Lisa Call

Structures #73 – In Progress
Textile Painting
©2009 Lisa Call
Detail

Holiday Weekend

This 3 day weekend I work in my studio 16 hours. It was the first weekend it felt like home again. I’ve loved having the space but hadn’t really felt it was broken in yet. Now it does.

I’m most thankful it rained all weekend, so I relieved myself of all responsibility for pulling the nearly 2 foot tall weeds in the landscape free yard. The day will come when I’ll have to deal with that issue, but with the rain I was free to just make art.

I’m nearly finished putting the surface stitching (quilting) on Structures #73 and started some new ACEOs. The first ones of the year.

I also made big progress on Structures #100. I decided to make it the first new larger piece I designed in my new studio and it went together well. The composition is done so now I need to get it basted so I can start quilting it also.

Planning

It feels great to be motivated to make art again. Seems like it’s been a long time.

After my post a few days about about adding some more structure to my studio time, I decided to set some specific goals for the year to keep me motivated.

For 2009 my studio goals:

- 550 or more hours of studio time (~10 hrs a week)
- 256 or more days making art (70% of the days in the year)

As of today I’ve put in 126 hours in the studio and made art 68 days this year. To make my goals I’m going to have to make art pretty much every day for the rest of the year and put in at least 15 hours a week.

I’m be in South Africa for nearly a month later this summer, so I’ve factored in that time away from the studio also.

As a point of reference, in 2007 I put in 870 hours in my studio. The year I had a very clearly defined goal of 20 hours a week in my studio.

In 2008 it was 446 hours in the studio. A year with the laid back “let’s not set specific goals” plan. I also sold my house, moved into a house with no studio and started a major construction project – so to be fair I was a bit busier also.

Next up is going to be doing some planning and setting specific goals for the business side of art. I’ve been very reluctant to do that in the past and I think it’s time to get more serious about tracking the hours I spend on the business and keeping a better schedule.

I have big ideas of things I’d like to accomplish – specific goals will help me get there.

Structures #11
Textile Painting
©2002
47" x 72"

Intuition

The last few days I was reading descriptions of some online art classes and it really struck me that I have no formal training in art. I rarely think about this but for some reason last night it really stood out.

This post is a rambling brain dump of some of my thoughts on the subject. Not a value judgment in any direction. Just thinking.

I tend the think it doesn’t really matter in the long run but there are certainly times I wonder if I’m missing something totally obvious. I just make stuff I like and seems to work out. There isn’t a formal art thought driving my artistic decisions. I just do what feels intuitively right.

So I wonder if those with a formal education make decisions based on color theory or thinking about some mysterious art theory I know nothing about. Or does all that training just become ingrained and these artists are just going with their gut also? Are you a formallly trained artist? What’s your take on this?

I don’t have any desire to get an art education, beyond my desire to go back to school just because it would be fun. I don’t think I need to know this stuff, I just sometimes wonder what it is I don’t know.

Harder or Easier or The Same

Would making art be easier or harder with a formal art education? Or maybe it’s the same.

Part of wonders if it would be easier because I’d have this secret artist knowledge that would make decision making obvious.

And part of me wonders if it would be harder because I’d know a bunch of rules and be afraid to break them. I have no idea if my art breaks rules I don’t know. Could be, but would it matter? Probably not.

Or maybe it’s all the same because in the end as artists we are just interpreting our world and no matter how many classes one has taken this is just a kick ass fun thing to do and all the rules don’t really matter.

Structures #11

I figured on a post about my pondering about lack of formal education I’d illustrate it with one of my most popular textile paintings. Clearly I’m doing plenty right – ha!

Structures #99    ©2008    33" x 39"
 

A Studio Day

Hurray! There is no construction and no teeth to distract me this weekend so I’ve been making art most of today.

I completed 5 ACEOs that I started last week that are inspired by Structures #99, shown above. I really love this piece and wrote about it in my October studio newsletter. It’s inspired by a painting of buffalo at the Denver Art Museum. My textile painting isn’t about buffalo, it’s about the colors, and my usual fences and barriers.

Potholders?

The new ACEOs will appear soon on a webpage for an upcoming holiday sale I’ve decided to participate in, along with several other artists. Look for a posting on that in a few weeks.

I also worked on 5 small 3″ square pieces that I will be mounting onto these very cute little 3″ square stretched canvases. I’m going to play around with ways of presenting my smaller work on canvases and even with frames.

I like my larger work to be unmounted/framed as I really like how the work hangs on the wall, ie not perfectly flat, but pretty close. It’s fiber, it drapes, it has movement. For me this is a part of the artwork.

For these smaller pieces they are very stiff as a result of the extensive stitching I do on them so they aren’t effected when mounted and framed. Nothing is lost and maybe much is gained as they no longer look like a potholder. Course I don’t think they ever looked like a potholder but that’s the common phrase we textile artists tend to say about why we frame smaller pieces.

This is the first time I’ve gone down this path. Not sure how this will go but you’ll see it here first I suspect.

November Planning

After 5 1/2 hours in the studio I’m now taking a break to get November off to a good start by paying bills and setting art and art business goals for the month. I share this list with my mastermind art partners and we help keep each other on track every day. I’ve also decided to share this list with my blog readers so you can see the type of goals I set for a month.

I’m not sure how construction will go on my house this month so I made a list of goals on the assumption they will be working outside the majority of the month. If that changes and they do work inside the house I’ll just have to be flexible and see what I can get finished.

I will take the items on this list and break them down into tasks and put them on my taskboard. Then I’ll track how I’m doing via that method. At the end of the month I’ll review how I did.

My November Goals

General

• Work in studio daily
• Work on my art business daily
• Track time on business (# of hours per day) as I already do for studio time
• Blog 3 times a week or more

Studio Goals

• Complete Structures #73
• Complete Home #5
• Design Structures #100
• Complete 4 or more small works (8” square or smaller)
• Complete 4 or more aceos
• Investigate mounting small work on stretched canvases
• Investigate framing of small work

Art Business Goals

• Go live with new website design
• Website for holiday art sale
• Create postcard and mail to mailing list for small art sale/museum shows
• Send list of available work for Danforth Museum Show
• Send info those that have requested artwork info
• Complete 3 requested interviews/featured artist blog posts
• Visit galleries in town at least 1 day
• Read/Review Personal Development for Smart People
• Write article for Christine’s blog for word of the year

The big big goal is the new website design. I started this many months ago (too many too count) and the move and remodel have distracted me. Time to get this finished as it’s holding me back for many other things. Instead of aiming for perfection I’m going to get up and running and I’ll worry about perfecting it later.

I’m sure that I get in my way much too often with my need for everything to be perfect. So when the website goes live, please excuse anything that is broken about it cause it’s just me trying to get over myself.

More Construction

They did a bunch of digging around and messing with my sewer on thursday and on friday they poured the footings for my basement on friday. I’m so bummed to have missed the cement pumper truck but I had to actually go to work and do that thing I get paid for. They pour the basement walls on tuesday and you can be sure I will be home for that event.

The photos for Thursday and Friday are now on smugmug:
Thursday Construction
Friday Construction

In addition I got all of my "before photos online" and they are here:
Before Construction

I’m not done with the captions on for thursday and friday and I’m sure I’ll rearrange them a bit. See that perfectionist thing. But in a effort to avoid that, and to not be late to dinner and a movie with a friend, I leave it like this for now.

Structures #72 detail

Time in Studio vs Art Career

Last week I wrote about looking for balance between making art and the business side of an art career. I’m still pondering the issues for myself and thought taking an informal poll of other artists would be interesting.

So I asked: "question for artists: On average – per week: 1) how many hours do spend creating new artwork? 2) how many hours spent on your art business?"
on both twitter and facebook. Below is the summary of the answers (art/business).

- 20/20
- Some weeks 40/0, others 0/40
- 25/30
- 10/30
- 10-25 / 20-30+
- 25-30 / too much time promoting and organizing.
- ideally..20/20..lately 5/15
- 5-15 / 15
- 6 / 10-12
- 7-12 / 2
- 30/20
- 2/3
- 0/0
- 1/2

I pulled out just the numbers and deleted the comments, which were quite interesting, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to repost them here. If you go to search.twitter.com and search on @lisacall you can read the full replies to my query on twitter.

The info I glean from this is that the business side of art is a major commitment. Now that I’ve made that commitment it is no wonder I’m feeling the need to readjust.

Thanks to all the twitters and facebookers that answered the question as it was most helpful.

How about you, blog reader? How much time do you spend in the studio vs. the office?

More PFD Fabric for Sale

I sold 220 yards of fabric but have a bit more Prepared for Dye Fabric (PFD) Pimatex Fabric I’d like to sell. I wrote a post about this fabric here: Kaufman PFD Pimatex Fabric . I’m selling this fabric to keep my account at Kaufman open (they have a minimum purchase amount per year to order from them directly – I’m very close to meeting that minimum).

I’m selling the fabric to those with US shipping addresses only for $4.50 a yard + shipping. Total cost for different amounts including shipping:

5 yards – $30
10 yards – $55
20 yards – $100
25 yards – $125

If you’d be interested in purchasing some fabric please send me email the amount you’d like to purchase. I accept checks and paypal.

Structures #73

In addition to a couple hours of art business work, I’ve managed to get in 3 hours in the studio today. The first time in months and months I’ve been so focused on art making on a workday. Woohoo. Course it’s an hour later than I would like to be going to bed but I’m making good progress with the surface stitching on Structures #73. It takes me about an hour per square foot so I have maybe 6 or 7 hours left.

The above photo is another detail show of the textile painting.

Self Doubts

This afternoon I returned home from a wonderful weekend in the mountains with Jim followed by brunch with some artist friends. It was an excellent weekend. [photo above taken on a beautiful drive we took on saturday].

Not long after returning home I found myself in a less than happy mood full of the type of self doubts that rarely rear their ugly head anymore. Keeping a gratitude journal and focusing on all the positive things in my life the past year has really helped keep me grounded.

But for some reason this afternoon my mind was saying something like this:

Why are you making art? Why not just go to the day job and come home and relax? Making art is a lot of work and what do you have to show for it? Why are you building a studio? Do you really think you deserve a huge new studio in this economy? Why are you making art anyway? What value does it have? Why do you think you can sell it and live off your art? Get real.

etc, etc. I suspect most artists can relate.

I knew I was headed in a bad direction that could bring art production to a halt for the week and possibly the month, if I continued to have this little pity party for myself.

So I took a nap since I lack motivation to do anything else. I woke up in the same mood.

So I called a friend and whined. They were supportive as they could be but I was being annoying and this little pity party wasn’t going to go away after a few nice words. This was my responsibility to end, not someone else.

Score One for My Mind

So I thought to myself: you have been here before and you have 2 choices. Let this win and spend the entire evening/week/month online doing nothing or maybe you could try something different and just get over yourself.

So I went to my studio and just got to work making art. I wandered off after 10 minutes but pulled myself back to the studio after a bit. I was determined that even if I couldn’t shake the feeling I was going to at least get something done.

I was in a pretty pissy mood and had plenty of negative thoughts and it was rough going at first. I tried to think of something I was grateful for and could think of nothing. Eventually I got the focus to interrupt the stream of negativity and reminded myself how much I love to make art and slowly I could bring in other things I was grateful for.

My mantra was "Art is valuable, My art is valuable". I started repeated it over and over again when I caught my mind having a little pity party.

I also asked myself what I was gaining by thinking all these negative thoughts. I can’t say I came up with a good answer for this but I did decide I wasn’t gaining anything I wanted and that helped to put an end to the unpleasantness in my head.

After 3 1/2 hours the positive thoughts won and the self doubt and negative voice was put back in the box as it doesn’t serve me right now. Yay.

I’m really excited about the textile painting I was working on and Home #2 should be done tomorrow and I’ll post a photo of it.

Cherry Creek State Park, Denver, Colorado
 

Clarity

When I have clarity of intention I’m able to focus my actions on the things that will bring about my desires more quickly. I believe I am responsible for my own fate and focusing on what I want will result in it transpiring. So best to be very clear about what that is so I’m happy with the results. Hence my previous posts on my artistic success.

When I sit down with my todo list I think about each item and if it will lead to one of the goals on my list. If not I try to get the thing off my list – delegate it, don’t do it, or do it quickly. This is one reason why being clear is so helpful. It allows me to align my actions exactly to the outcomes I most want.

Another thing I meant to mention in my twitter for artists post, but it flittered out of my mind when writing, twitter fits into my long term success strategy. The marketing piece is probably there and it will help me sell art but more immediately I see it as a wonderful community of artists. I’ve meant dozens and dozens of new artists the last few weeks and am going to enjoy getting to know them better through their tweets. If you are trying to decided if twitter is right for you, one way to make that decision is to think about if it fits into your long term vision for your career.

Where Do You See Yourself?

Violette Severin has done a series of artist interviews on her blog and I was asked to participate. You can read my interview here: Interview with Lisa Call.

One of my favorite questions she asked was "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" I gave a fairly short answer on her blog as I wasn’t yet done working through my definition of success. The list of items from last weeks post, What Does Success Mean To Me, is the more clear answer to that question.

Some people might have a problem with defining success so another way to think about it is with this question. What do you envision yourself doing in the future?

Positive Day Dreaming

I’ve been trying out positive day dreaming and it seems most of the time it goes like this:

I wake up and get to spend the entire day in my studio making art. Then the next day I get to do the same. And the next and the next. I even toss in some marketing activities cause it’s fun now and of course eating good food, making the art in a beautiful studio and spending part of the time with the people I love.

Right now I can think of nothing I would like more than to spend an entire month making art and not going to work. Okay admittedly an entire life doing this would be better, but with the remodel I think I might be working for a few more years now. A tradeoff that will be well worth it.

Still – I think I’m going to figure out how to take a month off work and just make art the entire time. What a perfect use of my vacation time. It puts a huge smile on my face just thinking about it.

Studio Newsletter

It’s time again for my quarterly studio newsletter. I expect the September edition to be sent by end of the week if not sooner. As has become habit, I will have a few ACEOs for sale to my newsletter subscribers.

You can check out a sample here: Lisa Call Studio News.

You can sign up below for the newsletter:

 
And of course, I will never share or sell your email address and will only use it for the purpose stated above. All emails sent will include a link to unsubscribe should you decide you are no longer interested.

Why More on Twitter

Clint Watson offered for me to write a guest post on his blog over at Fine Art Views after my previous post about twitter.

This is that post – I’ve sent it to Clint to post but am also posting it on my blog, which is probably against some blogging etiquette rule but I write best in wordpress after all these years of blogging (I know – kinda weird huh) and it seems silly not to hit publish for my readers, as my experience is few people actually follow links in a post. Although I do recommend Clints blog as he as some interesting opinions about marketing art. So check out his blog here: Clint Watson’s Fine Arts View Blog.

Why Tweet

My top 10 List of reasons I might think writing a tweet for twitter is a better use of my time than creating art in response to Clint’s comment on his blog:

Why ANY artist would think that sending a “Twit” is a better use of their time than creating art is totally beyond me.

My list:

1. As an artist if I made art 24/7 and never marketed it I would eventually run out of room in my house for the art. I spend a full 50% of my time running my art business. I think Clint knows this as he advocates blogging, so I will assume his comment meant "why would an artist tweet vs. doing any other marketing activity".
2. I do not view what I do as "selling" my art. Instead I look to just be me. Authenticity is my goal in marketing myself and therefore my art. For me this means having a conversation, not selling. Making a connection is what I’m interested in, not doing the hard sell. Even if not connecting with a real live collector every minute on twitter, it is all a wonderful opportunity for being authentic and writing openly about myself and my art.
3. Twitter gives me a chance to be authentic in a different way than with my blog. With my blog I put a lot of thought into my posts. They tend to get long and can take a few hours to compose as I edit and re-edit a lot. My tweets are much quicker thoughts dashed off in a few moments. It’s basically me, uncensored. Very authentic.
4. I think with twitter, at least the people that are using it to connect and not sell, you get to see the real person behind the art. It’s a fine line to walk between being boring, giving too much information and too much self promotion. I find myself dropping the feeds that are only about selling – it annoys me and adds zero value to my life. I want a conversation with someone that feels like a real person. I don’t watch tv, I block ads on the web via adblock in firefox, I rarely listen to the radio, read no newspapers and few magazines – my tolerance for advertising is very low – if I feel all I’m getting is an ad – I’ll turn it off.
5. I believe social media could likely become a more effective method of communicating with ones tribe than email. I think we are all completely overloaded with email. There is simply too much of it and we need a more efficient way to communicate. I find myself emailing less and less the more I use twitter. I can’t see into the future but I see the present and I see a lot people not liking email so much. At my day job as a software engineer, email has been rendered virtually useless as noone has time to read it anymore. A very common theme I hear from artists is that email takes up way too much time. I don’t view twitter just as addition to email, but hopefully a way to reduce that email so it takes less time.
6. I’ve been online since 1983. Admittedly I’m a geek. For me, one of the most natural ways for me to communicate is online and I’m very comfortable in public chat type forums. This is absolutely authentic for me. I think some people communicate well this way, others don’t.
7. I can completely relate to Steve Pavlina’s comment on his latest blog post about facebook:
   

   No doubt some people will question how Facebook could help me with my business. The truth is that I don’t really care. My modus operandi is to pursue growth experiences and mold my business around that, not the other way around. So all I’m looking for on Facebook is to make new connections that can lead to interesting growth experiences. I don’t center my life around a profit motive.

   There is more to being an artist than making cash from the art. Connecting with other artists is incredibly valuable on both a personal and professional level. Where will it lead? Let’s find out.

8. I find some really great information on twitter that helps with with my art career. References to articles and tools that other artists are using. While this might not be a direct sale of art to a collector, who’s to say that an opportunity I learn about via twitter doesn’t? It’s networking at it’s finest for only a few minutes a day.
9. My 16 year old son tells me only old people email. Kids text, they use social media. Email is too heavy weight for them. My son assures me I am far from cool, but at least I’m willing to give this new thing a try.
10. I buy art. I’m on twitter. I found art on twitter I liked. I bought it. I do not believe I am the only artist that buys art. And if I am, well so be it. Hopefully someday I’ll buy one of my own pieces and twitter will pay off.

My Thoughts Without Numbers

Okay – truth in advertising here – this isn’t really a top ten list. It’s just a random list of the things I thought of in no particular order and I attached numbers to the paragraphs because I always wanted to write a top 10 list.

I have no idea what the future of twitter might be and what type of value I might get out of it in the long run. And honestly, I don’ really care, which is why it has taken me over a week to finally sit down and write the article I promised Clint.

The short answer on why it is not beyond me to understand why an artist (me) might tweet instead of make art: Making art is a solitary activity. As a full time software engineer and full time artist, my opportunities for getting out are fairly limited. Twitter is a way to connect with my tribe in a very immediate way. It’s a fairly new way for artists to connect and I have no doubt I am making all sorts of "mistakes" that I will cringe or laugh about in the future, which is a large part of the appeal – testing it out and seeing where it will take me.

A final note. This is my experience. I’m not saying other artists should or shouldn’t hop onto the social media bandwagon. I think everyone needs to evaluate it for themselves and determine if it will fit into their art career. I’m happy to see Clint is actively using twitter now and his opinion in the future will be based on experience.

Still More

After writing this I can see I might have another post about twitter in the future. About how I actually use it. I think that might be of help of those that want to try out twitter but aren’t sure what to write about. Look for that post some day in the future. Not sure when.

 
PS – You can follow me on twitter here: Lisa Call’s Twitter Profile.

PSS – You can friend me on facebook here (just note in the request you read my blog): Lisa Call’s Facebook Profile.

PSS – Clint always does a PS so I felt I should follow the tradition for this post.

Why Do I Need to Know This?

One of the items on my goal list for 2008 was to define what success means to me as an artist. As I mentioned in that post, my definition of success has changed, so I wasn’t sure where to go with my goals for 2008 at the beginning of the year so I didn’t really write any.

This wasn’t a bad thing because turns out what I really wanted to do this year was sell my house and get out of the suburbs. That lifestyle was no longer working for me. I loved my big house and big studio but I’m much happier in the city: close to work, close to the kids school and close to everything – museums, galleries, restaurants. I’ve seen more art in the past few months than I did the last 5 years, because it is right here 10-15 minutes from my house.

But back to success. I feel it’s now time to define what it means to me to be a successful artist. I have a vague idea in my head what I intend for my career but I want to write it down and give it some serious thought.

I feel I need to do this right now for a few reasons:

1. Clarity: Most importantly I want to get really clear about why I am making art and how I want to market it. Or more accurately, why I am making art today and where I am intending for this career to go. I believe that getting very clear about intentions is the best way to ensure they become real. When I am wishy washy with my intent my results tend to be wishy washy. When I get really clear I find I get very clear results also.
2. Adapting: I don’t think it’s realistic, at least for me, to come up with big grand ideas about what success means and for it not to change over time. I wrote out some definitions for myself a few years ago and then I moved and I decided I like selling my art and so much of what I wrote is no longer up to date. By revisiting this definition I can learn and adapt and move get closer to my true desires.
3. Direction: Having a definition of success for my art career makes writing goals very easy. If I know what I think success means then I just have to do the things that will result in that success. Without a definition of success it’s kind of hard to figure out what I should be doing on a day to day basis. There are thousands of things I could do as an artist and only by understanding what my desired destination is, can I pick the activities that best suit my stated intentions.

I’ve spent a couple days writing and thinking about the specifics of this definition and when I get it finalized, or at least polished enough that it feels right and it is clear, I’ll post it on my blog.

 
Do you have a definition for what success means to you as an artist?

Thread racks installed in bedroom studio

Ready for Texture

Two days ago I prepared Structures #97 for the surface stitching. Last night I spent the evening with my builder working out what might be the final floor design so tonight I was ready to sit down and start quilting Structures #97.

Problem was all of my thread was jumbled up in plastic bags, placed there when I packed up my house a few months ago. It was all tangled together due to neglect and shuffling about the studio. Not very presentable or useable.

I use dozens of colors of thread on each textile painting and the thought of selecting the colors I wanted for this piece, without having them organized, hurt my head.

More Studio Set Up

So I spent a couple hours tonight putting the mettler thread back in order – around 190 spools.

[yes, I store it in numerical order by color on the thread racks - you can read more details of my super organized thread inventory of around 500 spools in this post about my thread.]

I moved the Valdani thread in plastic bin tonight as I don’t really have room on the wall for all of it.

My bedroom has more color with the thread racks on the wall. They may only be there a couple of weeks if I don’t have to go through a long building permit process. I should found out tomorrow what the approximate start date is on that project. I love the floor plan we came up with and am excited about the remodel.

Tonight when I sat down and spent about a half hour actually sewing and adding the texture to Structures #97 I was at peace. Making art, specifically textile paintings, is definitely my passion. It felt great to get organized and back to this part of the process.

Structures #97   (In Progress)    ©2008

Basting on a Bed

This evening I layered the composition for Structures #97 with the batting and backing, so I could baste the layers together with safety pins, before I start the surface stitching. As I talk about in my how I baste blog post, this step is extremely important in ensuring a flat finished piece.

I’ve perfected my method by pinning the layers to the carpeting in my studio (see the post above for details). I know exactly how tight to pull each layer for it to come out right for my style of stitching.

Problem is there’s not a lick of carpet in my new little house. Hardwood floors everywhere. I’ve been pondering how to baste this quilt for a week and finally came upon the idea of basting it on my son’s queen sized bed – the only large flat surface in the house.

It worked out quite well and I think the final textile painting will be wonderfully pucker free. Although I have to admit I had to remove at least 80% of the pins and redo them as I ended pining the layers to the mattress pad. I finally got my long rotary cutting acrylic ruler out to slide between the quilt and bed to prevent this little problem. With carpet, if a pin catches some fibers I can just yank it up and no harm is done.
 

The Right Tools

Today Photoshop CS3 arrived at my house and I installed on my new laptop. It’s amazing what 4 gigabytes of memory and a fast processor can do to speed up the manipulation of images. It’s wonderful. I’ll save hours of time each month not sitting around waiting for photoshop to load my huge raw image files.

The other exciting news is that I can process the raw images from my new Nikon D200 with this set up. I was unable to get my older version of photoshop to behave with a mixture of D70 and D200 raw images. This means I can now take my own high resolution images for publication.

Finally, I have all the right tools to do what I need with my images. It’s definitely time to take some classes to learn how to use them instead of my very improvised methods I use today.