History and Change

Wow, I am behind! As usual. This technology age is kind of like a lifetime game of wack-a-mole. The newsletter is on time, the website is fairly up to date, and up pops the blog. And now I’m supposed to twitter or tweet…sigh. And forget about my MySpace page, all it has is a couple links to here and my website. It doesn’t help that I have become addicted to playing Spore.

At any rate the shows have been doing well for me. Perhaps my expectations are low since I really hit my stride with good work and good shows just as the economy was tanking so my doing well may be someone else’s barely getting by but I’m happy.

I usually get into about 50% of the shows I apply to, this year it has been more like 80%. I’m worn out. Still excited about the rest of the season, but worn out. I’m very excited about Northern Virginia Festival of the Arts. It’s a long ride, an expensive show, and I really don’t have that great of a spot, but there is more to doing that particular show to me. I lived in that area for 40 years and there is a sense of coming back and saying “see, this is who I really am”. It’s not that it was a bad place to live or that there were any bad experiences there. It’s just that the weight of forty years of history, of living less than 2 miles away from where I went to high school, has a way of stagnating a person. In Florida I have had the chance to grow in directions I didn't anticipate, to step into the road less traveled.

There are wonderful things about history though. Last week I bought tickets to the Peter, Paul, and Mary concert at Wolf Trap. I first saw Peter, Paul, and Mary in concert when I was 11 years old. I went off and on through the years and when my daughter was seven I took her to her first concert. Usually we got good seats, one year we lucked out and got seats in the front row. This year it will be lawn tickets because this year I will be bringing my grandchildren too. And yes, I will be flying to Virginia for the weekend just to go to a concert.

Hello 2009

I was looking up a photo on my blog and I realized it has been way too long. So here I am again. Shows have started up again for me and I’m in the middle of doing my first show of 2009, the Audubon Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. It is bitter cold here (well, in Florida terms) and I am so glad this show is inside. I feel badly for the people who came from out of state to be here. The festival is not an art show. It is a combination of field trips, speakers, and exhibits, all about birds. People come from all over the country and some of them are rather disappointed that the weather here is not any warmer than where they came from.

I got two exciting acceptances last week. One from Vero Beach, Under the Oaks for March 13 – 15 which is supposed to be a very good show and the other, drum roll please, is Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival on May 16 – 17. My home town finally gets to see what I’ve been doing for the past 9 years.

It’s too early to tell what effect the economy will have on shows for me. I haven’t done Audubon in four years and my work has changed so much that I can’t really compare. I didn’t make any sales yesterday but I also forgot and left my 8 x 10s at home and with all the people from out of town this is a small item show. The focus isn’t really on the art here so it’s an impulse buy situation and I didn’t have any impulse buy items.

The photo above is from one of the photo trips I took when I was visiting family in Virginia over Thanksgiving.