often discussed topic for artists and I’ve written about it before. Most artists write about it at some point it seems.

The Society of North American Goldsmiths has a couple of excellent publications on the topic here. Based on their recommendations this is the letter I sent to the person making the request yesterday:

Dear ____________,

Thank you for your interest in my artwork. I’m flattered. Your event sounds wonderful!

I am more than happy to donate art to art auctions and your causes sound very worthy. I’m asked to donate to many auctions each year and am unable to accommodate every request so I’ve come up the following criteria to identify the events I will participate in.

I need to be able to set the minimum bid on my artwork. This protects me and the value of my artwork as selling art at auctions for extremely low costs is not in my best interest in the long run. If the piece isn’t sold for the minimum bid then I’d like it returned to me.

I also would like a % of the proceeds of the sales price – 20-50% is the range I normally encounter. This practice honors the work I do as an artist. The IRS only allows me to write off the costs of supplies on my taxes and not the market value of the donated art. So essentially I’m out all material costs and can’t make it back in a tax break. So you are asking me to donate both time and money by asking me for my art. Giving a % of the proceeds of the sales back to the artist (who are often as needy as the non-profits asking for art) is a practice more and more art auctions are adopting as it becomes more of a win situation for everyone in this way.

You haven’t given the details of the auction in your email so if you could send me that information I’d be happy to discuss this further.

Thank you again for your interest in my artwork.

 
I don’t participate in many auctions given my requirements, which is fine as I donate 10% of my gross income from art via my expansive giving policy and am able to support the causes I care about in that manner.

I’d love to donate more art to auctions and if the organizers were to restructure them to provide more value to the artists I’d be right there in line offering my artwork.

Solo Show Prep

I’ve been in my studio many hours this week creating the artwork for the show. I didn’t blog much this week as I used my writing time to send out my January newsletter. If you aren’t on the mailing list and want an idea of what you are missing you can read the latest newsletter online: January Studio News.

Making Progress

I’m a week and a half into my 7 weeks of intense studio time as I prepare for my upcoming solo show.

I have 4 large textile paintings basted and ready for quilting and a 5th in design. I’ve started quilting the first piece, the one I’ve selected for the show postcard, and things are going well. I’m mostly on track and think I will meet my schedule.

Things can become quite a mess when working this much, as is evidence by my work table above. I know, not really all that messy, but for me it is, as normally I keep table tops clear. When things are organized I’m more efficient and I think more creative. I don’t waste energy finding things so I can use it all for creating art.

Save The Date

My solo show will run Feb 17 – March 17 at Macky Gallery in Boulder. The gallery is only open 9-4 on Wednesdays and to ticketed patrons of the Macky Auditorium.

Best chance to see the show will be at my opening – February 21 from 1-4pm. I’ll be giving a gallery talk at 2pm during the opening.

Mark your calendars now and more information will be coming with directions and parking info.

Number 101

I intended to include on my list of 100 accomplishments of 2009 my winning of the award for The Most Gorgeous Mouthwatering (MGM) Studio of the Year from Making a Mark but somehow forgot.

Thank you Katherine for the award. I love my new studio and so glad you loved all the photos of the construction.

Making a Mark is the most amazing and mouth watering blog by Katherine Tyrrell – if you are an artist and aren’t reading this blog you are missing out. It is a huge honor to be included in this years award winners.

A Word not a Resolution

A few years ago I read about Christine Kane’s idea of picking a word for the year instead of making resolutions. As I was never a big resolution fan this worked for me.

I was more into predictions. In 1999 I asked my kids their predictions for the year. Their answers: 7 year old son: “I’ll be in boy scouts”, 3 year old daughter: “French fries and hamburger. Go to McDonalds and eat in the car. No, I want chicken nugget fingers”.

I predicted I’d get the house organized (hm – that kinda sounds like a resolution). Either way it didn’t happen. Although my daughter might have gotten a burger but my son lasted only a few months in scouts before quitting.

So this word thing sounds good to me. I’m a big fan of boiling things down to a simple concept as the resolution wasn’t working very well.

In 2008 I selected courage and made some huge changes in my life, in 2009 I went with expansion and integrity and it brought more amazing things into my life.

A New Decade

Every year I want to pick the same word, Joy, because when I boil down my intentions to my most basic desire, all I really want is to be happy. Blissfully, joyously happy.

Yet I never pick this word as I am a 3 on the enneagram (a personality indicator kinda like a myers briggs but maybe more spiritual – I find them both interesting – btw – I’m an INTJ).

As to the enneagram – the 3s – we are the achievers. We get stuff done. We get a lot of stuff done. And sitting around laughing is great but it doesn’t cross anything off the todo list.

I pass by Joy every year with a bit of longing. No more. I’m declaring the 10s as my decade for Joy. So in everything I do, I am intending joy. And much blissfulness and smiling.

I might pick it as my word of the decade for the 2020s too, if things go well the next 10 years.

Moving Forward in 2010

As I think about 2010 and my plans I can see big ideas. Huge exciting things in my head that I want to do.

I also see some things in both my professional and personal life that need a bit of work on the ground level so I can grow in a sustainable way.

My intention is to put a lot of focus on the foundations of my art business, such as my website, inventory, image storage, etc. All the systems that keep it running smoothly.

Ditto for my personal life. I want to look at my habits and beliefs and focus on making sure the foundation is solid. I’m at the beginning of a new relationship and establishing a healthy base is key.

Yet I don’t want to just muck around on the systems and get stuck in the basement. I have big ideas for how to grow all parts of my life in new and exciting ways. I intend to find joy by doing new fun stuff, not just working on the basics.

With that in mind, my word for 2010 is Construct.

Yes – definitely a ‘getting things done’ 3 kinda word.

It reminds me of my home construction project – the importance of the solid foundation but also the fun of framing the big new studio.

2010 is going to be yet another fabulous year.

 
What’s your word of the year? If you wrote a blog post about it please link to it in the comments – I’d love to read about what everyone is intending.

To celebrate the new year I want to first honor my accomplishments for 2009. Most of these are art related but not all of them as life and art are not possible to separate.

1. I choose Expansion and Integrity as my words for the year and found it impacted much more than my art.
2. I completed construction on my beautiful new 450 sq ft studio (not to mention the rest of major home renovation project). If you are in town contact me for a studio visit.
3. I spent a month in South Africa on an incredible, fabulous vacation.
4. I moved my mother to Denver so she could live near me.
5. I spent 388 hours in my studio making art (that an average of around 7.5 hours a week for the year.)
6. I worked in my studio 165 days in 2009, a huge number of days given the year I’ve had with other commitments.
7. I created 35 small textile paintings in my new Dream series, inspired by my trip to South Africa.
8. I created 12 new textiles paintings in the Lines series – these small works are mounted on painted stretched canvas.
9. I made the first 3 textile paintings in a new series – Ascending , I’ll explore this series in more detail in 2010.
10. I created 9 new ACEOs.
11. I designed 1 new textile paintings in the Markings series (it still needs to be quilted.)
12. I created 5 new textile paintings in the Structures series and design 2 additional compositions.
13. I added 1 new artwork in my Home series, as a gift for my mom.
14. Total I created 66 new textile paintings in 09. Most are smaller works but the Structures and Markings pieces are about 7′ square.
15. I spent an unknown number of hours marketing my art but it was a lot. I didn’t track the numbers this year as I had other priorities.
16. I sent 4 studio newsletters in 2009.
17. I set an intention to write a monthly newsletter and revamped my format to facilitate this goal. I’ll pursue this further in 2010.
18. I ended the year with 584 newsletter subscribers, adding 153 new subscribers in 2009 (you can join here).
19. I wrote 132 blog posts.
20. My blog exceeded 100,000 page views 3 of the 12 months in 2009 and traffic continues to grow even though this was the least number of blog posts I’ve written in a single years since I started blogging 5 years ago. Thanks to all of you for your support!
21. I continued to build a strong community on twitter.
22. I wrote 4180 tweets.
23. I ended the year with over 2500+ followers on twitter.
24. I became more active on facebook by creating a fan page for my artwork.
25. I sold 22 of the 35 textile paintings in the Dream series.
26. 15 of the Dream series were presold before I left for Africa to collectors that gave me great confidence in my artwork.
27. I sold Structures #39, which was featured in the 2008 Artful Home holiday catalog.
28. I sold 10 ACEOs.
29. I sold 22 additional textile paintings (mostly smaller work or older work).
30. Total of 55 textile paintings sold in 2009
31. I decided to sell my handdyed fabric for the first time ever.
32. I listed 25 yards of Handdyed fabric for sale and dyed an addition 21 yards for sale (that will be listed later this month).
33. I sold 14 yards of my handdyed fabaric.
34. I sold enough PFD fabric to others to keep my account open with Kaufman for the second year in a row (details here).
35. Structures #78 was juried into the SDA show in Kansas City in 2009.
36. Markings #22 was juried into Form Not Function for 2010.
37. I survived my rejection from Art Quilt Elements.
38. I did yoga every morning for a month with the help of my facebook friends’ encouragement.
39. I cut sugar out of my diet for a month, it made a huge difference in my sleep.
40. I wrote in my journal through out the year.
41. I spend a lot of time with my sister this year during the 3 months we were moving my mom and I enjoyed it tremendously.
42. I was able to visit with other family members this year (my brother, my step mom, my aunts and uncle, my nephews and brother in law, etc). I’m grateful for all time I get to spend with my family.
43. I visited the Denver Art Museum numerous time through the year and love how much closer it is now that I live in Denver.
44. I attended numerous artist lectures at the the art museum as part of the Logan lecture series.
45. I enjoyed several wonderful meals and outings with my artist friends.
46. I attended First Friday and local galleries several times through out the year.
47. I bought an amazing monitor for my art business to process my online images.
48. I took private photography/photoshop lessons to improve my skills in those areas.
49. The quality of my online images are greatly improved as a result of the above 2 items.
50. I participated in Christine Kane’s Platinum coaching circle for 1/2 of 2009 to move my art career and life forward.
51. I had 4 or 5 massages.
52. I had acupuncture (which is magical) 4 times.
53. I took a short but wonderful family vacation in New Mexicoin July where we ate a lot of green chile.
54. Participated in small art showcase and Fine Art Department again this year.
55. Received innumerable wonderful, supportive and informative comments on my blog, on facebook and twitter.
56. Maintained a daily photo journal of the progress of my new home and studio construction throughout the entire project.
57. I selected over 20 colors for the walls in my new home and now 8 months later I still love every single one of them.
58. Donated and gifted 10% of my gross art income (15% of the South African Impressions artwork).
59. Worked a fulltime job as a software engineer.
60. Moved into a project management role at the day time job
61. Thoroughly enjoyed being a mom to my 13 and 17 year old kids, as I do every year.
62. Purchased dozens of beautiful new works of original art by artists I admire, including some amazing arts and crafts from South Africa.
63. Met a man who’s company I very much enjoy and am exploring a relationship with him.
64. Started a new project called Make Big Art, to empower, educate and encourage artists.
65. Created a website for makebigart.
66. Started a blog for makebigart.
67. Wrote 9 long blog posts for makebigart.
68. Started a facebook fan page for makebigart.
69. Began a photo journal of my trip to south africa.
70. Loved living in my house during construction (now that is over I wonder how I did that but it was great fun at the time.)
71. Remained friends with my builder after the completion of my construction project.
72. Pampered myself with an expensive hotel room the 1 night I couldn’t be in my house during construction.
73. Gave a lecture, Social Media: Marketing Miracle or Waste of Time, at the Create Denver Expo.
74. Helped Alyson Stanfield with her workshop, A No-Excuses Art-Marketing Seminar, in Estes Park.
75. Had a wonderful time with Alyson and Cynthia in Estes Park.
76. Gave away Structures #83 to one of newsletter subscribers.
77. Revamped my prices and blogged about my reasons (one of my most popular blog posts to date). They used to be way too low.
78. After changing my prices, I revisited my decision and tweaked it a bit.
79. Returned to setting very specific goals and tracking my studio time after trying to wing it for a while.
80. Wrote a series of blog posts about building a studio, including an extensive look at studio lighting and electrical needs.
81. Wrote an entry about music in the studio for Vinyl Art’s contest: Storied Past contest.
82. Was published in Quilting Art: Inspiration, Ideas & Innovative Works from 20 Contemporary Quilters by Spike Gillespie. This is a fabulous book and more, much more, than I anticipated. I highly recommend the book.
83. My ACEOs (art cards) were published in the October 2009 Artist Magazine along with a few quotes. I was so busy during that time I never blogged about this but will eventually.
84. Completed Structures #100 – a huge milestone that I celebrated in my July studio newsletter (and with much dancing in the studio).
85. I was a featured artist on crafthaus in September.
86. I kept a sketch book while in South Africa filled with wonderful memories of my trip.
87. I saw zebras and giraffes and other very cool animals in Africa.
88. Went on an amazing hike in the Drakensburg (the mountains in South Africa).
89. I fell in love with South Africa and am looking forward to returning.
90. Helped my son select college to apply for as he’s leaving the next year.
91. I came close to making a profit on my artwork in 2009.
92. Created a squidoo lens with reasons why people buy art.
93. Created a squidoo lens for MakeBigArt.
94. Maintained my squidoo lens on Contemporary Art Quilts.
95. Worked with accountability partners most of the year to keep myself on track.
96. Gave away more of my belongings after I settled into the new house. Freeing up more energy for positive things.
97. Bought myself the worlds most comfortable bed as my thank you gift to myself for surviving the home remodel, of which no amount of money would have been too much. It’s luxury.
98. Ate much ice cream.
99. Laughed as much as possible.
100. I promised my kids I would get them a kitten. I haven’t fulfilled this promise but I will soon as life has settled down finally.

Creating this list is not an easy task. Reaching the magic number of 100 requires a lot of looking back. The goal is to look back and enjoy my accomplishments.

And to realized I did a lot this year. Because I spent so little time in my studio (only 7 1/2 hours a week instead of normal goal of 20 hours a week) I get discouraged. But building a studio, traveling to south africa, moving my mom to town and starting a romantic relationship – these things all take a lot of time and energy and they are all valuable and I no regrets.

It’s good to look back and be grateful, of which I am very much.

Tomorrow it’s time to look forward to 2010 and all I plan to accomplish and the word I will use to guide me.

This year I selected the words Expansion and Integrity as my words of the year (in lieu of a resolution or setting specific goals for the year).

Some fabulous things did happen for me with my art career in 2009, but most of the expansion in my life was on a personal level. A home remodel project and the addition of a gorgeous new studio, a month in Africa and moving my mom to Colorado so she could live near me. Huge expanding changes and all of it wonderful.

When I set my intention last January I mainly had my art career in mind but clearly life had other plans for my expansion. Tomorrow I’ll post a list of my 100 accomplishments for 2009 and it will be clear my art career wasn’t neglected either. The completion of the South African Impressions Art Project was very exciting.

So here’s to 2009 – it wasn’t what I expected but it was still fabulous and the growth that I experienced I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Looking forward to 2010 – I’ve selected my word for the year and another one for the decade and I’ll post those on Jan 1.

To Africa

I leave for South Africa this morning. After 28 hours of travel and sitting in airports I’ll be in Johannesburg. I’m bringing my pillow along on the flight.

While I’m gone my small collectible textile paintings will not be for sale via my website as I won’t be available to ship them to you.

I do have another offer for you – a new art project inspired by my trip to South African. You can reserve a piece today at big discounts.

So far quite a few people have jumped on this opportunity to reserve an African inspired ACEO ($14 now and another $14 later will buy you one of my ACEOs – normally priced at $40) and quite a few people are reserving larger pieces as with this discount they can afford a larger piece of my textile art than with my usual prices.

These prices are available until I return from Africa or sell out as quantities for each size are limited. Based on the rate of sales of the ACEOs in the first couple days I anticipate those will sell out, especially after I start posting photos on my blog during my journey.

Full details here: South African Impressions Art Project.

For those of you that already pre-reserved a piece – Thank You – your support is much appreciate.

Make Big Art

In case you missed the announcement, I’ve started a new blog/website called MakeBigArt where I post my articles targeted to other artists. The tagline is Empower Artists as I believe that knowledge is power.

I’ve been asked to mentor/coach other artists repeatedly and it is through the makebigart umbrella this activity will be organized. Although I don’t consider myself a coach, I have no formal training as a coach and I have no interest in being a coach.

What I have an interest in is sharing my knowledge as I love teaching, so I’ll be doing classes, seminars, etc, mostly around the thing I’m really good at – organizing and systems. Although there will be other topics also.

In the meantime I’m writing 1 blog post a week on makebigart and the topic for this week was multitasking and thrashing. Everyone multitasks and sometimes it gets out of hand, using the analogy from the computer world (where the term multitasking came from in the first place), this article looks at how multitasking can go bad and some ideas on how to go about it more healthy.

You can read the article here: Stop Thrashing and Start Processing.

There’s now a link in my sidebar to makebigart to make it easier for everyone to find it also.

 
Now I must jump on my last few tasks before I head to the airport. Not sure when I’ll be posting again, but it’ll be from South Africa!

Ta Da

Today at lunch I packaged up the photos and CDs and stuff and shipped my info off to the curator. I made my deadline – woohoo!

In addition to my kids coming home from camp a week early, I also ran into some issues with my website so the last few days haven’t been as smooth as one might hope but I had a bit of a buffer built in just incase.

My website has been quarantined off to the “you are hogging up the resources” section of the lunarpages world and if it doesn’t stop I have to pay more money. I can still run the website but some other things are a bit broken. Like email.

I’ve installed a caching plugin on wordpress and hope that fixes the problem. I didn’t hear back from them today so not sure if that is a good or bad sign.

In the meantime I can’t send email or access old emails stored in folders, kind of a bummer. And kind of not. I read the emails and then ignore them cause there is nothing to be done. A mini email vacation.

Estimation and Meeting my Deadline

I was able to easily make my deadline for this project because I had a very good idea of how long it would take me and the rate that I needed to get my work done.

This is one of the side benefits of recording and tracking my studio time. I know how long it takes me to make my artwork. It’s not an exact science but it is a good ballpark figure.

My original estimate was between 120 and 160 hours of work and it turned out to be 130 – completed in 5 weeks in addition to my day job.

Celebration

To celebrate completing this work I’m taking my kids to Santa Fe over the weekend as a last minute vacation. They were supposed to be in camp, I was supposed to be in Tucson so I had the vacation scheduled at work. Now neither of those things worked out so why waste a great opportunity to go eat some green chile. Yum!

We aren’t making any plans and the primary purpose of the trip is to eat (I grew up near Santa Fe, in Los Alamos) and an occasional trip to New Mexico is required as the food is beyond compare. Other than that we’ll just see if we feel up to doing anything other than going to see the new Harry Potter movie. Might just hang out at the hotel (they have wireless).

Nothing better than sopapillas to celebrate a job well done!