Things are going. I’ve been trying to work so I can get my mind off things. It only works as long as I’m intensely busy.
I’m spending a lot of my time working on my Guggenheim application. It hasn’t been so easy. I have a lot of it finished now, but the main document still needs a little work. The two most important written documents are the Career Narrative and the Statement of Plans.
The application window opened just recently, and the new rules came with it. After reading through ten pages of the rules and guidelines, I learned that both of these documents can’t be over 1000 words each.
That works out fine for my Statement of Plans, but it ruined my Career Narrative, which was almost 1800 words. I was sad and angry. I’d spent so much time on that one to get it just perfect, then I had to cut almost half of it. Making those decisions was horrible. Now it doesn’t seem nearly as impressive or intelligent.
I’m taking an online workshop on the 20th, and I’ll be submitting it for evaluation with the two people who are running it. I’ve also submitted it for an asset review to Paddy Johnson, who runs Netvvrk. That one is tomorrow afternoon.
Directly after that meeting, I have my queer collective meeting, which I will co-host from now on. Why did I do that? I have no idea.
Other than that, I haven’t been painting. I’ve only got a drawing transferred onto my next 16 x 20-inch panel. Seems small to me now after finishing that 24 x 24 piece of my brother and me pretending to play catch.
The next one is called “Frisbee Cake.” My mom and I are sitting at the kitchen table with one of her uneatable cakes. This was the week or two after she came back from the psychiatric hospital. She turned into a Stepford wife. It was pretty surreal at the time, until she caught Mike spitting his bites out into the sink. She got pretty upset, but it snapped her back to normal.
I need to start working on more than one painting at a time again. That made drying time easier, but I had planned on making a portrait of my brother on paper in gouache. I’m a little afraid of not being able to do that well enough. I’ve not made many all-gouache paintings. I’m also going to have a problem with framing it, and/or others I planned on doing. Framing really adds up, especially the way I want them framed (floating in a natural maple frame). I also use a guy in LA, so that’s two trips out there once I’m ready. Great!
Unless I can find someone kinda locally. There’s only one framer in the high desert, if you can believe that, and I’m sort of banned from that place. Long story, but in a nutshell, they are crazy people. No joke. A long time ago, they messed up an order I brought in for about twelve pieces, but blamed me for the mistake because they didn’t hear me when I told them what I wanted. Even though I told them I’d pay for them to redo it, they almost refused, screaming at Hannah and me for wanting non-glare UV glass. They kept saying it was too expensive. Again, I told them I’d pay for it. So, they were weird. They are an older married couple. We later looked them up on Yelp and saw all the bad reviews about the man being an alcoholic, which somewhat explained it, but his wife was just as crazy.
Anyway. There, I told the story.
We’re not going to my brother’s funeral until almost two weeks from now. His wife scheduled it, but I think it’s a long wait because her family members need to fly in from all over. The waiting makes it a little odd. I wonder how many people will show up. Maybe a lot. And I am hoping certain friends of his won’t be there, though I think an ex of mine may come. I don’t really want to have to talk to him, but if he’s there, I can’t really totally ignore him. Or can I? Ha ha.
I’m not exactly looking forward to getting back to work right now. I don’t have it in me to paint. It makes me think too much, whereas writing takes all my concentration. The day can go by and I don’t even notice. However, I spent yesterday and today making a couple of videos of my Artist’s books for the Guggenheim submission. I needed Hannah’s help with that. Thank goodness she knew how to set the camera so it took nice-looking video. Then, today I spent the morning editing them. Now, both of them are up on Vimeo.
So, what else? I can’t think of anything at the moment.