Don't be fooled

So a few things have gone down in these last few days...

I started my week (Thursday is the beginning of my week) at a HUGE convention center looking at art. The big city hosted the annual art faire and it was a chance to see what galleries are carrying and what is "hot, hip and happening" it was also a great chance to break in my new $24 payless tennis shoes and carry 20lbs of magazines out the door at the end of my visual overload. I went with two women, one I kind of know and the other was totally new to me. The common friend in this mix got the flu and couldn't make it...so we ventured onward! We all looked at the work independently of each other and thanks to a free ticket (I answered an email and got a free one sent to me) I got a free catalog too...so I was able to mark pages and think deep things about work.

this made me think veggies...

sex and art

large crumbled bills and a hushed crowd

There was a lot of STRANGE and silly work, but also a bunch of stuff that reminded me to "mellow out" and just make what comes out of you at any time.* There is a connection there, I will get to it later....when I tell you about Saturdays event.
The dealers were interesting and the whole place was hushed...like the WHOLE HALL in a convention center was a museum...very refined, very subdued. I was really glad I went and really glad I am an artist...even though I was also reminded that it is quite a hard nut to crack, this whole let me get into a gallery thing.

Friday I got called into work and came home with a HUGE headache and the unending desire to want to puke, but was unable to...it was lovely. I had an event to attend that night, so I took a lot of migraine pills and went to the event solo. It was the opening to the new little shop that is carrying my trinket...the place is adorable and looks like Etsy exploded in there....I wanted to buy EVERYTHING. Do you ever get that way when intoxicated or feel icky? I spend money on silly things and discovery them the next day. I hear ambien can do that to you too. She didn't have a sign for the store still so it also reminded me to keep knocking on doors and get my trinket into more shops....I am still waiting to hear from the buyers at two other places.

idea for my own panic room

Saturday, was filled with submission panic attacks, making silkscreens and then going to an event in the nearby town.The event on Saturday night is part of the art salon group I am part of. We go to a new venue each time and hear lectures from artists, or designers or curators about how they do things. This evening we heard a lecture from a painter, who is the mentor of our host. The Host is an amazing painter and he is an eccentric lecturer. I joined about 30 other women in a "screening room" in the house (It was another MANSION overlooking the ocean) and we listened to what I can only in reflection describe as a performance art piece. I had a notebook and was I glad I took one. The painter had two glasses of liquid; one whiskey, one water-liquid courage I would assume. He spoke of the creative process and at the mid point it became a stream of conscienceness conversation with the ether and I figured there was going to be a gem in there someplace...I mean think about how brilliant you are when you get intoxicated and have epiphanies! I also started to have a giggle fit and used my notebook as a way to avoid laughing out loud! I was sat between a curator and a painter and needed to act like a lady and not a child...while I scanned the room, others were stunned or dozing.
It was AMAZING.
The painter kept saying no one believed him and he BEGGED us to believe him about his theory.
This is what I wrote down:*

All artists have a rational capacity/rational facilities

these have tyrannical mechanisms

where we have internal dialogs of destruction in unnamed numbers of ways.

The Unspoken unnamed "one" is the creative force.

You are creativity itself, it can not be any other way!

It will take you two years of work to let go and be who you are,

and then you will not know what you are doing, but you know who you are.

Struggle gives you authority, suffering drains you and destroys you.

Struggle through your work...don't suffer.

and the key to mastering any creative feat:

slow down

repeat often

be mindful

and

slow down more

 

After the lights came on, I thanked the host, passing her Rembrandt etching, and Picasso drawings, walked under her Venetian glass chandeliers and returned my glass to the marble topped counter kitchen sink. I was escorted out by her kind husband who lit the way for us as the "landscaping wasn't done yet, so there were no lights yet" on their terracotta slabbed steps to the driveway.

 I sat quietly in my dark car, on a dark road thinking,

"what the hell was that!?"

Then I drove to get dinner and drove home, in the quiet of the night, watching storm clouds and listening to my new favorite CD.

As I distance myself from the event, I realize WOW there were some gems in there.

AMAZING indeed