I started a giveaway on Facebook where someone will win an original artwork by yours truly! All you have to do is “Like” my esart.com page and give me your email for my mailing list. Mind you, I send emails out infrequently. I have a seasonal newsletter, and I will send out show announcements very occasionally. I keep it simple like that.
Even if you are already on my mailing list, you still need to enter if you want to win one of these pieces. It’s easy, it’s generous, so go do it.
Much is going on! I am excited to type this right now. First of all, I went to see art consultant, Ellie Blankfort the other day it went so great, I can’t even tell you! It was like psychotherapy for artists! While it was only our first meeting, I can see that she is going to help me a great deal.
She is helping me how to identify the strengths of my work, gain confidence, how to avoid the weaknesses in my work, and how to best release my energy so I can stimulate my creative process. She seemed to open the door for me to get through this weird artistic crisis I had been going through. I am very excited and am going to see her again in a couple weeks and make it a monthly thing. She gave me some great exercises to do. Trade secrets I can not tell you.
I met Ellie back in 2005 or thereabouts. She was on the art committee for the LACMA. Each year, Howard Fox and the committee do studio visits with selected artists, and after they complete their rounds, the museum makes a purchase from one of the artists. I came close, but I did not get the purchase. But I was very fortunate to have received the visit from them at all. Honored actually. That studio visit went so well, I will never forget it. Ellie was the most encouraging on the panel, so once I caught wind of what she was doing nowadays, I contacted her and we made an appointment. I am so glad I did too.
Today I even got a big rejection, but I don’t even care because I think my visit with Ellie got me to be in the right head space to deal with it. (I was turned down for the CCI Grant: Investing in Artists, which would have helped me to pay an editor and a proofreader for the book I’m working on.)
I had mentioned Shrapnel in another post not long ago and spoke about how I was going to lose friends because of some of the information I was going to be writing about their religion, but it turns out that might not be the case at all and the friendships I have will be able to endure pretty much anything. I am grateful! That one family member might still try to sue me, but I’m not worried about it.
I am now 3/4 the way through the rough draft. I can’t believe it! I have written 115,000 words so far! I think I started this almost three years ago now, but once I got the Scrivener program, everything just came SO much easier! This last year I have been able to write out most of the book. I swear, if you are working on any kind of manuscript, you MUST get this program. I am a super-endorser of the thing, as is my partner in life, MJP. He has been working on a memoir about his musical experience for even longer, and he is just about finished.
Also, I had been talking about four paintings that I started that were really unlike anything I’ve done before (or at least feels like it). Michael says the new one looks like something I’d do. You tell me:
“The Devil in Me,” 2012. Oil on canvas. 24 x 24 inches.
This next one is still in progress, but it’s really close to being done. I think it is called, “Edith.” It’s 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas:
The other two are no where near at a point where I’d post them. They look like sloppy blobs.
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Recently I saw Fiona Apple play at the Greek Theater. It was so majorly inspiring and amazing, I don’t even know how to put into words! Get her new album. It’s absolute genius! For her, the more hash, the better. (She was recently arrested for hashish in Texas.)
I also got a wonderful gift in the mail from none other than one of my most favorite artists on Earth, Neil Farber. He sent me a little gouache and ink painting on a small piece of paper because my publishers, Chance Press, gave him a copy of Scribbles in a Sandstorm. Neil made me a red cat wearing blue eye glasses. See?
It’s been weighing on me that I haven’t posted to my bloggie in quite some time. I’ve had a lot going on and just haven’t found the time to write – not even in my book. I am still about half way through the first pass, perhaps a bit more at more than 100,000 words. I think one or two more stealthy sittings will take me to the three quarter mark.
I’m not sure if I ever announced it officially, but the title is Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley. The book is about my life and there are many, many characters in it – many of whom will most likely be edited out because it’s just too many people! If you are a close friend of mine, don’t be mad if you don’t wind up in the book. Actually, be glad. I am about to make a number of enemies in publishing it.
The first year that I was writing my story, everything was fictionalized. After many consults with trusted friends that are also amazing writers, I realized that the most interesting and special part of the entire book is that it’s all true. Some may never believe it, but that just can’t matter to me anymore. It’s going to be from my perspective after all. It’s my life as I remember it and quite a few people are not going to like me outing them about this, that, or the other, but I guess I will just let the chips fall where they may.
Believe it or not, I will be losing a couple of friends because of this. Not because I want to, but because of rules and regulations that they follow according to their faith. It is the whole reason why I fictionalized it in the beginning. It’s also been very, very tough for me to make certain decisions regarding what I will and won’t disclose, which has lead to me feeling reluctant to continue. There are two particular people that I currently have in my life that no longer will be, and one family member that will most likely try to sue me.
So why publish it?
I have many reasons to formally put my story out there into the world. First of all, it’s quite a story. If you’ve ever read Push, or seen Precious, you might understand the importance of sharing such a story for the mere fact that it helps other people to overcome their circumstances. I have done it with art, and music. I am a survivor – of some pretty unbelievable situations. All the odds were stacked against me, and I am in no way a thick skinned or strong, super person. If I could survive it all, so can anybody, and that’s my main message in publishing my, what might otherwise seem self-indulgent story.
I will shut up about all that for now. I haven’t been working on the book at all really because I’ve been having more health issues! I know. Hard to even fathom at this point. What else could possibly go wrong with my health now? Well, there are many complications that arise when you have an auto-immune disorder, never mind two. MS and Lupus also seem alike, so it’s also tricky to know which one is giving me which kind of hell.
Well, this time the culprit is the Lupus. I now have welts (Panniculilis) all over my body that have been there for months. It’s been causing some (extra) pain and atrophy in my legs. It got so bad, I had to be put on immune-suppressant medications and it’s been taking me some time to tolerate some of the side effects. Like any chemo drug, it makes you feel sick to your stomach, but I think that part has finally subsided. I feel lucky about that. The dosage will eventually ramp up, so we’ll see how it all goes. I’m still an itchy, painful mess, but hopefully it will start to get better soon.
I wasn’t making much art until a couple of weeks ago. I started a watercolor on the day of my first outing with my “little sister” Alicia. We went to the Armory Center for Arts in Pasadena for a few hours and just painted while getting to know each other a bit. It was fun and opened me up a lot, so I wound up working on a few more little pieces on paper ever since…
Here is the one I started with Alicia (It still needs to be finished) “Somewhere:”
Then I did a few during SketchFest, an on-line “get-together” that happens once a month for 48 hours. The ones on the map pages have little mini stories about them:
“Pink in the Belly”
“Woofs!”
“Dan About Town”
Dan is a nondescript animal. No one knows if he is a dog, a cat, a horse, or two people in an animal suit. He likes to roller skate and pick flowers. And when no one is looking, he will eat cake and Ding Dongs.
“Orville”
Orville is a purple octopus that lives in the South Bay. He like it there because the tides are choppy and the fish are less pretentious than the fish in the Santa Monica Bay.
“Bunny Guy”
Bunny Guy lives near Compton. He travels around other parts of Los Angeles to explain to other residents that Compton has a bad rap and is not as dangerous as the Hollywood movies and rap music proclaims. He picks flowers along his travels. Bunny Guy also has Asperger’s Disorder.
“Cell Patterns on Pattern”
Then, I just finished this one the other day, which I started during SketchFest:
“Summer Ride”
I think I am most happiest with Summer Ride. It turned out the way I wanted it to.
I also made this little 8 x 8 inch oil painting for my friend Tracey’s birthday:
Sorry that last one is pretty blurry. It is because I needed to shoot it fast before I sent it off in the mail and didn’t have my good camera charged at the time, AND it was still too wet to set it down on the scanner bed. I did the best I could with what I had… Like everything!
Today is Tracey’s Birthday, so if she happens upon this long-ass blog post: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRACEY!!!
Okay, enough.
Check out this feature about yours truly on this wonderful site: Art.Is.An.Idea. It explores the artists’ process, their sketchbooks, and other facets about art that I have never seen anywhere else. It’s a great site, and I am honored to be on there. The interview phase will be coming up soon, so check back for my interview with them too!
I’ve been working on a few things at once, so that’s why this took so long, plus I had to pack and ship three pieces to Schenectady, NY for the Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital show. These are the 3 that I am going to show…
Separation
Eve’s Dilemma
Speckled Titers
And I am still working on this one…
The One with the Snake
And this one is a bit experimental for me (very slowly working on it as well)…
