Halloween

It's Halloween! It's also a Wednesday and I've had a cold since Friday.  Everyone is sick.  So instead of going out with my friends in my ventriloquist dummy costume, I made the responsible decision to stay inside and watch Frankenstein on TV.

Speaking of Halloween oriented things, you must watch H.H.Holmes: America's First Serial Killer.  It is about a serial killer doctor who plucked his victims out of the chaos of the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893.  He had a house designed as an elaborate castle with torture chambers, and he defleshed his victims and donated their skeletons to hospitals and universities.  It is the most macabre, gruesome piece of Chicago history.  I've been into these things lately.

I set up my wall at Fortunate Discoveries today.  I'm excited about that place.  It's really cute inside and I like all the other art.  I think my paintings will call attention to themselves and people will walk right over to them once my little piece of wall comes into view.  I jammed as many of my little, newer pieces on as I could, so hopefully the initial appearance doesn't come across as too busy.  I sold two pieces at The Common Cup: The Great Plains and Flies.  One of the barristas bought The Great Plains and the owner bought Flies.  Even if I don't make a lot of money selling my paintings, it is very validating to sell them at all- to have people who actually have my art in their homes.

I think there is a point where my work changed.  I think it was with The Heart of Captain Kurtz and Shiny Things Three.  My paintings became more upbeat, and I think I've gotten the hang of some problems with I was having with creating distance before.  I looked at all of my older paintings at once when I brought them home from the Common Cup today, and they are darker and flatter.  I'm sick of looking at them, they feel kind of stifling.  They went into the closet.  One thing that assures me of this is that I keep selling my new pieces.  It would be great if someone would buy the first Shiny Things painting, or The Factory.  I think someone should buy The Death of the American Landscape already.  It is really cute and well done, and everyone loves buffalo skulls.  My sister wants that one, I should just give it to her.  Christmas is coming up!

Here are my new pieces:

Got Yer Goose
Acrylic on Canvas
10" x 10"

The Queen
Acrylic on Canvas
9" x 9" 

The Eruption of Mount Bubblegum
Acrylic and Gossamer Paper on Canvas
14" x 11"

The Migration
Acrylic on Canvas
14" x 11"

Bear Hunting
Acrylic on Canvas
6" x 8"

This is my wall at Fortunate Discoveries.  As you see, the only old piece up is Landscape.   Very colorful!

End of the Month Drama

TI haven't updated this in about a month.  I've been really busy with lots of different things- I just got back from visiting my niece for the first time, I've been doing some managing shifts at my restaurant job, which is new, and the classes at the retirement home in Wilmette take a lot of planning and energy on my part, even though they're only once a week.  And I still don't have my first paycheck yet...dun dun dun (flashbacks of my last job at the Chicago Art and Design Center that I never got paid for).  Next week it will be two months that I'm working there, spending my own money on supplies, and haven't gotten paid.  What-do-I-do/Why-does-this-always-happen-to-me?!?!?!  I must have one of those really sweet, angelic, "Oh you don't have to pay me, I love to work for free!" faces.

I sold three pieces in September: Deer, Land Octopus, and The Family Tree.  I was really happy about that, especially The Family Tree, because I didn't like that painting and didn't think I was ever going to sell it.  It's pretty exciting that people might actually want to buy my stuff!  I have five paintings up at the group show in the West Loop, (Petroff Studio, and the show is put on by Lucid Artist Co-op).  I went to the gallery opening on October 5th and it was pretty interesting.  Imagine that- artists being weird and interesting.  Mostly in a good way.  Then the rest of my paintings are at the Common Cup, which is a cafe around the corner from my house, and so far I know I've sold The Great Plains, but nothing else that I know of.

I have a new, semi-permanent place for my paintings starting in November: Fortunate Discoveries on Armitage.  Its a gallery where you lease out a wall space, and its in a really upscale neighborhood with lots of pricey little boutiques and people with money.  That bodes well for selling art usually.  The other artists represented there are really good, so I feel kind of honored to have a place there.

I'm always so busy at the end of the month- thus the title of this post- because I have to get everything back from its current locations and get ready for the next month's show.  I just finished up a couple pieces, and I know I'm being ambitious but I want to have two more done by November 1st.  We'll see.

This is what I have completed and photographed for this month:

Quail Skull
Acrylic on Canvas
9" x 9" x 2"

Face Off
Acrylic on Canvas
18" x 9" x 2"


The woman who owns Fortunate Discoveries said she likes my sense of humor and the irony in my paintings.  The one above, get it? The two skulls are having a face-off in the desert, and since they are skulls the have their FACE OFF??? Haha.  I think that may be the direction that my work is evolving.