constraint antelope lit

I am my own experiment, I am my own work of art.   Madonna

Since we finished Henry Miller's 10 points on writing the other day, I thought you might be interested in another 10 point article, this one by Geoffrey Gorman, a former gallery director, who attended both the Maryland Institute of Art and the Boston Museum School. Five years ago he founded GG+A, an artist career development firm that works with artists individually and through workshops.This article was originally created for TheArtBiz.com. It appears on NYFA Interactive courtesy of the Abigail Rebecca Cohen Library.

So today, here is his first point

1. Visualize Succeeding at Your Goals. Recently an artist called me from the Midwest wanting some help with his career. I asked him what had he done so far. He told me he had representation in the United States and had several museum exhibitions scheduled for the next few years. He said his current "campaign" was to get representation and a higher profile in Europe. I was impressed with the clarity of his vision and asked how he had gotten all of this exposure for his work on his own.

He told me that he had a "war room" in which he planned his approach to accomplishing his goals. He'd served in the armed forces, and learned to prepare for the future, be it as a soldier or as a professional artist, by visualizing and thinking strategically.

This artist learned on his own an important habit of successful artists--visualize succeeding at your goals. Once your goals are clear and you can break them down into effective strategies, walk through them step by step in your mind. This will not only help you prepare for each step along the way, but it will also guarantee arrival at your destination.

********************

Well, the OCD in my system has come forth and I stayed up way too late knitting on a sweater I started the other day with the plan that it would last me through our week in Vermont as 'something to do'.  I'm at the end of my first skein and love the way the self striping yarn is forming chevrons instead of blobs like I had thought it would.  Unfortunately I am increasing at the sides as I go along ans I'm afraid it will disintegrate into those blobs at any moment. We'll see what happens, eh?  Working with bamboo=fun!
                             (Yup, it disintegrated into blobs right after I wrote those words.  Sigh)

so much for that hope.

I'm on short time today, it's bill-paying/paperwork day first, then jump in the shower, and pack the dogs up for a trek to the studio to get that machine work caught up on the twins quilt.  We will spend the day there, not a bad idea since there is construction going on now both next door and behind us and the sound of sawing metal is intrusive, to say the least.  After one day the guys next door have filled a huge dumpster=-  can't imagine how many more they will need.  The house behind us, also a rehab, is now on their third dumpster.  I didn't like the colors of any of them so far so haven't replenished my dumpster photographs though I did take about 30 of a little cement mixer-  I've used the pictures already as texture for the 'Hands' book pages, know I will use it more too.  

So, in order to get on with it, I guess I'll, ummm, get on with it!

We'll start with the END of the Henry Miller rules-  we're at the last one!  

10.  Write first and always.  Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards. 

Yeah, how to win friends and influence people.  It's so hard to make friends understand that your work is what you DO and other things have to take second place.  I know I've lost opportunities for lots of social interactions with my lack of availability, but frankly, when I weigh a 'ladies lunch' against possibly reaching a goal in the studio, there's no contest.  Wherever I go I'm met with questions about how things are going in 'the shop' (I correct them every time because I don't want the image out that I sit there by the door with a big cash register waiting for somebody to wander in!)  I know that when I have an open studio people are quite surprised.  Anyway, I hope that the good friends get it, and meanwhile I suppose it doesn't matter for the rest.  Thanks, Henry.

To celebrate the end of Henry Miller's rules, here is a video interview from 1969.  There will be a quiz on Monday.  You get an automatic A if you make it through!

Brad Downey street work.    Changing surfaces-  In progress, and complete.  By cutting out pieces of adjoining street textures and replacing them with others. Downey raises our awareness of a sense of place. Very cool-  wish I would see these walking around a city!  Makes ya go hmmmmmmm!

marching in formations

 dogpark on a baseball field-  imagine adding all those dogs in PS!

crossing an intersection and forming a circle dance

More work in a city-

"Selected People" is an ongoing series of brilliant photo manipulations by Boston-based photographer Pelle Cass  that depict the visual rhythms of everyday life. Pelle creates these images by setting up a camera on a tripod in various public spaces in the Boston area, taking hundreds of pictures from the same spot. He then begins a painstaking selection process using photoshop, simply leaving the figures he chooses and omitting the rest, creating organized patterns of time and space condensed into one simultaneous image.  Please check his website because there are so many more.

Designed by Portugal-based FAHR 021.3 architects, this temporary installation reinterprets the typical party decoration of a portuguese street party. The "Estrutura de S. João" is the result of a local community workshop for the event Acorda! in the Design Institute of Guimarães and was created by hanging hundreds of balloon-like square paper forms covered in a reflective shiny material.  The light-weight and floaty squares are open ended so at points become almost invisible, yet look solid as you see them at angles.  

******************

I was looking through one of the on-line magazines I occasionally get and came across the wall shelf.  It's made of driftwood sticks (or more probably bleached unfinished wood) and would look quite fun in a beach house or informal room, right?  They are in stock at a shop in Southampton and can be yours for $1200 each.  Yup, that's not a typo.  No, they don't light up or do anything digital.  They sit there.

The thing is, three or four years ago when I was setting up the studio I found two of these exact shelves on a clearance rack at Arhaus and got them for $9.99 each, marked down from somwhere in the $70. range, and I thought I ht the lottery.    (I still have the bags I brought them back in because they are burlap and I know someday I can use those too...)  I didn't even need them, but for that I knew they would work somewhere.  And they do-  I keep my giant industrial tomato can on top with all my rolled up paper stuff inside.  But I'm telling you, for only half the Southampton price for one, you can have both of them!  Such a deal.  (Should I wait for your check?)

                                   UPDATE, Later, Much Later-  here's my $9 model (only took one picture):  

Guess it holds my YIELD sign and my funnel set too.

heh heh.

I suppose if I were to be an albino animal, this would be the one to choose.  Looks like he's on asroturf, not a golf green.  Maybe he's stuffed?  Who knows.

I am thinking I need to make an alligator quilt.  Stop me!