Lisa Call

Home #51 (informed by Home #13)
©2010 Lisa Call
3.5" x 2.5"
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
$40 + shipping

Moving Forward

The last few weeks I’ve been moving my art career forward in a variety of ways. I haven’t written out a plan for what I want to accomplish, but I have some general ideas about what I want to do, and so I tackle the jobs as I feel like it.

Once I feel on solid ground again with my artwork, I will get more into a routine with a more defined and structured todo list.

New Art

First I wrapped up some mini textile paintings, like the one above, and added them to my website. You can see the entire group here: mini textile paintings. Home#36 and Home #35 are new, so scroll down for a while to see them all.

I also completed Dream #41, which I mentioned a few posts ago.

I’ve selected fabric for a new Structures textile painting and am working on it slowly.

New Prices

I also revisited my prices. There were a bunch of reasons for this, some related to the economy but most related to the fact I haven’t had much time to market my artwork the past year and half since I raised the prices.

For now I’ve lowered them, and over the next few years as my marketing ramps back up I will raise the prices back to where I set them last February.

You can see the new prices on these pages:

• Collectible Small Art – small affordable artwork, mostly under $500, quite a bit under $100.
• Dwelling - the artwork from my solo show in February
• Dream – the artwork inspired by my trip to Africa
• Large Art - much of my available large art, from the Markings and Structures series
• Artful Home (search for my name for my artwork) – they are offering a 15% discount through June 30 – use code SUMMERX to get the discount when you check out

If you have any questions about prices or paypal isn’t bringing up the price you think it should please let me know.

New Website

I’ve been saying for years I was going to build a new website, entirely on wordpress. I’ve now started in in earnest and it’s going really well.

I’ve decided to use the Thesis theme for wordpress as they will do the work to keep it up to date with the newest versions of wordpress and they have good basic design. I can then focus more on the content.

Although first I am writing a custom plugin for displaying my artwork. I’m learning php and mysql and it’s great fun. Since I do project management at work and no longer do “real” software work, it’s a treat to do a bit of coding once in a while.

New Outlook

I’m still working on my new outlook on life after struggling through depression the last few months. Weekly acupuncture, yoga, massages, time with friends, talk therapy, and running are all still helping.

I mostly have good days but haven’t run in about a week and can tell I need to get out there and exercise hard. It’s a key component to feeling upbeat and postive.

ACEO #38
©2009 Lisa Call
3.5" x 2.5"
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
Private Collection

And the Winner is….

As promised, today I selected the winner of the mini textile painting in celebration of my 5 years of blogging.

Being the geek I am, I used a online random number generator to do the selection based on comment number to my post (with removal of duplications for the folks that posted twice and the addition of folks that commented on facebook).

And the winner is Shirley – aka frazzledsugarplummum.

She selected ACEO #38 and had this to say about it:

The colours and design remind me of the African Landscape that you shared with us on your visit there.

Shirley – as soon as I get your email address I’ll get it in the mail to you.

Thank You

A great big thank you to everyone that commented on my post and for your lovely congratulations on my blogging and the wonderful comments about my artwork.

Home #37 was by far the most popular piece, so as a bonus to my give away I suppose I got some nice marketing research information from it.

You are all a wonderful community and have made the last 5 years a joy to share. Thank you also for all of your supportive comments over the years.

And here’s to 5 more years. Tomorrow I’ll write the next installment of my Removing Obstacles series.

Time Management Workshop

I’ve uploaded the slides from my talk at the Create Denver Expo to the MakeBigArt blog here: Time Management: The Artist and the Internet.

It’s about goals, systems, tools and tips. Much of the content was verbal only, so I’m working on a plan to make the entire workshop available online, so stay tuned for that information also. The makebigart blog is probably the best place to do that.

Dyeing Fabric

I’m super happy to say that I did a tiny bit of dyeing this weekend and am off to the dye studio (aka the laundry room) to rinse out the 12 new yards. The first batch of the season is super exciting.

Okay – honestly – they all are, since I’m never sure how things will turn out.

I do sell some of my hand-dyed fabrics online and the available pieces are here: Lisa Call’s Hand Dyed-Fabric.

I’ve got some more yardage to add and hope to do that by end of the month.

I’m considering cutting some of the pieces into smaller chunks – maybe packets of fat quarters vs. a full yard of a single color. Would that interest anyone?

My View

This is the view out my back window in my studio. I love love my neighbors yard with all the trees. It feels very cottage-y and forest-y and I keep expecting to see Hansel and Gretal or something else fairy tale like.

Yesterday we had really dark storm clouds on the east and the sun was shining from the west creating amazing gorgeous bright lime green leaves against the powerful dark gray.

This is where inspiration comes from – everywhere – including right out the back window.

 
I turned back around to work in the studio and I saw my latest ACEO hanging on the wall waiting to be photographed. The same lime greens and grays.

I love it when life imitates art.
 

ACEO #39
©2009 Lisa Call
3.5" x 2.5"
ACEO – textile painting (hand dyed fabric, batting, thread)
Purchase Here Sold

ACEO #19 and ACEO #21
©2008 Lisa Call
photo by NIkki Jackson

Displaying in Style

I’ve recently started asking a few of my collectors* if they could send me images of how they are displaying their artwork and Nikki very wonderfully sent me the above image of the 2 aceos she purchased recently.

[* if I haven't asked you it just means I haven't had time yet - but I'd love an image if you could send me one - I love seeing how you are displaying my art.]

Her comments on the framing (note they were photographed without the perspex box due to reflection):

I used velcro to mount the pieces, in part because I love the way it makes them sit slightly out from the surface, and cast shadows. It may be only 1/4″ clearance but it makes a difference! The perspex box slides over the frame and meets that small black ledge, with about 1/2″ clearance to the art work.

I like the sense of unity, in terms of presentation, for these small works of art, especially as they are all in the same room.

Jane Davila recently posted an image on her blog of her recent art work purchases. That’s ACEO #28 in the top frame in this post: Art in The Studio.

They look great – thank you Nikki and Jane for your support and purchase of my artwork!

Little Pieces of Art

I knew about aceos for a few years before I bought one or started making them. I thought “what could one possibly do with artwork so small?”. Course I make big stuff, 4 or 7 feet wide, and 2.5 inches is almost microscopic in comparision.

Then I bought some. And made some. And it became clear.

These small pieces of art brighten up the little corners of our homes and can have an even larger presence once they are framed either alone or in groups.

I’ve got aceo’s tucked into corners of my house that add wonderful color and interest to areas that can’t fit larger artwork.

Take it With You

I think one of my most favorite ways a collector uses one of my ACEOs is Kit Vincent, the very first person to buy one of my ACEOs and the owner of aceo #1.

She carries her around with her in her wallet so she has art with her all the time. What a great idea.

She posted a photo of this here: Art In the Mail

And You?

How do you display your aceo collection?

 
PS: My aceos available for purchase are here: aceos

ACEO #33
©2009 Lisa Call
3.5" x 2.5"
Textile Painting (hand dyed fabric, batting, thread)
Sold

ACEO #37
Textile Painting
©2009
2.3" x 3.5"
Sold

Busy

I think I have not yet written a blog post about a big change that occurred in my life recently. I am now a scrum master at work. I know – I can hear the collective “what? huh?” Basically I’m a project manager with a cool title.

This means my days at work are a lot busier. There is something every minute that needs to be taken care of and I have to actually keep a todo list instead of having just one or two things I’m working on.

It’s pretty fun so far.

I plan on writing a big post about this at some point, about how it fits in with my year of expansion and integrity, but for now this is what I have time for. And it’s my way of saying…

Sorry I am still behind on blog comments. I will catch up over the next few days. One post at a time if I need to. There are some good questions in there that I want to answer.

New Art

I’m very happy to report I have 3 new ACEOs completed this week and the first one I posted above. I love love this little house – love the chopped off roof.

Reminds me of moving into my first house with the husband. He was backing the uhaul up the driveway and came within a few inches of ripping the overhang off the garage. He didn’t do it but for some reason that image never has left my mind.

I’ll rephotograph the other 2 and post them soon.