Watching and Listening While Making Art

It's been a fairly transformational few weeks of art making. For the last six months, I have had a huge build up of ideas that I had been wanting to get out and these last few weeks finally allowed for that to happen. When I worked on my last solo show, Lay Low at Seeing Things Gallery, I had similar momentum, insight and revelations about my process. Being prolific is a really important part of being an artist. You get out the good, you get out the bad. You experiment and learn. I'm not sure where this will lead, but I know that I am feeling very good about my art residency in Spain in November. Spending a full month on art making will be incredible. My art show at Chromatic Coffee opens this Thursday, August 7th at 6:30pm and will be up for the month of August.

Focusing on art making so intensely has been long needed for me. I feel these moments of euphoria when I am in my zone working. Prior to working on this show, I had been doing a lot of behind the scenes work, such as editing images, photographing artwork and planning out the rest of this year artistically and financially. I have also been working with some websites to sell my work on like Great.ly and Scoutmob, along with a few others I will announce soon. 

As with the title of this post, I have been "watching and listening." I have been working much more intuitively and paying attention to the process rather than overthinking things. Along with listening to myself, this is what I have been listening to and watching for inspiration. So often, music is my backdrop for making art. Lately, it's been Nick Cave, both his old and new records. Alongside, I've been listening to PJ Harvey's Let England Shake.

Aside from music, I love watching documentaries and movies while working on art. I don't usually do this as much as music, but it does inspire me in a different way and mixes things up. This past week, I watched tons of movies and documentaries, including some Spanish films since I will be going to Spain in November and I want to freshen up my skills. The films were

• También la Lluvia Fantastic film, reminded me of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo
• La Lengua de las Mariposas / Butterfly's Tongue  A good coming-of-age film that takes place around the Spanish Civil War
• Los últimos días I love a good post-apocalyptic outbreak movie

And art documentaries:

• Pablo, a great film about someone I didn't know about: the man behind designing movie titles, intros and trailers to some of my favorite films. I love the creativity in a good film intro. 
• Drew: The Man Behind the Poster You name the classic movie and he made the movie poster for it!
• Just Like Being There Behind the scenes of artists who design band and show posters.
• Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story Tomi has been through way more than I will ever experience. Illustrator of many subjects including children's books, political and erotic. 

With all of these amazing stories of artists and their craft, I felt utterly motivated and had an amazingly creative and prolific weekend. Seeing how they work, how they simplify and how real they are was major motivation for me to work. I'm really looking forward to the outcome of all this.

Mid-Summer Work and Mid-Summer Play

It's been an interesting summer between work and this strong desire to venture out and camp or take a vacation. There's too much work to warrant a lengthy vacation, so I've gotten creative about enjoying this summer. I just went on my third one night camping trip and I have to say that it is so much better than not going at all! 

Mission Peak

On July 12, a group of friends and I headed up to Fremont to hike Mission Peak. It's a hike I've done before, but not quite like this. We started at 6pm, so the skies were still blue and the sun was strong. As the evening moved on, we saw the fog roll in around the bay, city lights come on, the sunset on one side and the moonrise on the other side. A lot of other people had the same idea, so the trail was crowded, but it was a really magical experience with some good friends. 

Garden of Eden

The following week, I headed down to the Garden of Eden at the San Lorenzo River and to camp at Henry Cowell State Park with a couple of friends. As I said before, I've been spending done some one night camping trips this summer since I've been too busy to go longer. I have to recommend it! I did spend time sketching out ideas for new projects too. 

Sketching the Garden of Eden swimming hole at the Henry Cowell Campground

Henry Cowell overlook

Camping at Henry Cowell is different from a lot of sites in the area. You are amongst oak rather than redwood trees. It's really beautiful and there's this overlook with a 360 degree view. Next time, I'm going to head up there to stargaze!

Pajaro Dunes rental

And finally last weekend, I went to Pajaro Dunes, a beach resort in Watsonville. It was so beautiful! I had work to do, so I tried to be very disciplined while I was out there. At least I had this great view!

First sketches

I managed to get down to the beach to swim, bury Bryan and play with his nieces at the beach. It was such a blast! 

Back to work, I'm tracing over an early sketch on the window of the rental. Illustration work is much different from painting. It's much more of a planned process. 

...And back to the beach! We ate at Phil's Fish Market for dinner. Had a super bowl of cioppino. You have to eat here if you are in the area. You also have to head out back at sunset. Whales breached as the intense sky and iridescent water changed to every color imaginable. 

All in all, it's been a hard working summer, but these little breaks are needed to revive me!

Don't Wait For Your Ship

My grandma stitched up these wise words, which I received from my mom over the weekend. Good thinking for the beginning of the week, don't you think? I have been working hard on portraits, my new wholesale catalog and a new art show these last couple of weeks. I see a lot of good changes coming and it all feels like it's because I am on a mission to do all things I have been meaning to accomplish in the last year this summer. I think the rest of the year will be a great one.

All in a Weekend - New Website and Trying Something New: Sailing

So yeah, this past weekend was a crazy one. I've been learning the multitasking I've been doing for years is not actually very productive, so doing one thing at a time felt great. Well, maybe there was a little multitasking.

Friday - Photographed more art and redesigned my website. Again. 

I shot and edited more photos of my art prints. This is always way more time-consuming than I think it will be. I'm well on my way to getting it done though! This means that my wholesale line sheet will be done soon and my prints will look a lot prettier in the various online shops they will be featured in.

Okay, so I didn't design my website from scratch, but I do make various creative and layout decisions about the template that I use. This is what I did with my Friday night. I got super excited to change my site again since I wanted it to be super easy to navigate and I wanted to set it up for some things that are happening this year. I also wanted to be able to feature a few events or new things on the home page. I think it's just what I need. I'm officially letting my website be!

Saturday - I sailed!

Ever since watching the Swallows and Amazons BBC series as a kid and reading Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi as a teenager, I've wanted to sail. Last Christmas, my boyfriend got me sailing lessons at Spinnaker Sailing in Redwood City. I always dreamed of it being relaxing and a way to escape land and all the normalcy of daily life. With lessons, you aren't relaxing so much, but watching, doing and learning.

I thought I would spend my lunch breaks from class sketching and painting the boats. I only got this one done on the first day since I spent the rest of my lunches studying. There's a lot to know when it comes to sailing terminology between the materials, tools, boat parts, lingo and sailing directions.

Someday I'd like to get one of these. Love the name, like The Creation song.

The cloudy skies cleared up for day one of sailing.

The view from below deck.

Sunday - more sailing!

Sailing was amazing. Not just in the glorified, storybook way, but it made me really think about things. You have to focus on the wind, where it's coming from and think of the logistics from class, which feel different when you're actually out there. I learned to sail, tie knots, motor and dock a boat, rescue passengers overboard and more. I was also thinking about how hard it was to grasp at first, between the coordination and classroom knowledge. It made me think of how good it feels to push myself, how much more I should push myself and how long it had been since I had tried something new. Pushing through when you aren't sure of what you're doing or doubting yourself is something that happens when you do something new. It made me realize I can't keep doing the same things forever.

Sailing reminded me of how learning or doing things well takes focus. Being on the water you have just the boat, lines, tiller, motor and wind (and a good instructor) to sail. I need to remember this kind of razor-sharp focus with art too.

View from the boat day two.

Wrapping up the day with our awesome instructor.

SubZERO Festival Recap

Whew! This last couple of months have been busy! I worked an enormous amount of hours to put together an art show for the school I teach at. I tell you, hanging or displaying nearly 300 artworks, plus organizing their over 1,000 pieces for their individual portfolios is no easy task. It left me with a mere couple of weeks to prepare for the SubZERO Festival. I spent a few weeks making art prints, sewing up bags and figuring out how best to display my booth.

I didn't have much of a chance to leave my booth, so you should see the SubZERO Facebook page for great photos and videos of the event. I just have a few here.

Not sure if I knew this photo was being taken?! Haha. Photo by Cherri Lakey of Anno Domini

As you can see above, I had original paintings, art prints and textiles including scarves, bags and patches in my booth. I was really happy with using the lightweight canvas walls and all the 'furniture' was things that I had: wooden ladder, crate, easel. I thought I would have a chance to paint in my booth, but I felt busy much of the time. I also talked about preparing goods for SubZERO in my last post if you would like to read more.

Talking with visitors of my booth. Photo by Cherri Lakey.

I loved interacting with customers and visitors of my booth. You can see the banner above made from scraps of my bags and patches. They had sweetest things to say about my art and my booth itself. Some things I heard: "Your booth is so homey and welcoming", "your work really speaks to me" and more. It was a great experience and I was glad I finally displayed my work at the festival, after attending for many years.

Cellist Freya Seeburger

Okay, enough about me! Although I didn't get photos of anyone else, except for Freya Seeburger since I was glued to my booth, I was incredibly lucky to be across from her. I could watch her performances throughout the nights. When I watched her and her friends set up, I knew it would be something exquisite. I can tell you that San Jose really came through these two nights. Gorgeous costumes, wild performers and innovative art installations ruled the streets. Elaborate displays showed locals the kind of art, music and creativity that often hides below the surface in San Jose. With my art, I interact with people online much of the time, so it was really nice to be involved locally again. Be sure to check my events page for upcoming fairs and shows. Again, be sure to check the SubZERO Facebook page for great pics and videos.

A BIG thanks to everyone who came out! It was great to see familiar and new faces. Can't wait til next year!