This is the last month before my show, and my to-do list has become pretty jammed-packed. Aside from my usual routine, I have a multitude of tasks scheduled almost every day, but I’m getting excited right about now.

I recently got word from my gallery that a new director will be taking over at Craig Krull in less than two weeks. The news initially made me nervous, but I heard the new director is super friendly and professional. I’ll be meeting with her, along with the previous director, next Friday via Zoom. She moved here from New York not too long ago and got her MFA from Parsons. Her art is very compelling, too. I’m looking forward to meeting her.

I’m finally sending out my special VIP promo packages in less than a week. They are ready to go, but I think I’ll be waiting in line at the post office to make sure I have the correct postage on them. I don’t want to take any chances of getting them sent back. That would suck. I debated on the perfect timing to send these out too. Lots of research went behind it. Part of me wanted to send them a lot sooner. Sometimes magazines assign writers to exhibits pretty early, but I found that about four weeks is good timing. Not too soon, not too late.

I have both my drawing installation and painting placement all mapped out. The paintings, of course, are subject to rearrangement. It’s good to start with some kind of plan though, especially to make a new gallery director’s job easier, I think.

The catalog, which won’t be available until the Artist’s Talk (midway through the show), has proven to be a bear. I got the prototype from Lulu, and it turned out that they stopped using the heavier coated paper I received a few years back. It was thinner and kinda shitty. Not up to my standards at all. I was bummed out.

While Lulu’s prices are the best, I guess you get what you pay for in the end. However, I still had an account at IngramSpark. It was actually the same, if not cheaper. They print higher-quality books. Plus, they do perfect binding instead of the saddle-stitching. I’m now waiting on that prototype, which should arrive later this week. It should be much better than Lulu, but fingers crossed.

Other than fitting in doctor appointments in the coming weeks on top of everything else, I have my first tattoo consultation scheduled just before I go to LA for the install. I mean, it’s my first consultation in many, many years. It’s for my large chest piece that will partially cover my scar. It may or may not go over the actual scar. It will sit just above it. It’s complicated to tattoo over scar tissue. I decided to go with a local artist, Shea Cline. She’s a botanical specialist, and I’m doing a wreath of poppies with Hannah’s name above it, which I think will look pretty badass. That’s what I think anyway. This is a rough mockup.

Other than that, I’m still working on the collaborations with Niki Ford. We finished our second one (the one that I started):

And now I’m working on the third one that they started:

I guess we should start coming up with titles for these pieces. In the meantime, we did decide what our collaborative name is. It’s going to be Invisible House. I’ve already created a logo that we’ll be making into a signature stamp. We’ll be stamping the backsides of the artwork with it.