Lisa Call

ACEO #38
Textile Painting
©2009
3.5" x 2.5"
$40
Purchase Here

ACEO #36
Textile Painting
©2009
3.5" x 2.5"
$40
Purchase Here

New Artwork

These 2 new aceos are a bit of a departure for me. To date all of my aceos (except I think #2) have been inspired by existing artworks by use the same fabrics as I used in a larger textile painting. These 2 I just went with some hot summer colors and had fun with them. Same with ACEO #37, which I posted the other day, loved that bright bright yellow to play with.

It feels really good to have new work coming out of my studio again. It seems everything has been on hold for about 5 months so this is way cool.

Because I sold all my small work in January it’s also been a chunk of time with not much income coming in. Between the art sales and fabric sales (sold half of them the first night), I’ve got a bit of cash flow again. Woohoo. So tomorrow I’ll be ordering more fabric for dyeing.

Thanks everyone for the support.

Really Super Productive Week

In addition to getting in 18 hours in my studio (3 over my goal of 15 per week) I also worked on my art business 28 hours this week (along with the 40 hours at the day job).

At the beginning of the week I worked out a method on how to record and track art business time and after I refine it over the next few weeks I’ll post details on what I’m doing.

My inbox is down to 29 emails again and this time I’ve figure out a way to process emails that seems to be working. Again – after I get it refined a bit (as in figure out what the heck I’m actually doing that seems to work) I’ll write about that also.

Now I need to focus on getting caught up on blog comments. I think there is about a month outstanding. And the last 2 posts about my studio need to come to closure.

Completion – it’s good thing to feel, things are really clicking for me and I’m loving working on my art.

Weekly Planning

Now I’m off to do my weekly planning. My super high productivity will slow down a bit. My planning needs to reflect the expected time with kids.

As it’s summer, the kids’ schedule is a bit wonky. I’ll have another 5 days with them at their dads, then they return on friday and be with me until July 5th. So the number of hours getting things done will decrease as they still like spending time with me (sometimes – being teenagers it becomes less and less each month so I try to maximize the time I can with them.)

Photography and Weeds

I’m very happy with how much better my photography is turning out these days. I still have a bunch to learn but I’m not nearly as frustrated as I was before.

My second private photo class is sunday. Time to talk printing, then I can get on some old todos that require a printed portfolio.

I’m also meeting with my builder this weekend to talk about a covered patio. I can’t afford to build it at the moment but I need to put in some landscaping so I’m going to get a design so I can plan the rest of the yard accordingly.

I had hoped to do landscaping earlier but the universe had other plans for that money, so now I’m working on plan B, which is do the minimal to keep from getting a big fine for not having any landscaping. Got my first nasty-gram from the city last week. Oops! Apparently 2 foot high weeds are frowned upon.

This is what happens when you work 86 hours a week. Something has to give:

ACEO #21
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

Yum

Today’s joy is brought to you buy some delicious pizza the kids and I had for dinner. Yum. We sat and savored every bite. Except my preteen daughter, who was practicing staring off into space and ignoring me, which I must say was great fun to observe, especially when she couldn’t resist and would smile at what we were saying.

Friday dinner with the kids – priceless.

Construction

They did work today, I didn’t feel like taking photos when I got home from work. So tomorrow there will be an update cause they are working on the studio all through the weekend. I think tomorrow I’ll have windows.

I get to go shopping for stuff now, faucets and bathtubs and a bunch of other stuff that I have completely forgotten. Not being a shopper type this is going to be a challenge for me, but I am determined to have fun with it. How many times does one get to pick out a bathtub?

My daughter wants an orange one. I hope they don’t make such things. How could I say no? Think they have any resale value at all? Wonder if there would be a matching toilet and sink.

In the Studio

I’m in the middle of making a new batch of 3" square lines paintings mounted on canvas. I’m also working on a new piece with a color scheme suggested by a reader. I don’t do commissions per say but if there are some colors you’d like to see in a piece, I can see what I can do with them in your requested size. If you like it, you can buy it, if you don’t I’ll put it up for sale on my small art for sale website.

The above ACEOs was inspired by Structures #99:

Structures #99
©2008
33" x 39"
$7000

Structures #102
©2008
6"x 6"
Purchase Here

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!

This morning Natalya Aikens emailed a link to an article in the New York Times titled Late Bloomers by Malcolm Gladwell and I second her recommendation.

Wow. I think I might have found myself.

The article starts by chronicling the writing career of Ben Fountain, an author who spent 18 years writing before getting his first big hit at the age of 48. The article goes on to postulate on 2 different approaches to creative work – conceptual vs experimental. Prodigies, like Picasso, tend to be conceptual, they are born to genius. Late bloomers take a more incremental and experimental approach to their work.

The biggest "wow" part of the article for me is an excerpt from an article by David Galenson which comments on late bloomers:

The imprecision of their goals means that these artists rarely feel they have succeeded, and their careers are consequently often dominated by the pursuit of a single objective. These artists repeat themselves, painting the same subject many times, and gradually changing its treatment in an experimental process of trial and error. Each work leads to the next, and none is generally privileged over others, so experimental painters rarely make specific preparatory sketches or plans for a painting. They consider the production of a painting as a process of searching, in which they aim to discover the image in the course of making it; they typically believe that learning is a more important goal than making finished paintings. Experimental artists build their skills gradually over the course of their careers, improving their work slowly over long periods. These artists are perfectionists and are typically plagued by frustration at their inability to achieve their goal.

Okay – wow – that is almost exactly how I feel about my work. I often say that I’m still in the student/learning part of my career, believing that my work is no where near where I think it should be. I’m okay with this, going along one piece at a time trying out a new idea to see what it will bring me. After 7 years I have 99 textile paintings in the Structures series and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. I’m searching for something that I know is there and seems rather illusive.

So now I have a whole theory about why I do what I do. I’m a late bloomer. Excellent – when I’m 60 my work will be selling for millions. Woohoo!

A Patron

The article makes an interesting point:

If you are the type of creative mind that starts without a plan, and has to experiment and learn by doing, you need someone to see you through the long and difficult time it takes for your art to reach its true level.

and goes on to discuss the patrons that Cezzanne (also a late bloomer) had in his life, such as Vollard and Pissaro.

The late blooming author, Ben, quit his job in his 20s and when I first read that I felt I was some how a slacker for not suffering the poor artist life and slogging through 18 years of hard work til I made it. Then around page 4 or 5 they reveal that Ben was able to quit because his wife was making a big chunk of money as a lawyer and he was a stay at home dad. Although his kids were in day care until the afternoon so he had large piece of uninterrupted time to work.

Aha – okay – so I no longer have such a patron, no wonder I’m going to work. I was a stay at home mom for 10 years and it was during this time I launched my art career in full. So I am quite grateful for that opportunity. My kids were never in daycare and I got a divorce as soon as my daughter went to kindergarten so I had naptimes to make art, but still, it was really great to not to have to work.

I’m now my own patron and this line from the article gave me pause:

This is the final lesson of the late bloomer: his or her success is highly contingent on the efforts of others.

Hm. Is that true? I’m a pretty self sufficient person that rarely asks for help and am pretty determined that I can do this, even with the day job (for now). Maybe I need to go hunting for some patrons. Anyone want to provide me a nice stipend to make art til I’m brilliant?

ACEO #7
3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″
sold

ACEO #10
3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″
sold

 

ACEO #11
3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″
sold

Motivation Revisited

I wrote an article about motivation in my latest studio newsletter outlining 5 steps I take to stay motivated and on task to complete large projects (you can read it here – it’s the 3rd article: studio newsletter).

Another thing I do to keep motivated is to give myself rewards along the way and when the goal is reached. Nothing like getting something I really want to keep me moving forward. Sometimes it’s a simple as a container of expensive decadent ice cream or new art book to keep me plowing through a task. The best reward for doing household chores is a few hours in my studio.

Dell Studio 17

My big reward for getting my house sold and moving to my new home was to buy myself a new laptop. My old computer was 7 years old and not in the best shape. I upgraded the memory last year and that helped but it really needed to be put to sleep. In addition, having the big thing in my bedroom/studio/office was heating up the room and it was taking up way too much space.

So I ordered myself a "desktop replacement" laptop, which means it is big and heavy. It’s a Dell Studio 17 (17″ screen) with a fast processor, 4 gig of memory, beautiful high resolution screen and even a finger print scanner for security (okay – so it came installed – it’s kinda silly and I have no time to set it up right now but it’s still a fun toy). And best of all it’s orange.

I also bought my kids new laptops, also with 17″ screens, but theirs’ were Dell Inspiron 1720s and instead of an ATI video card they had nVIDIA. A few weeks after the computers arrived I found out that these graphic cards are probably faulty. HP has been offering extended warranties for effect computers but Dell is still dragging their feet. It looked like a situation I didn’t want any part of so I shipped the kids’ laptops back this morning and will replace them with Studio 17s with the ATI video cards.

Their laptops aren’t quite as nice as mine, but still way nicer than any kid might need. They were a big help during the move and deserve a reward also. I’ve also told them these laptops are their birthday presents, xmas presents and bribery for helping me move out and back in for the remodel. They grumble a bit with that comment but they are happy to have such nice computers they aren’t really complaining.

Markings #21 In Progress   ©2008

ACEOs For Sale

There are still 3 ACEO’s available for sale that I made last month to include with my newsletter. If you are interested in purchasing one (shown above) please send me email and let me know which one you’d like. They are $21 US and include shipping to anywhere. These 3 Art Trading Cards were all inspired by Markings #21,.

ACEO stands for “art cards, editions and originals”. Originally known as ATC, Artist Trading Card, and are traded between artists. When sold to the public they are referred to as ACEOs. The primary rule for an ACEO or ATC is they be 3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ – the size of a trading card. They are created in many different mediums and are collectible, trade able and affordable art for everyone.

Shaded Walk    ©2007 Stephen Carl
Reprinted with permission from the artist

Artist Breakthrough Program

The last 4 weeks I’ve been participating in the Alyson Stanfield’s online Artist Breakthrough Program.

Today is the last day, the last phone call. Time to evaluate how things went.

So to start here are the goals I stated for the month:

1. I work 5 or more hours a week in my studio making art.
2. I complete the rewrite of my website and blog and go live with them by May 12, 2008.
3. I update my resume to include jurors for all juried shows.
4. I create a complete resume for my personal use with every show in my career listed. This list also includes a list of which pieces were included in each of these shows.
5. I design a portfolio package to send to galleries (the package does not have to be complete but I identify all the parts and the format of the package)
6. I start a list of potential galleries to contact for representation. The list has 30 or more galleries listed.

In addition to the above, I was also working on getting my house ready to put on the market. Cleaning, packing, hiring contractors, yard work, etc.

How Did I do?

1. I worked in my studio 19 hours over the 4 weeks – very close to the my original goal.
2. Nope – the website is coming along nicely but it needs more work.
3. Didn’t even start
4. Didn’t even start
5. Didn’t even start
6. I have between 15-20 galleries on my list with contact info.

In addition I got a lot done on prepping my house. This weekend I completed the last of the decluttering, and have done a bunch of packing, cleaning and yardwork. I’m almost done getting contractors lined up to do the big stuff (paint, carpet, refinish hardwood, etc). This was a larger job than anticipated, getting estimates, rescheduling, etc, etc. I’m certainly learning a lot about how to deal with these guys (number one tip – don’t have expectations about getting anything done soon).

How Do I Feel About It?

I’m super happy with how things went. I probably stayed focused about 70-80% of the time I had available to "do stuff", which is a lot more than normal. Although I didn’t complete everything on my original list I didn’t really think I’d get it all done so that’s fine (more on this later).

I knew I’d be super busy, not just because of all I had going but also because my kids were with me almost the entire month since I didn’t get to see while they were in Europe for 3 months. Not every weekend was as crazy as the one I outlined in this post, but we were still busy. Staying this focused for a sustained period of time, with my kids at home, was probably a first so I’m very happy about that.

I got some really great ideas from other participants in the program for my website so I have more work to do than originally planned. I’m writing a custom plugin for wordpress to display my artwork images, as I couldn’t find anything out there that did what I wanted. I haven’t written code in a while so I’m excited.

What Did I Learn?

I set my goals higher than was realistic. I did this to keep myself motivated. But what I found as the weeks went on is that I wasn’t taking the goals quite seriously enough. I’d list 6 or 7 things to do in a day and only have time for 4 or maybe 5. So I set myself up from the start to not finish everything.

I think this is how I normally operate. It’s safe – because I know I never get everything done I fall back on that as the excuse every time to not do stuff. Eventually I start to think I don’t really need to finish things.

This month has shown me this is maybe not the most optimal way of doing stuff. I love my Getting Things Done project and tasks lists (from David Allen’s Book) as they are great at capturing the big picture. Yet this month I’ve found I need to get more specific, and more realistic, about what I am doing TODAY.

So in addition to my big lists, each morning I started to pick at most 3 things todo. The super most important things that absolutely have to get done. And I put my focus on getting those things done. At the end of the day it’s awesome to say I’ve completed them all.

Learning this new way of approaching my work was the best thing I got out of this class. Taking the time to think about how I get things done and to try some different approaches.

Where Does Blogging Fit In?

Obviously I stopped blogging about 1/2 way through the program. I’d find myself with an hour of time to work on my website or to write a blog post and more often than not I’d blog. So I decided to drop the goal to write and spent my free computer time on my website.

I don’t intend on making this a habit. Living my life at a pace where I don’t have time to blog is not okay with me. I love writing and I find it a great way to process information about my art and myself. So something else is going to have to give because I’m going to continue to blog 2 or 3 times a week throughout the process of selling my house.

One fun thing about this class was watching other artists work on their goals. Steve Carl (photographer – the above image is his work) had a goal of starting a blog and it’s been fun watching him and remembering back to when I started mine 3 years ago. I think he’s off to a great start. You can check it out here: Works by Steve Carl

What’s Next?

The other important thing I feel I learned is that trying to do 3 things at once (make art, build a website and get a house ready to put on the market) is too much. I think if I would have focused on just 1 thing at a time in the end I would have gotten more done.

Time to focus on the house and get it on the market. I’ll have a few moments here and there to do some art/art business work but at least 2 of the 3 must do items on my list each day are going to be house related. While I’m not excited about losing momentum on the website I think in the end this is the best choice. I’ve been feeling a bit too scattered the last few days not really making huge headway on any one thing.

Deb Kirkeeide wrote the following comment on my last post (the crazy birthday party weekend for my daughter):

I’m exhausted! How do you keep such focus? And when do you have time for fun and relaxation? I admire your fortitude.

Very good question Deb. Recently I listened to the book The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey. He’s the debt free guy. While I don’t agree with all he says, nor do I like some of how he delivers his message (I think the belittling and sarcasm are way over done), he makes a lot of good points.

What struck me listening to this book was how his line:

Live like noone else,
so you can
Live like noone else.

applies to many of the choices on how I am currently spending my time. I am very busy with 2 full time careers and kids and a house, etc. I’m making choices today so in the (very near) future I can be a fulltime self supporting artist that doesn’t have to scramble for money. Those choices have me living today as very few people are willing to live: staying super focused and not having tons of time for just sitting about. I believe the pay off in the future will be well worth it.

The alternatives don’t sound very attractive to me.

1) Just work the day job and wait until I retire to make art (no way!)
2) Quit the day job and struggle for money (also not for me)

I wouldn’t object to finding a wealthy art patron that would support me but that sounds like a recipe for disaster as these types tend to have hidden agendas and I’m not good at being told how to live my life.

 
But not everyday is a day full of goals and craziness like last weekend. Today, I’ve got nothing on the todo list that I must get done. Just doing what I feel like doing cause it’s my birthday. Yay! Chocolate for everyone on me.

And next weekend – I’ve told the kids I will not drive them anywhere – I’m going to get in some studio time.

This is what a weekend looks like when focusing on 2 major goals (preparing my house to put on the market and redesigning my website) when four 12 years olds visit for a birthday party:

Friday evening:

• 4:00-4:05pm: Arrive home from work thinking that the weekend isn’t busy enough so decide to participate in community garage sale in the morning.
• 4:05-5:00pm: Sort through kitchen in search of something to sell. Fortunately garage is full of things needing a new home as they’ve been decommissioned from my life.
• 5:00-6:00pm: Cook nice dinner for kids
• 6:00-6:15pm: Plan menu for daughters sleepover birthday party. Head out the door to purchase food for party and discover wallet is in purse, which is still at my office.
• 6:15-9:00pm: Settle for plan B: work in studio an hour and work on new website design.

Saturday:

• 6:30-6:50am: Up early to hear answering machine message from sister that airplane tickets for family vacation over 4th of July have just gone up to $600. Wonder why I didn’t purchase them last week when they were under $300.
• 6:50-8:00am: Drive to office (~1 hour round trip) to get purse, buy food for party (they don’t have the required ice cream flavor so leave that task for later), return home as the garage sale is to start.
• 8:00-9:00am: Pull stuff out of garage and slap prices on it. Note it is really cold and windy (as is indicated by the lamp that keeps crashing over).
• 9:00-11:30am: Send kids off to teen court training (they are jurors) as I come close to freezing to death doing yard work during the garage sale. Few people show up, I make $50 and get my tree trimmed and start cleaning up rocks overgrown with grass in my front yard. The snow is not encouraging. Look at clock often wondering when kids will be home.
• 11:30-11:45am: Bring remaining junk in to garage. Label unsold dresser (with drawer that won’t close) and 40 year old folding camp table (that is less than stable) as free and head to yummy thai restaurant for lunch.
• 11:45am-12:45pm: Have yummy lunch and hope that when thai place reopens in a week in new location it is still as yummy.
• 12:45pm: Return home to happily see that the dresser is gone. The camp table is still on my driveway as I type. I’m sure my neighbors are pleased with me – my house looks like a flea market at the moment as there is also firewood, some PVC pipe, bags of tree branches and a big pile of rocks on my driveway. This is all against HOA rules I have no doubt.
• 12:45-1:00pm: Purchase airline tickets for summer trip into alternate location requiring a 5 hour drive on days other than originally planned no doubt messing up everyone else’s plans.
• 1:00-1:30pm: Try to organize house for birthday party starting at 4pm as I try to get son to figure out his plans (something 15 year old boys do not excel at).
• 1:30-2:00pm: Phone call with sister about summer plans. In the background son discovered his cell phone is out of minutes and he has no idea what is going on. Hang up phone recognizing I need to take action.
• 2:00-2:10pm: Turn circles wondering what I’m doing.
• 2:10-4:10pm: Go to store to buy more minutes for sons phone. Drive son way the heck downtown denver (60 miles round trip) so he can attend friends lacrosse game and escape sister’s party. Includes turning around and driving back to give him money after I drop him off so he can take bus and lightrail to another friends house later on (plans changed 2 seconds after I dropped him off – surprise!). Also stop and buy ice cream for party. They didn’t have the required flavors either. Glad I added a second shopping trip to the day.
• 4:10pm – Arrive home 10 minutes late for the start of party. One kid has already been there 45 minutes. Good thing kids are old enough to babysit each other. Discover daughter did amazing job decorating for party – looks great.
• 4:30-10:00pm: Hide in basement packing boxes and organizing as kids make noise during party. Cook dinner, let them make huge ice cream sundaes, be thankful house has not yet been cleaned or repaired for sale as 4 girls are making a mess. Plans of working on website fly out the window when I realize it is just not very quiet.
• 10:00pm: Send girls to room, hope they sleep then head to bed.

Sunday:

• Wake up at 7am to discover girls are already awake and playing Wii (borrowed from kids dad’s house). Wonder if they slept at all.
• 7:00-9:00am: Escape to basement again and pack more. There is always more to pack apparently.
• 9:00-10:15am: Cook breakfast and try to round girls up into car to go bowling.
• 10:20am: Finally get girls in car – wonder if we will make it there by 10:30 to get the cheap rates.
• 10:35am-12:45pm: Kids bowl. We got the cheap rates so I buy them popcorn and sprite and win mom of the year award for about 10seconds. It’s over when I refuse to buy more sprite but offer to get them a pitcher of water. While kids bowl I shuffle papers and redo all my todo lists figuring out what I can get done in the coming week. Also talk more with sister about summer plans. Drive back home (40 minutes round trip drive time)
• 12:45-1:30pm: Make lunch for girls.
• 1:30-1:45pm: 15 glorious minutes in my studio.
• 1:45-2:00pm: Round kids up to leave. Hunt for lost retainer (which was already packed).
• 2:00-4:00pm: Drive kids back home. Not a normal birthday party service but needed to help out another mom that had to work. Also drive in complete opposite direction across town to pick up son – it’s safe to come home now. Total miles – 70, Total time in car 2 hours. THIS is why I am moving to Denver.
• 4:00-8:00pm: Try really hard to focus and get back to work on website or packing. Fail at both. Hang out with kids and play board game instead.
• 8:00-9:15pm: Identify that I can complete an item on my weekly goals for the artist breakthrough program if I write a blog post as it’s the only thing I have energy for.

This must be why others have cable/dish – I’m sure even reality TV might seem okay right now.

The Quillows (a quilt with a pocket so it can be converted into a pillow)

 
My daughter’s middle school humanities class is studying capitalism and each of the kids (or group of kids) has secured a small business loan from the Micro Business Development Center in Denver to start their own business through their YouthWorks program. Her teacher is an amazing teacher and this is a wonderful opportunity for her to get a glimpse into my world as an artist hoping to make a living from their art.

At one point she told me she was stressed out because she had to start a business and that I had no idea what she was going through. When I told her I knew exactly what she was going through she countered with "yeah, but you aren’t 11". Hard to disagree.

The Pillows (my daughter’s original designs)

 
They are working on marketing this week. My daughter is going for the socially conscience save our environment approach.

A selection of "cornbags" – heating pads you microwave.

 
The kids are setting up shop this friday during the monthly First Friday Artwalk in the Santa Fe Art District here in Denver. If you are in Denver come check it out. I hear there will be some very cool products available that will make excellent holiday gifts.

December 7th from 5:30pm to 8:00pm

The stores will be upstairs in the Micro Business Development building located on at 700 Kalamath.

Ransom ©1999

Yesterday my plan for posting 1 new piece a day came to an end. Not a very long streak – just 3 pieces finished. After working all day I spent the evening at school with my kids learning what the high school kids had learned about HIV/AIDS and listened to them debate proposals for US foreign policy for aid to Sub Saharan Africa for the AIDS pandemic. Very interesting and it didn’t leave any time for the studio.

This evening I spent shopping for the kids’ christmas presents. I even braved the mall, a very rare event, for some overpriced bubble bath. I think I better test it out before gifting it to my daughter (the sacrifices we make for our kids). Maybe after that I’ll head to the studio for a bit.

 
In the mean time I thought I’d give a shameless plug for my cafepress shop as black friday quickly approaches, although technically I should probably wait until cyber monday to post this but I needed filler given my failure to meet my 1 piece a day goal.

I only have 1 design available for sale on cafepress, the above piece, which is aimed at the quilt maker crowd. Quilters are notorious for they love of their fabric, and chocolate. Magnets, notecards, tshirts, etc are available.

I made this Ransom piece during a workshop years ago. We were doing some design exercises cutting up magazines and I finished early and got a little silly, so when it came time to work with the fabric we painted this seemed the obvious choice. The instructor did shrine type work, this is mine.

 
Goal tomorrow – post 2 new pieces and rephotograph the ones taken with a flash. We should be getting off work early tomorrow and since I plan on working from home I’ll be set to jump right to the studio when the email arrives.