I haven’t really been working on any of my paintings for the show, necessarily. Instead, I’ve been building my special VIP promo package.

It’s been a good amount of work so far, but not much is actually completed yet. It took me a while to decide exactly what to do. The brainstorming part wasn’t easy. I know I can never outdo the things I’ve done in the past for this, so I felt rather perplexed for a while.

I had a few bad ideas, like making a mini photo album and filling it with all the reference pictures for my paintings. But that seemed too boring. Another idea was to incorporate a View Master, but nothing I’m doing is “3D,” and it would be incredibly expensive. What I’m going to end up spending is already more than I wanted to. Some of the items in the package won’t cost me anything and it’s still too much.

The concept is a play on film developing. Once upon a time, we all took our undeveloped film rolls to a photo lab and waited a few days or more for them to be developed. The roll of film would go into an order envelope. Once the film was developed, we’d get the envelope back with prints inside. The prints were put into their own envelope, which had a small flap in the front for negatives. Who remembers all this? It stopped after digital cameras were invented.

Since these paintings are based on real vintage photos, I thought this would be an interesting and nostalgic way to make this promo package have a bit of a theme. I even created the info on the outer envelope based on real ones I have in an old box. I’m going to fill them out by hand so they look like this, only the envelopes won’t be white; they will be on those dark manila envelopes that are 9 x 6.

So, what’s inside? Well, the other day, I created a small, “cute” watercolor of a family tree to have printed on a small postcard. The back of it is uncoated and blank so you can write notes on it. That will be in there.

Another postcard will be in there as well. It’s slightly bigger. The front has one of my paintings, and the flip side has a description of the show. Here is the front and back:

I’ll also include a couple of the reference photographs (copies) and pictures of two of the paintings.

And, I’m not sure why (well, I sorta do), but I’ll include some pressed hydrangeas in there too. This is one of the few flowers that represent family. Hydrangeas also grew outside the door at the house I grew up in. Or rather, the longest place I lived with my family between the ages of 10 and 15.

There will be a signed and numbered mini print of this watercolor, too:

I have yet to come up with something that would represent being trans/nonbinary, or something that represents the LGBTQ+ community, other than using one of the paintings that shows my top surgery scar. Maybe rainbow stickers??? I don’t know. If anyone reading this has any ideas on something I could use for that (that’s flat), please let me know, because my mind is pretty much a blank.

I’m making close to 40 packages like this while still collecting names of my top collectors, art writers, and curators. This all might be simple, but it’s already expensive. Postage alone is a big expense. Why do I do these things?

In other news, I got a CT scan last week because (and not to gross anyone out), I have a soft spot on my incision site. The neurosurgeon’s assistant ordered the CT to make sure the bone flap was placed back correctly during surgery. It’s so gross for me to think about that and the fricken screws in my skull. Eww! The scar is still not fully healed, but at least it looks like it’s generally healing well. So that’s good.

Also, the new gallery I was going to be working with sadly fell through. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, really. I was very bummed at first because of the way it all went down, but it’s better if we don’t work together. There was a clash of personalities and perspectives, and also business styles. I am really lucky to be with Craig, as he is easy-going and has been wonderful to work with.

Okay, now I’m tired and need to lie down.