Great short Video-Think Different

Made by Apple, a great short video thanks to Syl on Twitter. Enjoy.

Valencia Confirmed

I have indeed booked a flight to Madrid on the 4th of April, the day after I hand in my taxes. I have to spend the next few weeks focusing on getting them done, not on my art, as they have to be finished and ready to go to the accountant the 3rd.

I don't know how much money I will be getting back, but it will be nice to know that something will be deposited into my account shortly after I return.

I was hoping for a swim in the Mediterranean, or at least lying on the beach, but the weather is a tad bit cool for that now. I heard dress in layers, and you know I will throw in a suit just in case. Or at least a tank top and shorts.

I am trying to figure out how to pack minimally, and leaving enough room for several sketchbooks and my watercolors and pens. Also I have to find another memory card for my camera so that I can take tons of photos. I am not bringing the laptop as I don't want to deal with the weight of it, or have it stolen or anything else. I can use my friend's, and if necessary I will find an internet cafe to sit in for an hour a day to post to my blogs and answer emails. After all, how exciting is that, an internet cafe in Spain?

If I weren't such a sissy, I would rent a car and get out of the city and travel the country side too. However, train system might be our mode of transportation-let someone else do the driving!

I need to get a guidebook to Spain..as well as a few new things to wear. Oh the excitement is mounting!

hasta luego

Patti

Valencia for Spring Break?

Spring break is coming. I have not found out if our 10 day spring break is intact, but I was planning on going to Florida with Lois and her friend, IF that worked out.

Then I get a call from my co-worker friend (who is 28, single, energetic, and adventurous), asking me if I want to go to visit our mutual friend who is living in Valencia, Spain. We can get a flight for less than 500.00, and have a place to stay.

What's there to think about I say. I have a passport, have been saving what little bits and pieces of child support which dribbles in every few weeks (thought the last check was only 27.00 which makes me suspect he is either working part time, or it ran out...) and I work hard for my money. We drive to NYC, fly to Madrid, get a train to Valencia, and in a day we are there.

Already I am mentally packing my camera, my art supplies, and figuring what is the bare minimum I can travel with. Annie can speak some Spanish, and I will take a crash course.

Dana has to work when we are there, but that leaves us all day to explore city and surrounding area. I am sure that we will have no problem filling our time with sitting in little cafes, trips to the ocean, museums, markets, etc.

Tomorrow I will find out if we are safe to make a reservation.

Tonight's collage which I did a while ago is titled "Amphitrite" who was Poseiden's wife and the Greek Goddess of the Mediterranean Sea.

Off to eat dinner. I can hardly contain myself.

Patti O Traveler

Lenny's Place

On the way to the Varga opening, I stopped by comrade Lenny Kislin's house and studio. I had never been there, and my friend Annie/Loel, told me it was incredible.

Lenny and I are blood brothers and sisters in the art world. He recycles objects from the past, while I recycle papers from the past. We both take the old and often damaged and unwanted pieces, and make them into art, which can involve humor, plays on words and double entendres. He is a man after my own heart.

I was not disappointed by our visit. His house was filled with his art and objects d'art in every corner, nook and cranny. His studio was filled, and I mean FILLED with frames, metal parts, old toys with missing or broken pieces, folk art, and other oddities, many things whose function I could not presume to know.

I felt better as I thought about how filled my studio is with stuff, but oh what interesting things we both have that flow onto the floor, or sit in precarious piles, ready to bury us with one wrong move.

Ah, such magnificent obsessions.

patti

Green Hint of the Day

For those of you who sell on eBay and Etsy and such, recycling materials is a must. I take home the small print cartridge boxes from my laser printer at school which are great for shipping rubber stamps, smalls and other objects. I tape on a small piece of paper on front for the address label, make sure they is adequate space for the postal stamp, and away it goes. They are lightweight too and save on postage!

I try and save most packing materials that I get from other things to reuse. We over package in this world, and I have even stopped wrapping gifts and adding to the landfills, unless it is recycled wrap!

DO YOUR BEST TO CONSERVE!

patti

Framing Disaster

I was preparing a second piece for the drop off at Varga yesterday, when I cracked the frame. I had drilled pilot holes for the eye screws, but they cracked the thin frame anyway.

I did this rather recently too putting a canvas into a large frame. The frame is shit now, and fortunately I am not that attached to the painting. I will give it to someone who has a dimly lit room where you can't see the places where the screws came though. OR it will go in my YART sale this spring.

No time to re-frame it, so I had to grab something else off the wall that was somewhat cohesive with the other piece titled "Ecstasy Girl". I really like this quasi-autobiographical assemblage (I rarely go 3-D with my work)and don't want to sell it, though I did price it.

The opening was a blast at WAAM, and I also attended the opening at ASK where I saw my Kingston friends. I did not enter any pieces in the Hudson River art show there as I am no longer a member. I can't afford it right now, and had to make a choice of were I would join and show. I am not ready for another one woman show; I need a new body of work. So in the meantime these other venues provide a place for me to show my work on a monthly basis.

I went into the studio to finish off the Salt Marsh, and totally wrecked my sky painting, so I painted over the entire thing with a big brush and just started painting whatever I wanted on it. Sort of freed me up. Worst case is I let it dry, paint over in black, and then I have a fresh canvas to work on. The technique I have been doing uses a dark ground to build up layers, and my paint is mixed with a wax paste to give it translucency.

Off to bed to rest up for a teaching day.

Patti

I'm IN

Red Sky at night was accepted in the Recent Works show at the Woodstock Art Association and Museum with the opening this Saturday from 4-6 PM.

I am thrilled to be in, and plan on going to the opening. Besides, I have to drop off art to Varga's Gallery too as it is time for another show again.

I have made myself a busy woman, but I get closer and closer to doing what I most truly love, and am stepping out of my safe zone...into the unknown. BUT OH HOW EXCITING!

More Work

I am posting an older painting, a small 8 x 10 or so acrylic on wood panel, RED SKY AT NIGHT, and the other one is SUNSET FROM OLANA which I did this weekend in my workshop. It still has some tweaking to do, but the essence is there. I have to run two paintings up to Woodstock tomorrow to the WAAM show for March. I might have been rejected for the WAAM Hudson River Landscape show, but I know I am in for the WAA Alumni show, and every month I am going to submit my work to WAAM until I get in. One of the jurors is BOUND to like something!

I know I am putting some pressure on myself to make more fine art, but I am easing off the cards since no one is buying much, and working on showing at the very least for now. Of course the IRS probably will start accusing me that art is my hobby, rather than my business, and I will come back and tell them who ISN'T losing money in this economy? It is HARD to MAKE money as an artist in the great US of A. Why do you think I teach? But I will...I will....and I am not going to teach forever.

I have to keep dates with myself to paint, and paint a day during the week, and on the weekend. It is hard to discipline myself, but if I have done it for other things, I can do it for this.

Off to take a bath after a long day, but a mellow one from home.