07.27.06

Another One Bites the Dust

Posted in Bad News at 10:28 am by April

Yesterday afternoon I got an email from one of the managing partners of a gallery I have work in. She sadly informed me that the gallery would be closing next week. That was fast, I thought. It just opened a few months ago. I was a little surprised because it folded so quickly, but not shocked, to be completely honest. Don’t get me wrong. It has nothing to do with the quality of the gallery. It was a great space, but that doesn’t always matter. Galleries have a tendency to open and then close almost as quickly, for whatever reason.

Last year I was in a group showing at a gallery in Little Rock called Oval Gallery. It was what I thought a gallery should be. Beautiful inside. Nice downtown location with great frontage and lots of walk-by traffic. Friendly staff. Fantastic Art. Not long afterward it folded because of arguments within the management (so I hear). It gets worse, too. I’ve heard multiple horror stories (thankfully none experienced first-hand) about galleries closing and never returning the leftover works to the artists. Fortuately for me, that wasn’t the case this time.

This time the culprit was gas prices. I know it. The gallery located in a normally popular tourist town, but people aren’t traveling as much this summer. Not to mention, when they do travel, they don’t spend as much to offset the price of just getting there in the first place.

This solidifies in my mind that it is of the utmost importance that I get my ass out of the studio and into as many other states as possible, portfolio in hand, and show everyone I can my work. Spread my work out across the US so if I have a gallery closing here and there it won’t be a big blow. It wasn’t this time, but if I lose many more, it will be. If I want to be successful (and I do) I have no other option. I hope my car is prepared to deal with the mileage.

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07.26.06

Gallery Update

Posted in Website Info at 10:18 am by April

I’ve been working hard lately at getting the gallery completely updated. It’s long overdue! Today I added a Cityscapes Category. Check it out!http://www.dancingrabbitstudio.com/galleryhome/cityscapes/cityscapes.html

By the way, every time I update a gallery page, I’m adding shopping cart buttons to anything that’s available. As it sells, it’ll be marked sold in red.

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A Lesson in the Leaves

Posted in Inspired at 7:25 am by April

Last night I was a little cold (no big surprise for me, I’m always cold), so I stepped out on the balcony to get some fresh air and warm up for a minute. It was perfect outside: warm with a nice cool wind. And it was quiet. Not a peep. I couldn’t hear the traffic. I didn’t hear any neighbors being obnoxious. No sirens. Even the noisy neighbors upstairs were silent. It was nice. I decided to stay outside for little while and enjoy the evening.

As I sat, I watched a little tree just in front of the balcony whip around in the wind. It wasn’t that windy, but since it’s not a very big tree, it doesn’t take much to move it. I sat for probably ten minutes watching this tree bend ninety degrees in wind, its leaves flipping uncontrollably. It suddenly became amazing to me that those little leaves, attached by such tiny little seemingly fragile stems, can hang on for dear life during the most destructive of storms. They get pulled, twisted, bent, and generally beat all to hell, but the next day, there they are. Soaking up the sunshine.

Pretty incredible, actually. Leaves aren’t strong. You can walk right up to one and rip it in half. So, how can they weather the storm? They’re flexible. When the wind blows, the leaves never try to stand rigid and fight, they simply move with it. They twist and bend and flip, and although it looks like they’re flying out of control, they hang in there. They never let go. The wind always moves on.

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07.25.06

The Blahs

Posted in Emotional Baggage at 3:09 pm by April

So, here it is. I’m actually using a blogging software, even though I’ve been blogging since last year sometime. I don’t know how all this is going to work out. It’s a little more complicated than I expected. Ah, I’ll figure it out, I’m sure.

I’m feeling really sluggish today. I hate that feeling. Didn’t feel that hot yesterday, either. I know I’m not sick (knock on wood), but I just feel so tired and, well, blah. I think maybe I have cabin fever. I don’t know if cabin fever would make me feel so tired, though. This sounds familiar, didn’t I say this in a blog a few months ago? Interesting. Spending too much time alone and not seeing enough of my friends is easy to do when you work at home, but it’s certainly not healthy. Another thing is that I haven’t been painting enough lately. I get something started and then I never finish it. I’m looking around my studio and I see a lot of unfinished work, which is not good, but again, I feel so drained that I don’t even feel like painting. I know that if I just pick up the brush I’ll feel a hundred times better, but it’s not easy to get started for some reason. (Insert big pathetic sigh here).

Wow. You know what’s funny? I think seeing myself type this sad, pathetic blog has actually been motivating. I’ve re-read what I have so far and it just looks so bad (and not at all like me, I might add). Suddenly working sounds like a good idea. That’s pretty crazy how sometimes it just takes looking at your thoughts from a third-party perspective to gain clarity on a situation. Nice. Well, time to get to work I suppose.

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