ACEO #23
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
$25

Because That’s What I Buy

It’s taken me several years to come around to the idea of making affordable art. My first love is to make big expansive artwork. Given the time and materials involved in that process I can’t afford to sell my large textile paintings for only a few hundred dollars, which prices me right out of most people’s budget, including my own.

I started seriously buying art a few years ago and find that most of the art I purchase is under $200. I see a lot of other people buying art in this price range also. While I have saved my money and bought a few pieces in the $500-$1000 range that it doesn’t happen very often yet.

When I made the decision this year to actively look to sell my artwork I decided that this was a market that I wanted to participate in. I know that I very much appreciate the artists that make work at price points that fit my budget and it feels right to be able to do this.

Small Art Showcase

The impetus for creating my small artwork for sale webpage was to participate in an online small art showcase my friend Jeanne Williamson organized. (Thank you Jeanne!)

The website is now live and in addition to my work you can find small art work by 11 other artists working in a variety of mediums. The work ranges from $25-$500. Check out the website Jeanne created and get some holiday shopping done: Small Art Showcase .

I here there might be more artists coming soon so check back often.

ACEOs

Until this month I was selling my ACEOs for $21 including shipping. They are now $26 with shipping as I realized I wasn’t making much of a profit on them, between paypal fees, postage, materials and my time (to both make the ACEO, then photograph iand list on my website). While I want to make small art that is affordable, I also want to make some money while doing it.

Each of my aceos is created the same way I create my larger artwork. Each piece is cut individually (I never strip piece - for those that know what this means). Each cut I make and each color change in the work was made with deliberately.

On a very rare occasion I will have scraps leftover from a piece and will use those to make my aceos (I think this has happened twice), otherwise the pieces are made with intention, just like my larger textile paintings. The result is these are rather time consuming and if I want to keep making them it needs to make financial sense.

ACEO #23, above, was inspired by Markings #3, as was my small piece Markings #25. It is available for purchasefor $25 on my small artwork for sale webpage (near the bottom of the page).

A Series of Posts

I have much to say on the topic of affordable art so I’ve decided to write a series of posts so look for more thought on the topic over the next week or so.

Construction Progress

No post these days is complete without some construction progress. I think tomorrow I’ll have studio walls. Today they got one built:

Construction Photos - Wednesday - November 19
Construction Photos - Thursday - November 20

ACEO #25
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
$25

Great Big Dreams

I’m back home after my wonderful trip to North Carolina for the Great Big Dreams retreat with Christine Kane and 20 some other amazing women. It was an incredible time and one I won’t soon forget.

I didn’t take my camera with me this time because I wanted to just experience the beauty and not worry about capturing it. I think sometimes it’s harder to be still and enjoy nature if I’m also thinking I need to photograph it all. As usual the mountains around Asheville were spectacular.

Construction

I came home to much transformation at my house and even more the past couple days. I’ve got new walls up and old walls down - you can see the photos here:

Construction photos last week
Construction photos this week

Other than that not much going on around here. Just taking things easy cause the house is in need of a bit of clean up before I get back to work on things and I’m lacking the proper motivation to do that. So just extending the relaxation from the weekend into this week. Nice - really quite nice. I haven’t even twittered since I’ve been back.

In a day or 2 I’ll get back to being motivated and am planning a series of posts on affordable art and my thoughts on making the small works I recently completed, like the ACEO above, which was inspired by Markings #19:

Markings #19    ©2008    56" x 58"

Lines #1 - Lines #5

On Canvas

I am happy to report that I really like how these small 3" x 3" small textile paintings look on canvas. It gives them nice substance. I’m also very happy to report that 4 of them sold yesterday. Only Lines #2 is still available (my art for sale page).

I painted the canvases with acrylic paint to coordinate with the textile paintings then I stitched the paintings onto the canvas along the edge of the wood stretches of the canvas. I makes for a really nice flat surface. I only ordered 5 of these little 3" x 3" canvases from Dick Blick but will be buying more.

I bought some other sizes and have a 6" square piece also mounted on a canvas which I’ll show next week.

I put a label on the back of the textile painting itself, similar to the labels I attached to my aceos, but it doesn’t show. So I’ve also signed and labeled the back of the canvases. So if anyone every removes the little guys from their canvas they are complete works of art as is also.

Remodel Update

I now have a laundry room floor. See photos here: Nov 12 Construction Photos.

As I head out the door this morning for my retreat with Christine Kane my furniture is in the middle of all the rooms. They start demolition inside the house while I’m gone. I’m creating one big open room for my dining room/living room/kitchen so walls have to come down. Monday I should have some fun new photos to share.

Markings #25
©2006
8"x 10"
$150

Selling Directly From My Website

I’m excited to introduce my page of (mostly) new small affordable artwork available for sale directly on my website with paypal "Buy Now" buttons: Affordable Art for Sale.

Paypal inventory control will ensure that if they let you buy it, it’s available for sale. So you don’t have to email first and ask if something is still available. I’m not super fond of the big yellow buttons but they have become some what of a standard on the web so for now I’m sticking with them for now.

If you have any problems with the system please let me know. You will be charged shipping when you check out (if it doesn’t seem right let me know and I can fix it). Also those in Colorado will be charged sales tax now. Woohoo - I’m official.

The Inspiration

Markings #25 above (along with ACEOs #23 and #24 and Lines #3 - Lines #5 on the art for sale page) were inspired by Markings #3. I love this color combination of minty greens and purple.

Markings #3    ©2006    74"x66"

Great Big Dreams

I have much to say about why I’m making small affordable art and how I feel about it and how it might effect the image of my larger artwork but no time to write about that today as I’m leaving tomorrow for another of Christine Kane’s Great Big Dreams Retreats and need to pack. I went last December and believe it was the start of a new path for me. I’m really looking forward to spending another weekend in North Carolina looking at where I’m going next.

Remodel Update

Things haven’t been all that exciting yet this week so not many pictures. I put up a few from monday and tuesday here: Construction Photos Nov 10 and 11.

The excitement in framing will start today and continue the 4 days I’ll be gone. In addition to starting the framing out back and putting in the new sewer they will be starting the work inside my house. I’m tearing down a few walls to create 1 big room for my livingroom/kitchen. They will also frame the location for the new door, which will be at the front of the house instead of the side.

I have to move all my furniture 4 feet away from the walls that are being removed and reframed before I leave. This could be a trick - there really isn’t room in here for all this stuff. Stay tuned for photos upon my return!

New Work

This is a collection of the new small textile paintings I’ve complete the last few months. I’ve never had so many small pieces around at the same time and thought it would be fun to take a family portrait.

I’ll be processing these images tonight and get them on my new ”art for sale’ webpage’. They are all under $500 and most are under $50. Time for holiday shopping.

I will be mounting 6 of these pieces onto stretched canvas tonight also. I painted the canvases this morning. Pretty fun that painting thing.

Construction Update

The remodel has been at a slow point the last few days as things like waterproofing the foundation are being done. This morning the wood arrived and they are in the back yard figuring out where stuff is supposed to go. I expect some framing to begin tomorrow. The last of the asbestos siding will be taken off today also. So there will be things to take pictures of again soon.

Structures #102
©2008
6"x 6"
$85

My Seven

I was tagged by Susan Donley for this meme. Write 7 things my blog readers don’t know about me then tag 7 people to keep this going. I’m not sure which one is harder. Is there really anything I haven’t written about on this blog over the past 3+ years?

Here’s my try:

1. I’ve only owned 3 cars in my life. I didn’t buy my first one (Bufurd) until 1989 right before I got married at age 26. Bought the second one (Annabel) in 1992 right before my son was born and it was clear we would have to become a 2 car family. I bought the 3rd one a few years back when the one from 1992 was totaled in an accident. The first two I bought new, my current car is a 1996 Honda Accord named Pam.
2. In my grad school days I was a co-author on a few computer science research papers. We presented one of them in Orlando and I had to fly down to Florida with my adviser in his small airplane. He made us (myself and fellow graduate student) help navigate. I didn’t want to and put no effort into it. I was generally on the wrong map page when he asked me to show him where we were. We still made it to Florida and back just fine.
3. When my grandparents sold their farm in 1987 or 88 they had a big auction. I bought my grandmother’s floor quilting frame but couldn’t get it home with me on the plane so a few months later I drove from Wisconsin to Kansas (in Bufurd) to get them. So basically I drove 1200 miles round trip, alone, to get a bunch of old 2×4s. I came close to getting rid of it when I moved this year but didn’t, so it is currently crammed into my storage locker.
4. I’m really really good at playing Blockus as I’m really good at thinking spatially. I have to bribe my kids to play with me but mostly they refuse because I always win. I’m also really good at tetris and prefer 3-d tetris cause regular is too easy. And even better, I’m really good at packing a car with tons of stuff. I think this is why I like making the type of art I make, it’s very much like putting a puzzle together to make it all work out. Requires a lot of spatial reasoning.
5. My first cat was named Radiation Burn. I called her Raid. I stole that name from my best friend Kelly as she was going to name her first child this but her husband objected. I’ve since had cats named Toxie (Toxic Waste) and Indie (Industrial Waste). Our current cats are Nukie (Nuclear Waste) and Abby. My daughter was 5 when we got Abby and didn’t quite pick up the pattern. Next cat is already named. It’ll be Medi (Medical Waste).
6. I was a girl scout growing up. My mom was our leader and we did lots of camping and backpacking and I loved it. I have many fond memories of those years. In my 20s I dreamed of having a daughter and being her girl scout leader. I was most happy when my daughter said no way she would do girl scouts. Whew - off the hook. Teaching and herding kids is not very high on my ‘like to to do’ list. My mom was a saint. (Thanks mom!)
7. I don’t like rules.

And so given #7 I’m going to skip the part where I tag other people specifically. Instead I’m tagging anyone that reads this blog and has exactly 2 A’s and 2 E’s in their name (first and last). If that’s you - your turn!

Small Art

This weekend I was hoping to wrap up the small art I planned for the online holiday sale I’m participating in but it didn’t quite happen. Which is fine as I’ll wrap it up this week. Along with packing up my house so they can rip down walls.

The above piece is part of the sale and in the next day or 2 I’ll get my webpage up with all of the work. It’s been fun to make these little works but I’m also itching to get back into making some larger pieces now.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

A Foundation

On friday they finished the foundation for the new studio. Yay. Next week they start framing and also the demolition in the existing house. So this weekend I’m doing some packing. Need to get my art books and artwork out of here before the dust joins us.

It’s interesting living with absolutely no storage in a very small house. The thought "I’ll just chuck that into the garage for now" crosses my mind. Then I remember that’s not an option so I either find a permanent home for the item or toss it in the trash. Great way to keep the house decluttered.

The final foundation pictures are on smugmug here: Construction Photos Nov 6 and 7.

Tomorrow I’ll have some new art to show. Didn’t have time for photography today.

Structures #43
©2005
21"x 22"
$750

Talking about Twitter on Facebook

I said a while back I’d write about how I use twitter. Today 3 things happened that made it clear today was the day to do that.

First I had the following conversation on facebook after I clicked to become a fan of twitter:

Friend: Hi Lisa, I should get this, but thanks to old age, I don’t. What do you use twitter for? Is it more than just another facebook-like status? What am I missing?

Me: As an artist (this tech thing for 40 hours a week where I see you is just a hobby) I find twitter more useful in terms of resources. Not sure about the marketing side of stuff but I have a good group of followers that are quick to help me out. Today I asked for pointers to paper sources to print thank you cards with my art and got great comments.

Lots of artists on twitter. Maybe a bunch of geeks stuff over there also but I’m mostly interacting with artists.

Some people auto publish their tweets to their facebook status - I don’t - I view them as different conversations. There is some overlap in audience but facebook is more of everyone I know - most of them in person, but not all. Twitter - I don’t know many of those folks in real life. So I write about different things.

Twitter is more everyday mundane stuff and I update many times a day. Facebook isn’t quite as interactive - so I only update it every couple days as people don’t seem to check it as often.

Friend: That makes sense: different communities, different granularity. Thanks for the explanation!

How I use Twitter

So that kind of explains how I view twitter. I view it as walking into a room full of friends and joining a conversation for a bit then leaving again. I come back throughout the day and the conversation shifts and flows as the day progresses.

It takes a while to get the hang of twitter. The @replies, which aren’t obvious, are a big part of it. Once one gets that figured out I think twitter makes a bunch more sense. An @reply is like a comment on a blog post. I write a tweet, if someone responds it puts and @lisacall in the front of their tweet back and I get to see all of those on another tab. That is how twitter becomes a conversation.

I have twitter set up so that I see @replies from people I follow to other people that I follow - which expands the conversation beyond just me and 1 person. I’ve had several multi-person conversations as a result of this. I don’t get all @replies (so I don’t see replies from people I follow to people I don’t follow) as that seems like too much to me. Setting it to see no @replies at all didn’t feel as much of a conversation. Each person can decide how many @replies they want to see.

Twitter is a never ending conversation. We all need a break from that at times. So for me the key to not letting it overwhelm me is that I don’t worry about what was said in my absence. Sometimes I go back and read stuff (like during lunch at work) but mostly I just let it slide. Although I always respond to @replies directed to me.

But again - twitter makes no sense at all to some people. Not a big deal - there are thousands of way to communicate with other people - twitter isn’t required or even necessary. Some of just find it highly entertaining.

If you want to follow me my profile is here: Lisa Call’s Twitter Profile. Or you can just go take a peek and see what I’m saying today. At some point I’ll put my most recent tweets into my sidebar. It’s on my todo list.

Twitter Articles

The other 2 interesting things that happened today were people tweeted pointers to some really great "how to use twitter effectively" articles. These said things that I might have written in this post, and now I don’t have to repeat. The articles are excellent:

How not to be annoying on twitter

What to write about on twitter

I really like that first article. I’ve stopped following some people that don’t seem to understand this.

Not everyone loves Twitter

For a fair and balanced view, I also read this blog article about twitter today:

Is Twitter Too Good?

That doesn’t paint twitter in such great light. It was written in March 2007 by Kathy Sierra, who no longer blogs. Although, ironically, you can follow her on twitter now. Hm…

Construction

I didn’t get home from work until 5:30 tonight - way too dark for photos. But it’s way cool in the backyard - the forms are down and I can see the walls. Photos will have to wait til tomorrow.

Structures #43

I’m building a webpage for a holiday art sale. Turns out it’s supposed to be for art $500 or less. Oops - I thought it was $1000. So now I have to pull a bunch of my stuff off. My fault for not reading the info again before starting.

Anyway, came across this piece while doing the page and remembered how much I love this piece. It’s over $500 (it’s $750) so it’ll have to come off the page, but decided it needed to appear on the blog today instead.

Everything is Great

The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity at my house. Making art, making progress on my new website and then today building a webpage for a holiday art sale I’m participating in with a few other artists (more on that when it’s all ready).

There is much progress on my house also. As of today there are foundation walls out back and it’s really defining the space quite nicely. I can really get a feel for the size and shape of things and I’m thrilled. The studio is about 2/3rds the size of my last studio and that’s about perfect for now. It either needed to be twice as big or it needed to be exactly the size I’m building it. I love when things work out exactly right.

Basically everything is going really wonderful right now and I’ve been in a great mood recently.

Nothing to Say

Problem is I can think of nothing to blog about. Actually that isn’t true. I can think of nothing to blog about that won’t take a really long time to write and I don’t feel like doing that right now. All my time is currently going into creative pursuits like web design and art making and writing clever comments on my construction photos. So I think my brain is on empty when it comes to write a blog post.

I find it goes in cycles. When I’m not doing so much of other things, I have creativity left over to blog. When things kick into high gear in all the other areas, I’m a little less motivation to blog.

Or maybe it’s the excitement of the pumper truck. Isn’t it the coolest thing? Lots more photos on smugmug of the foundation walls:

Yesterday (putting up the forms): November 4 Construction Photos

Today (pouring the concrete): November 5 Construction Photos

Or honestly - maybe I just ate too much Halloween candy to have anything intelligent to say.

Structures #66    ©2007    22" x 31"

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Today was the first day of work after the clocks went back an hour (good bye daylight savings time until March) so as I was headed home at 5 it was already getting dark and by 5:30 it was all over. I had big plans to do tons of stuff tonight but found myself wandering aimlessly about the house for a while a bit disoriented.

I usually find this darker time to be a great period of motivation. I’m getting tons of sleep and it’s too cold out to want to wander about so my studio is the perfect place to be.

This year it feels odd. Probably the weather. Usually it’s fairly cold when this happens so it feels natural but this year it’s been in the 70s. It’s too warm for the days to be getting shorter! Which is really quite good in terms of pouring cement for the foundation of my new studio - I truly am very grateful the weather is on my side on this one.

Twitter to the Rescue

So after a bit of pacing and greeting the cats I naturally found myself in front of the computer instead of the sewing machine. No new email to distract me so off to twitter. I started to write something that felt whiny then realized I really don’t want to be that person.

So instead I found myself writing: First day home after dark from work. It’s going to take some serious energy to get me to that studio. Okay - no whining - off I go.

and headed to my studio for a little over 2 hours of art time today along with an hour of work on the website rewrite as I am determined this will be done within the next week.

I just had to decide to do it, and then I did. Thank you twitter for the chance to remind myself of that.

It’s a good day to follow up on my very productive weekend of 12 hours in the studio and 4 hours in the office. Kids are at their dad’s, boyfriend is out of town so no excuses to not stay focused and get stuff done.

Structures #66

I wanted art for the post today so selected a piece with a lot of black. I love this piece (do I say that about all of my work? Sometimes it feels that way, maybe because I rarely show the stuff that I don’t say that about).

I’ve never shown this textile painting in public and it’s pretty much lived in my closet it’s entire life. I need to find it a new home where it can get out of the darkness. I’m going to be putting all of my artwork on my new website over the next month (with prices - this piece is $1200 - which reminds me that I want to do a post about how I price my work) so I trust it will find a lighter place to live once the world knows it exists.