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.