I began the summer with the blahs...exhausted...happens every year, but I was determined to be productive sooner than in years past. As usual, we spent the beginning of the summer at the Kerrville folk festival. Good transition. MUSIC!! Camping!! SWIMMING in the Medina river. Reconnecting with old friends. Making Merry! Once back and rested, I found myself rather lazy and unmotivated. Tried a new journaling method: ask a question, writing with dominant hand. Answer using non-dominant hand. So I wrote down my dilemma of non-motivation. My left hand answered "crank up the AC! look at art books! go to art supply store!" Once I followed my inner daemon's advice I started painting like a fiend! I now have 8 paintings ready for the Ft. Worth show, and I'll be hanging them for 6 weeks this summer at BOOKPEOPLE, my favorite independent bookstore here in Austin. More room in the studio and a good chance to see what they look like together in a larger gallery-like setting, even if it is just in their coffee shop.
OTHER STUFF:
A good geeky friend wants to create a tarot web site and asked me to do the tarot card images. Fun doing the research, and am doing a collage method to produce them. I think we'll call them the "wallpaper tarot", as the site is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Posted here is the "FOOL" card: The naive, innocent leaving home to see the world, the trusty canine close at hand, the packed bag full (on the dog in this case) and wand in hand (umbrella). The card is # 0, the joker in our modern game-deck.
Another friend is selling his huge high-end home in Travis Heights and asked if I'd like to hang some paintings for an open house they are having. To make a long story short, it turned into a several artist event, musicians too, and I casually agreed to coordinate the artists and hang the show..well it's now a project. Lot's of emailing so far, meeting some new artists and reacquainting with others. It's a shot in the dark, an experiment...
So of late, I've been somewhat distracted from painting, but hope to get back to the fervor and luxury of long hours to myself, after the Mexico trip, after the hanging of the bookstore show, after the open house exhibit...
I've also started a series of paintings about communing with animals. This one I call "Exciting News from a Large bird". My summer is coming to an end in a few weeks, so I hope to finish up several paintings from both of my summer projects.
