PPF - boats, Turner, and Kickstarter Campaign

Am linking this to Paint Party Friday - though it is a piece I finished a while ago, it is one of a series of 90 I intend to create - if I could receive funding.

To say this fundraising process has ruined my life is probably a little extreme, but it has been one of the more unpleasant experiences of my life. I don't think I will ever try this again.

I utterly despise bugging others to notice what I do, let alone ask for funds. The timing was horrific, coming just weeks after Xmas and a lot of people were going through some bad stuff in the process. And there's a lot of back end I just did not do to ensure a success.

But I have gotten other things, such as belonging in a fun online community of artists ('kickstarted' by my desire to draw traffic to the thing, but in essence its own reward), and the chance to produce some video or other. I also had the chance to craft an A - to - Z artists proposal project.

So saying, since I don't particularly have anything much more remunerative going on, I will continue pushing this thing till the bitter end.


http://kck.st/tC9jLX

I only have ten days to fund it. As you can see, it's a marathon painting process. I intend to paint 90 Turner reproductions in 90 days, starting mid February, if I can receive funding.

Some interesting tidbits:

• already have had 2 local media mentions (Madison County, NC)
• have received an interesting friendly email from the Tate Museum, regarding the project
• have a private investor stating his willingness to front $1,000 if I can manage to raise the rest. So, in the end, all I really need is to raise $2,000 to make my dream come true!

So, please, if you thought supporting the arts in this very tangible way - above all the great things you already do - please consider making a small donation to my campaign. Or, if you know any person or institution who might find my project interesting, please send it along to them.

I have also updated the video, since I got feedback that it was waaaaaaay too long. So everybody please go take a look.

on CREATING vs PROMOTING

I had launched my Kickstarter campaign, which did real well for a few days, then...nada. Part of this is reasonable - have managed to neglect this campaign for some days due to

• holiday cheers & events during the New Year - visiting with peeps in the mountains
  
• finishing a painting that was actively commissioned (which I was paid for - yay!)
  
• becoming involved in a different funding appeal involving non profit work
  
• putting up a photo show in Brevard, NC
• learning how to edit audio and thus cut my first-ever CD of poetry reading + music (inquire for further details)
  
• seeking other opps for income/creativity/etc

It seems interesting to me that I would rather

• spend 40 hours + learning some new iteration of Final Cut software and audio editing, foraging through endless audio files and cutting a CD - for no reasonable monetary expectation
  
• framing and mounting 30 photographs and schlepping them to a cafe in Brevard - for only the flimsiest hopes of sales
  
• Interact with folks in a Psychic Network so as to be a reader for them for 41 cents an hour (a throwback to a previous lifetime for me as an itinerant Tarot reader in the streets of Los Andes)
• Follow through on another specious lead re. Spanish English interpreting work in local hospitals
• read, write, and otherwise interact with different blogs, podcasts, etc on subject matters as diverse as New Atheism and Time Management
• have my own homegrown version of a designer sweatshop through producing flyers on fiverr.com for the princely sum of $5
• play Solitaire
• vacuum the living room, rearrange the kitchen cupboards, and back up my harddrive

than work on promoting a Kickstarter campaign.

To be honest, though I'd be more than thrilled to have this campaign succeed, I don't see how it's going to happen. Mainly because I just don't have enough of what one might call 'friends', I suppose - both in the airy-fairy Web 2.0 sense and in the 'let's meet up at the pub and hash it out' sense. But probably more due to the extreme detestation I have for anything that demands this 'PR bullshit mode' from me.

My strong suit in life has always been to CREATE, not to PROMOTE - and due to a naturally self-reliant, skeptical, introverted sort of identity, social integration is and has always been a real handicap for me. In fact, I have always felt this unbridgeable dichotomy in my life between PRODUCTIVITY/SELF FULFILLMENT and SOCIAL LIFE - where the few times I've been actively engaged in what I might call a social life it's been through an experience of pointless, trivial dissipation - idle chatter and booze. I find it all very entertaining for its own sake, but it is a place where productivity and creativity cannot happen.

Now, though i DO have encountered the sorts of silly butterflies (IE in art school, jobs, elsewhere) who were so successful in their little social lives due to compromising the solo time and discipline needed to really hone a craft - and who thus had an opposite life experience to mine , I also understand that many people (and 90% of the successful ones, really, in any ambit) are the ones who have created a nice balance between CREATION and PROMOTION -

Where PROMOTING, of course, involves participating, thriving and really contributing to the sorts of social lubrication which fall under the umbrella of a SOCIAL LIFE - something which, to me, takes my time away from things i personally find more interesting and fulfilling.

I'm not really sure why I thought that Kickstarter (which fundamentally REQUIRES fundees have a huge, lively, and enrolled social network) would actually WORK for me due to this - it almost seems like I was indulging in magical thinking.

Nevertheless, I DO believe in my artistic process and product, which was the fundamental reason I set out to do this. I have in addition received enough positive feedback re. my output to fuel my desire to do this thing. But what's really lacking is an entryway into a larger audience, the kind who would also enroll enough in this project to fund this thing. And... that's something I'm just not good at.

And it's not like I'm this big misanthropist luddite hermit taking some principled stand against all of society - far from it. I am happy to interact with others at any level. For the sake of the 2.8 people who will actually READ this ever, and who may not know me, I can be OK and fun to be around. I'm willing to learn, and be taught, how better to participate in society and life. I enjoy the few friends and networks I participate in. It's just that I don't often care to interact more - and this NOT CARING usually comes at the intersection of a social moment where I'm confronted with others' indifference, open enmity, or the necessity to compete or prove myself in some way - IE all those trolls at the gate that would allow for ENTRY into some social realm or other - and my response tends to be, I DON"T CARE. From the 2nd grade on I have honed a strong response of SCREW YOU - you won't play with me - I actually have bettter things to do. And I usually do - and have. Ever since. And though some could say 'it's a long road from the 2nd grade to 33' I remain unconvinced. Experiences in Kickstarter and everything else (even simple job application) demonstrates to me that all learning, all knowledge, creativity, fire dies at the gates of social isolation. But I DO understand that at some pt a sentient being needs to relearn coping mechanisms - that 6-year-old social techniques don't serve one in later life.

So, in the end, I see only 3 real solutions to this conundrum:

1. either I will be born into a new, more social, winning modality at some point or for whatever reason,

2. one unexpected day my work will speak for itself

3. I will learn to hunker down in whatever minute corner of reality i can occupy, barely making it but basically content, until I meet a bleak, unsung, impoverished end.

sounds pretty bleak, but hell, that's life! I'm still better off than most, and probably have more fun - albeit in my weird -o, socially irrelevant, loner, creative way - than many.

Kickstarter and Video projects

Been busy lately, weirdly enough, doing a lot of video production. Aside from its being fun and fulfilling a few actual practical requirements, I am mainly hoping to get better at this medium, which I am finding more and more captivating each & every day.

This was a mini documentary on the work we have done for Freddy Henderson/Marshall Arts

THis was a spiffed up open mike of a Jimbo rant at a local cafe open mike - it gave me ample opportunities to practice cutting-editing skills and what I might call 'filmic illustration'

THis was my Kickstarter project

This was a section of a play Jim was in - helped in learning how to tweak audio.

Also, am happy to say I FINALLY started my kickstarter campaign, which can be seen here.

I am pretty happy with how it's doing up to now, though am certainly hoping to see more happen for it in the future.

Signage for Local Restaurant

Interesting opportunities arise when you have some skill at the ole paintbrush. A recent 2-week opportunity came from me when our neighbor and landlady from Momma's Kitchen came to me about producing new signage for the restaurant.

What emerged were two 8ft-tall mountain men, as well as two profiles of girls in bonnets. James, co-owner of Momma's Kitchen, cut out the forms out of plywood, primed them, and delivered them to me to paint them.

I also got to practice some typography while designing/painting the signs that the mountain men carry.

I definitely enjoyed the process - time-consuming though it was. I also enjoy walking down the street and seeing my handiwork at large, proudly taking up space, changing the surrounding landscape.

I have received good feedback re. my handiwork, and I hope it fills Momma's Kitchen advertising needs.

If I have a chance, I will seek out similar work, both locally and farther afield. Something could come of it.

The Flaneur

Through some weird twist of fate I will not necesarily go into in depth, a 'self-made interview' re. moi appeared on The Flaneur, a British online pub.

Link here

Revisiting old works: Atacama then and now

Back in 2006 I cobbled the following painting together, and called it Atacama, a place I've only, alas, gotten to see the mere outlines of, thanks to a random outing to the city of Copiapo with family members 10 years before the creation of this work. I was not particularly remembering that particular outing, which involved hunting clams by the seashore on our way north, a storied and hilarious journey inside a creaky winnebago accompanied by step sibling Francisco (recently married... how time goes by...) the youngsters (one now completing passage at the Naval Academy ... time does go by indeed!), and Los Tres (tape deck.. no MP3s!! Ancient!!) , and plenty of cachaça and.. of course... red wine. Rather, something of the arid colours of the piece itself reminded me of the Northern Chile desert. I hadn't even thought about any of the other aspects of that trip until I sat down to relate this.

In any event, this 3 foot x 3 foot landscape begun as a school project for a Tim Flowers drawing class. Random driftwood was the subject matter, or, to be more exact, the picking of a subject matter and developing it across a whole semester. Anyone who know anything about me and Jim, it's that WE HAVE US SOME WOOD. This is part of the reason we are developing the concept of the Homily Stick, among other things - but I digress.* The drawing part (floating woods in a yellow-blue background) was something of a culmination of a semester's work - possibly uninteresting and unremarkable in itself as an artwork, but OK enough for a harried last-minute effort. The piece since then evolved when I affixed the finished, coloured drawing onto an abandoned canvas found on the side of the road of the never-forgotten Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur.

The piece lived on in this way for years until a sudden impulse of late led me to affix all sorts of whimsical details, glitter, fabric, decoupaging of all sorts. I was revisiting lots of old pieces - some which were frankly unresolved, some which required minor tweaking, others which I randomly decided needed revisiting, such as this one.

Part of the impetus was finally unearthing a lot of the random playing cards, bits of ribbon, old-timey Victorian calendars and other assorted hodgepodge that artists tend to acquire in hopes that someday they will fit onto a piece - and the truth is, the original image always looked a bit plain, a bit severe to me. I feel I managed to integrate more of the background with the foreground, and added a bit of zip, zap and zing. I like the way the foreground was extended in the yellows, grounding the drawing more onto the wacky outer space quality of the original discarded canvas.

The last thing I want to do, as soon as I get some funds, is encase the whole thing in a layer of EnviroTek epoxy resin, though I balk at this seeing as the interaction of chemicals and elements can change things in unexpected - and sometimes undesirable - ways.

In any event, the new and improved version can be seen here.

*everyone forgive my trucculent and spacey prose - I must be undergoing an unfortunate Mercury transit.

How to heal a warped canvas

We all have experienced it: a favourite painting which humidity has its way with, and pretty soon is warped beyond all recognition.

I reached out to the Atlanta arts community for advice to help with this standard problem and the answers follow:

• Diane Hause: "I have been successful many times in similar cases: put the canvas facedown on a flat non-carpeted floor...take a wet sponge or cloth, and dampen (not soak) the backside of the canvas, the unpainted side. After doing this, place weights (heavy Art books work great) on the corners/sides of the wood stretchers and let dry."
• Tom Ferguson: "i once built a new larger, sturdier structure to screw to a warped painting... worked, but made it very heavy... i was trying to avoid re-stretching it on a stronger strainer but i'm afraid that's the best solution. putting a board on the back may provide a temp solution but likely would create more problems long-term. off the top o' me head"
• Mandie Turner Mitchell: "If that doesn't work i've applied gesso on the back of some and flattened them out. 50/50 water/gesso"
• Anita Arliss: "try adhering to the back large, thin plywood triangles in 4 corners (glue or nails) of the stretchers. Then dampen the backside of the canvas with water or 50/50 water/gesso. Weight it down on flat hard floor."

I am truly grateful for all the great advice - I have at least 2 canvases suffering this malady at present - am hoping one of these tips will work

Landscape Commission process

In a previous post, I mentioned a particularly beloved painting of mine which found a home with the wonderful Stuart Thomson. The notion of the 'Vanitas Still Life', showed to me the natural life cycle of the grape, yet reminds one that all phases of life are useful - from sweet youth (grapes) to the potent prime of life (wine), to bitter, brittle old age (balsamic vinegar). The technique was simple alla crema oil application, and the daily scrutiny of the same still life that occupied the cramped room used as a studio at the time.

Stuart, who came up from Atlanta to escape the noisome toxic noise of the city at least twice this past summer, then commissioned a landscape painting. I have been busy with that piece.

The technique this time used is that of indirect painting through the use of an original underpainting, and then glazing techniques:

Indirect painters put their first strokes on the canvas with the expectation that they will paint over them again when they are dry in order to change their effect in some way. Therefore when they put on the first layer of paint, called the underpainting, they do not try for a finished effect, complete in final color, drawing definition, and pattern emphasis. Instead at the beginning of the work they concentrate on one or two of these problems, and they depend upon [and make allowance for] the subsequent layers of paint to develop and modify the underpainting until the remaining problems are finally solved.

Indirect methods of painting have been employed in the past by many artists including Van Eyck, El Greco, and Rembrandt. More recently such painters as Soutine, Modigliani, Rouault, Braque, and Paul Klee have utilized the optical effects of indirect processes.

I first used this method in Teresa Bramlette Reeves' oil painting class in 2008. I simply ADORED the technique. The technique itself is incredibly difficult and requires a lot of practice and conceptual know-how. But, even though I understand I am far from mastering it yet, I have faith that it will help me resolve the riddle that old Flemish masters' paintings posed for me when I saw them at the National Art Gallery as a kid: how do you get an oil painting to be so luminous, so real? So... I may not be there yet - but I know, if I live long enough, I will get there.

I have played with the technique in other contexts, and it also a landscape commission work seemed a good candidate.

As can be seen, the underpainting layer is completed. I'm on the fence still about having used such a light colour for the underpainting, but we will see what comes up.

I estimate I will need at least 5 layers to complete this piece, if not more.

Like in the still life, I prefer to work from real life, vs photography. IT just seems so much better, though working from a static still life setup under controlled light conditions differs widely from working plein aire, where the artist is at the mercy of weather and light conditions.

It is fun to work on - it is our backyard, and neighbor children and dogs and cows and donkeys dot the landscape and distract the concentrated eye. Sometimes the weather is tricky and I have to wear an umbrella and hide the thing under a layer of sheetrock I had lying around.

Hoping to finish it before the weather becomes completely impossible as well.

Still Lives Live at Local Restaurant

The still life at left and the Vanitas still life (titled Calaveras y Diablitos) described in the previous post are now to be seen, and are available for sale, through Oct 4, 2011 at a brand-spanking-new and groovy-looking Mexican Restaurant called Puebla in Swannanoa - some 15 or 20 minutes from downtown Asheville.

The place (Restaurant Puebla) is located a stone-throw away from I-40 on , somewhat near Black Mountain, the Blue Ridge Parkway and Warren Wilson College. The area itself seems to offer some interesting things, including a magnet arts school and a random artists' collaborative close by.

The atmosphere is excellent - spacious, cheerful, and well-appointed. The staff is incredibly friendly, helpful, and close-knit, from what I could tell from my interaction with them. The little street the restaurant is from looks like a small oasis of coolness in an otherwise non-descript highway run.

More on Puebla:

"Mexican Restaurant Puebla offers authentic Mexican food from Puebla Mexico. Such as Semitas, Mole Poblano, Enchiladas, Gorditas, and more."

Address:

204 A Whitson Avenue, Swannanoa, NC 28778

Since I live somewhat far (in Marshall, NC), I have not had the chance to sample their fine cuisine, though I am sure it is excellent. If anyone goes by, let me know and drop a line. Am hoping to make it there eventually, and would love a list of opinions.

Shea Hembrey: How I became 100 artists

Possibly I have found a new Favorite Artist.

Speaking to a -- from large-scale outdoor installations to tiny paintings drawn with a single-haired brush.
desire to make art that MATTERS.

Months in Europe viewing major art installations led Hembrey to witness lack of satisfaction in what was out there, and increasingly found that what he was longing for was:

1) more work that was appealing to a broad public, more accessible

2) more exquisite craftsmanship and technique

He invented 100 artists "to create a biennalle I need artists from all around the world" he explains - so he did. He figured out their passions, their identities, their styles in life, and begun making work. He created all of these disparate, lively, lovely things within a 2-year period - hence, the Biennalle concept.

He would curate this fictional event with mainly two sets of criteria:

1) "MeeMaw's Test" - to be able to explain the concept or the piece to his Arkansas country grandmother, and have her understand and appreciate it within 5 minutes or less.

2) "3 H's" - head ( interesting intellectual ideas/concepts), heart (passion/soul), and hand (excellently crafted)

In a tongue-in-cheek display which seems to poke fun at the fact that such artists are hard to find, Hembrey opts to invent the 100 artists by himself. Here are a few samples of these fictional artists. Hembrey shows his great energy, versatile creativity, and imagination in conceptualizing, and then committing to creating identity and artwork. I have outlined a few present in the TED talks presentation Hembrey made:


Kay Overstreet is interested in ephimerality and transcience - "weather I made" - making weather in the body scale - breathed back and forth on the lawn all night to leave the mark of her breath

Gus Winemiller - a large project, "Arts for the People". As a subsection of that there's a project called Artists in Residence he spends a week at a time with a family, showing up with a toothbrush and pajamas at their doorstop - he spends that week talking to the family and asks "what is great art to you?" living with them, producing art based solely on things found in the house. Whatever he makes somehow references nesting and space and personal property.

Joaquin Perez Vega - he believes art is everywhere waiting to happen - he just has to help it happen. He gets wild birds to make his art for him. He places materials to allow the birds to make nests from it. Sample here is "mixed tape love songs nest"

Mika Avernathy and Bud Holland - they are interested in creating culture. They more into and area and try to establish a new tradition in a small geographic area. "We need a positive tradition that goes with death" was the decision when passing through Eastern Tennessee. So they created a "DIG JIG". For a birthday or milestone anniversary, you dance in a graveyard, over the space you will be buried. After you dance, everyone toasts you and tells you how great you are. "It' a funeral you get to be present for!"

The Silver Dobermans, a collective. Their motto is to spread pragmatism, one person at at time. They're very interested in how over-coddled we've become. They've put a warning sign on every single barb on this fence. "Horse Sense Fence"

Estelle Willoughsby - she heals with color, and is one of the most prolific artists, even though she's already 90 years old.

I adore his creativity, and the way in which he seems to address a point I've raised earlier here, in my work with/for/through Marshall Arts.

New York art critic Jerry Saltz, who weighs in on the bleak state of both contemporary art and artists’ creativity. “It’s work stuck in a cul-de-sac of esthetic regress, where everyone is deconstructing the same elements.” What is wrong with the art world? Are the sorts of artists who merit a show at the Venice Biennial, or other important international art houses or shows, really a representative selection of the best that creatives worldwide have to offer?

I challenged Saltz to provide an answer to that query as well as to the question

Is there not something you can DO in your influencial position as a member of the New York artworld? Have you no ideas about how to rescue art from the sterilized death even you admit to?

I even emailed him. Hell, it only takes a minute - plus I don't have a lot more going on in this bucolic petri dish I inhabit, truth be told -

- and then i received the email. No, not from Saltz (as if), but from a friendly Atlanta listserve, showing me Hembrey's work and the way he, unlike Saltz, unlike all who deplore the stupid state of contemporary art, did something.

On the Beehive Collective up in Maine

Oftentimes I find myself wondering, "is there any point to art? Any social utility to it?" And I don't mean about the inherent utility of bringing aesthetic elements to life, or whatever psychological aid it may bring. I mean, can art change things?

more here. http://www.justmeans.com/Beehives-as-a-Sustainable-Business-Model/33263.html

"From way up in a corner of Maine down to the energy killing fields of Colombia, these worker bees manage to make sweet work out of harsh reality. If one listens carefully to the beautiful harmonies of the BeeHive Design Collective, if one examines closely the magnificent struggle for compassion and caring in the brutal context of an empire thrashing about in its death throes, one will either weep or have no choice but to not ruefully that "inside this chest beats a heart of stone."

I spoke today with Emma, and, again and again, I gasped at the mastery of mystery that this collaborative articulated through her--she insisted that I understand this notion, that she was not presenting an 'individual point of view,' but a bell-clear expression of long considered group molding of understanding, which itself came not from them as bright and talented artists but from the labor of listening to "the people themselves." This preternaturally youthful--I'm guessing--grouping of artistic genius and political wisdom is but ten years old.

Their origins, "Beehive was born 10 years ago out of anti-globalization work--really came out of 'the battle of Seattle' in 1999." Emma was not present then, but many of her cohorts were and "many of them, founders" of this little Yankee jewel, "noticed a lack of strong political graphics in a lot of the movement, especially of images immersed in content."

Again, to the likes of this humble correspondent, this is exciting, this birth of new forms. They gained this capacity, to 'immerse graphic expression in content,' through "an organic evolution of our arts and ideas through learning new ideas and complex ideation" that many of them didn't grow up knowing or go to school to study. "The jargon wasn't easily understood" to them, so they knew that the people whom they wanted to reach would also wonder, 'What the heck is this?'

"We challenged ourselves to create understandable ideas that made huge complexity easily digestible." She emphasized this dialectic. "Own experience of struggling to get it is part of understanding" how to create images that are understandable."

So, this group, this Beehive Collective, shows some sort of answer. They focus all their artistic, technical, and creative energy towards creating pictorial forms that narrate some of the most glaring structural sociopolitical problems around. One piece is Plan Colombia:

Wasps in incubator mode, wasps flying through the air firing their death-squad munitions at the waiting, verdant South American wilderness below - wasps play out the entire lifecycle of Western colonialism/hegemony, and show how the ravages continue to this day. These are powerful images. A person needs to sit with the poster for a while to take in the great level of detail and attention. I'm happy that when I personally met the Beehive Collective folks for the US Social Forum of 2007, I got to sit with them for a while and purchased this specific poster.

In an attempt to overcome the tendency of images to simply portray "what we are against," this graphic illustrates this story in three "layers" to help the viewer experience the different aspects of an extremely complex, and brutal situation.... The tools produced from this collaboration are being distributed, as anti-copyright material, for use in campaigns in both the South and North of the Americas.

This detail from their 6-foot long poster resonates the most with me. The wasp larvae lay in a complacent state of apathy, fed on TV, BigMacs - all the trappings of comsumerist Western lifestyle, really explicitly rendered when seen up close. The banner drawn on the nest itself reads "Plan Colombia: 500 years of terrorism". The rest of the poster evolves from this starting point - the rest of the images seem to cascade down off the wasp's nest, as if someone has shaken it a bit and had these dreadful things fall out.

The indictment is clear. It begins with us. The complacent larvae are us, all of us who choose to ignore social realities and diffuse our power to work, think, and fight for the sake of the trappings of a high-consumption, low-engagement culture. As if this were not clear enough, the wasp's nest itself is shaped like the geographical region otherwise known as the United States.

I find it hard to imagine any sort of lifestyle in this country that would not, at some level, contribute to the 'larva' state here described. True, we watch no TV. We don't own expensive gadgets, we do not shop nor eat at chains of any sort. But, Starbucks is still the de facto meetup place and stopping point when indie alternatives are lacking. We still use tons of gas to toodle up and down the highway at will. We belong to that grid that consumes more electricity than almost any other nation in the world. We own enough computer equipment, appliances, and stuff to definitely mean we're contributing to the 'larvification of America'. How to get around it?

This poster makes me think. And their very lifestyle makes me think, too. I'm sure that just through living in the bosom of Empire, as it were, they contribute more than their share to the larvification of the world. Yet their living model, like their artistic model, is consistent with their message. A collective, entirely zero-profit model of engagement, a set-up that to me sounds like the Catholic Vows of Poverty nuns and others take, whereby there is no private property but all is shared, and a person's life energy does not go towards making or accumulating cash, but towards contributing to the larger mission.

Does art, then, serve a useful social function? In their case, most definitely. Through their approach to art, their choice of narrative/subject matter, and, finally, their lifestyle - a model that, if nothing else shows an intriguing alternative to this grasping, desperate, rapacious existence so many of us find ourselves engaged in.

James Victore in town

Location: The Portfolio Center

125 Bennett St.
Atlanta, GA 30309

Phone: 404.351.5055 or 800.255.3169
Fax: 404.355.8838

Date: Thu, Oct 14
Time: 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM

Admission: TBD

James Victore, vastly talented, world renown graphic designer, is giving a chat at the Portfolio Centre in Buckhead Oct 14th.

"James Victore is an independent graphic designer whose clients include Moët & Chandon, Target, Amnesty International, the Shakespeare Project, The New York Times, MTV, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Portfolio Center. He has been awarded an Emmy for television animation, a Gold Medal from the Broadcast Designers Association, the Grand Prix from the Brno Biennele (Czech Republic) and Gold and Silver Medals from the New York Art Director’s Club. Victore’s posters are in the permanent collections of the Palais du Louvre, the Library of Congress and the Museum für Gestaltung among others."

I'd heard about the Portfolio Centre from my days doing graphic design at State - they have great resources for designers, freelancers, and artists of all stripes.

I am delighted to have made the acquaintance of Neeti Ray, astrologer extraordinaire (albeit virtually). She posts fun meme in her blog that I'll enjoy taking part in and, in the off-chance someone actually reads this, feel free to participate.

If you want to play, you have to ask the person whose post you’re reading to interview you. Then you get five unique questions that you answer by posting them on your own blog.

Then...

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1. Which aspects or placements in your chart are revealed in the art you create? Inevitably the Venus- Uranus conjunction with the Midheaven comes through as an urge to make stuff - and I suppose a lot of what comes out is sort of dark, chthonic - perfect for this conjunction ocurring in good ole Scorpio. The other thing about this question which is interesting comes re sthg I read in Dawn's Astrology blog, actually - that of the 4th house planets denoting that place where our psychology happens. Well, Mercury's my only planet in the 4th house - and what do you know... I've been an obsessive-compulsive journaler since age 13. In fact, most times I can't even string 2 thoughts together, much less act, unless I spend about an hour ranting into the little ole notebook beforehand
   
2. If you could pick any sign for your sun which one would you pick? I think Sag's fine, but at times I think I would be better off having been born 4 hours later - Capricorn would agree better with that pesky Virgo moon and would have added that oh-so-necessary Real World energy
   
3. Which aspect or placement do you find challenging in your chart? The fact that every blessed planet is below the horizon - I have NOTHING save random Chiron anywhere above the Asc-Desc line. I very much feel like some sort of Emily Dickinson at times - not due to any hopes of posthumous glory but due to a sense of living in an entirely private world communing with ghosts and random insects instead of actual people - save a special handful
   
4. Which has been a joyous synastry aspect that you enjoy with any one person in your life? For some reason, my favorite people on earth have all been Geminis (I married a Gemini)- though I've not been able to account for it synastrically, aside from a Sag sun and a lot of Mercury energy
   
5. Why astrology? hmmm... hard to say... because it's beautiful?
   

Atacama

coming out of a studio class, this piece helps signify the desert experience of the Atacama Desert.

update Jan 12, 2010

I have NO IDEA, absolutely no clue why this post, this particular post, with the nothingness it contains, draws the most attention to this blog. This per the Google Page Stats Feature. Not sure if it's bots or actual people. But just in case it is people,

1) nothing to see here. I've kept this blog as a sort of online portfolio/arts process portfolio since at least 2006, but I didn't really set about writing in earnest till late 2010 sometime. You might find later posts of interest

2) I'm producing a fine set of oil pieces, 93 paintings in 93 days. For more info visit here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aliciaraya/mountains-rivers-woods-sea-j-m-w-turner-and-me/posts

3) The above painting (as briefly noted) was a mix of found canvas and an old Drawing 2 class drawing. I called it Atacama, a place I got to see a corner of thanks to a random outing to the city of Copiapo, Chile, with family members 10 years before the creation of this work. More info (and an update of the work as later formulated) is to be found here: http://art.aliciaraya.com/2011/10/revisiting-old-works-atacama-then-and.html

4) And now, a little poem, in acknowledgment of your visit:
LA NOCHE

El dormir es como un puente
que va del hoy al mañana.
Por debajo, como un sueño,
pasa el agua, pasa el alma.

Sleeping is like a bridge

traveling from then to today

underneath, like a dream

water flows, soul travels

Juan Ramon Jimenez

p.d. if you ARE a bot, suppose you tell me how you end up here? I am seriously befuddled.