What else happened at that first show

I recently wrote about the first chance I had to publically display my work. It was the Starving Artist Art Show in San Antonio. Usually an annual affair that was started in the early 60's, it had taken a couple of years off to find a new location. With no experience with this kind of thing at all, Dale and I arrived early to set up the tent and my paintings with numerous glances at the threatening clouds that seemed to be making everyone nervous.

The weather quickly cleared though, and with nothing to do but stand around while people browsed, I decided to make use of the time, and do some painting. I often work exclusively with plaster, so technically I wasn't painting, and that turned out to be part of the allure of our little corner of the show; that and the fact that I was creating art right out there in the open.

So, as I enjoyed the distraction of working on my canvas (you're not expected to talk to anyone when you're busy like that) I could tell that someone was watching me intently. He wasn't standing too close to me, but he wasn't moving along like so many were. Eventually, he took advantage of a quick break I took and introduced himself as a curator of a local gallery, Centro Cultural Aztlan. He liked the piece I was working on, a study of the bell tower of a well known San Antonio mission. He asked me some questions about my process, and invited me to be one of the contributing artists for their upcoming show.

A few weeks later, Dale and I attended the opening. I'll say that it was a good experience, but those kind of functions are hard for me. I am a little shy in crowded situations like that, and the hustle of all those people made me a little anxious. Nonetheless, the excitement of seeing my work on the wall of a galery was wonderful.

Below are two pieces I did of bell towers of the San Juan Capistrano Mission in San Antonio. These are the pieces that prompted the curator to invit me to the show. They are 100% Venetian plaster, which I treat with wax when they're completed. I spent quite some time choosing the colors so that the blue would really pop. There is something wonderful about these --  they ring. Well, at least they make me feel as though they will at any moment.

    

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My last garage sale, my latest drawing

I will pick up my back story in the next entry, but today (after years of work) I have just completed what I hope will be my last garage sale ever. I have a husband, our five kids, and my overly ambitious self to continually organize. The extra wammy in my atempts to put things in their place is the fact that children aged 11 and under can't keep their hands, elbows, and noses out of whatever box, bag, or pile of stuff I'm in the middle of organizing. And I'm organizing quite a lot. In our house I take up all of the garage and parts of 3 rooms with the tools I need to successfully ply my trade(s). I am a house painter, a home school mom, and now also an artist.

And since I can draw and people are paying me to do that for them, why should I care that I netted a measly $100 on the garage sale I'd been organizing for most of the summer? I won't! I'll just post one of my latest works, and hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned for more details about how all of this came about.

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Unexpected setback and surprise

 

Early one Saturday morning not long after the art show, my middle son, Gideon, came into our room coughing, wheezing, and barely able to breathe. Dale took him to the emergency room, and when they weren't able to stabilize him there, they transferred him to Dell Children's Hospital.

The rest of the kids and I caught up with them there, and after a half an hour with him it was obvious that he was a sick little boy. They didn't know what was causing his breathing issues, and he wasn't responding to the treatments they were giving him. So Dale took the troops back home and I stayed with Gideon.

A lot of what goes on in hospitals (for the people who don't work there) is WAITING. During my 3 day visit, as my son's breathing slowly improved, I looked through a ton of magazines. But it was as I flipped through a National Geographic that something special happened. A photo caught my eye and I decided that I just had to draw this face.

To my surprise, my drawing started to look like the photo. And I had a right to be surprised, after all. It was my first attempt after having gone some 18 years without doing any serious drawing whatsoever. In fact, I don't think I had ever drawn that way before.

Even though I still haven't finished it, and I'm not even sure who took the photo, I love looking at it because it represents another significant step that I took on the path toward becoming the artist I'm going to be.

Even now, when I happen to see it, I gaze at it almost in a state of awe -- thinking, "I did that?"

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First Steps: The Art Show

Two Christmases ago I decided that I wanted to become an artist. I began by signing up for the San Antonio starving artist show so that I would have a deadline that would force me to create things to sell. It definitely did that. The show was in April, and I brought nearly 30 pieces.

The show was successful. I sold 5 paintings, and learned a lot about how much I hate having inventory. The piece that I felt was the strongest that I’d brought “Secret Garden” got a lot of attention. It is made of venetian plaster and glaze. One woman came back to see it several times. It was plain to see that she was falling in love with it. Then she brought her husband to look at it. He was not similarly infatuated. Later in the day I saw them as they were leaving the show, and while they were carrying home a LOT of art that day, “Secret Garden” wasn’t among them. It continued to get a good amount of interest through the rest of the weekend, but in the end it didn’t sell.

So, it currently hangs in my dining room and I love it there. I am so glad no one bought it.

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