Mid-year Assessing.

wellllp,
halfway through a hot July. kinda makes me wanna ramble on this blog, eh?
 It has gone by so quickly I feel like I have paid my electric bill for our overworked air conditioners without even blinking.  I keep looking at the cat  as she meanders from shady corner to whichever tile square or electronic appliance was visited  least recently, wondering if pet groomers take fuzzy felines for "seasonal" trimming.

I hear NY is having a heat wave right now too.. they were when we were there
in the 90s...

I am working on a commission that is a simple design but has a LOT of gold leafing in it. but I am excited about that because it involves painting detail on top of the gold leaf-makes the details very luminous-and it is for a collector.

There are also two shows coming up in August for which I am preparing work. One has a classic videogame theme- (the games from my childhood of ye olde 8 and 16 bit) at Istvan Gallery August 10th and the other is a fundraiser for the Oklahoma Milk Bank, to be held at Trinity Event center in Paseo on August 2 during the First Friday Art Walk. I will have links up for these soon.

up-close detail from painting in progress, acrylic on board,
magical yellow stuff.



With it being the middle of the year, and things about to change family-wise a lot, well they have already, I am taking stock of things that are going on around me art-wise and community-wise, personal-wise too. I should quit saying wise because I have done this enough that it is probably more foolish than anything but by now... meh.

Stormy holds down the easel.
"it needs to rain again to cool things off... but then i don't want to go outside..."


One of the things going on is the SPACE residency offered at the Skirvin through the Paseo Artist Association. I know so many artists that are making good work right now that would be perfect for this. The deadline is 7/31.

this is literally the "if you could just get paid to make the art you want..." application, complete with the high-profile place to do it.

oh yeah... i know a few people might be all.."why is she sharing this" okay i'm really not thinking it but it's a good segue.... 1) I think is is MEGA-AWESOME that we have an art community that has a program like this for artists... seriously, since they can only take one person you might get turned down and you can always apply another year. and 2) i'm needing to take personal stock of if i'm even ready for something like this myself- looking back at last year,the work i did would NOT fill a residency and I was encouraged to apply then, and was in my studio pretty much full-time. There are expected interactions to happen with the public through the space and social obligations to fulfill and this is where I need to grow also. the writing experience would have been good perhaps and practice practice.... need to get organized and be better at setting those goals where i can keep the reminders hitting me like a July Oklahoma heat wave!

A lot of pics going up on social media right now are from Etsy listings and smaller work made to help keep the bills going so I encourage you to visit the shop! Lots of small and medium originals are there that will make unique and special gifts. Next week my husband is taking some of his vacation time but we are just sticking around the area playing in nature (heading North next year perhaps), so everything will be open and I will still be taking studio and plein air time... and trying to find a nice place to swim!




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