I’m just getting over a stomach bug that had me throwing up all day on Thursday and Friday of last week. I’ve been nauseous ever since, but feel better overall, thank Jah. I went ahead and launched the Kickstarter campaign early this morning. I couldn’t wait. Tomorrow, I send out my newsletter, and fingers crossed that we get some pledges. If not, I’ll probably cut off my toes. Don’t worry, I’m kidding. It’s an empty threat, of course.

If you’re not on my mailing list, please get on it. I’m not going to give out free links to the past newsletters anymore because I’d like to start doing special offers specifically to my list members. Maybe that will give you an incentive to join? If not, bummer for you, I guess. And bummer for me too.

Some of the art awards we’re offering on the campaign are pretty cool, all discounted from the retail prices you can normally buy them for, like limited edition prints, artist’s books, printed books, and a few original paintings. The reward tiers go from $5 to a whopping $450 (that’s for those of you who feel super generous, of course).  Plus 7 add-ons that are all under $100.

Here are just a couple of them, like this greeting card called The Giant Beautiful:

Or one of these little printed sketchbooks:

There are also some small, original watercolor paintings, like this one:

…and so much more!

If you missed it, we’re trying to raise funds to pay the discussion panel a modest honorarium and give me a place to stay overnight in Santa Monica during the event.  It’s only $2200 in total, almost a quarter of it going to Kickstarter fees, unfortunately. But that’s the nature of the beast.

Right after we launched the campaign, I got another rejection from Yaddo. I don’t know how many times I’ve been rejected from that residency, but it’s a hell of a lot. I once got on their waiting list, but that’s as close as I’ve been. Maybe that place is just too highfalutin’ for me. I’m not sure. Will I keep trying? Probably. At least until I become so disabled that I couldn’t possibly do it. That time actually feels close lately. Walking gets harder and harder, but I’d like to keep doing PT to get stronger. PT doesn’t start up again until a whole week from this Friday because my physical therapist is in Scotland for a couple of weeks.

Anyway, maybe trying to do an artist’s residency at MacDowell would be better, although it’s just as prestigious, and there are lots of hiking trails there, too. All I can do is keep trying, even though it gets so incredibly discouraging to keep failing.

Well, soon, I’ll have some of my work on a new website called Artlifting, which represents disabled artists. I’m really looking forward to getting onboarded there. I don’t know exactly when that will happen, but it’s probably in the coming months, and I’ll announce it in a newsletter.

I’m planning to spend a few days this week exploring new ideas in my sketchbook. I wonder what I’ll draw. Not even I know.

Until later…