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Y'know how you're juggling all sorts of projects and responsibilities and commitments and an occasional walk in the woods and something just COMPLETELY FALLS THROUGH THE CRACKS???
Umm, well, yup, that'd be this sure did!
So I'm going to leave this quick acknowledgement and upload some newer art, and I'll be back at you soon.
Best summer to you!
Loree
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Five days of color and movement,
Of a cotton bole on a riverweed,
Of paintings on the street,
And nights brightly lit
with beads and balconies and brass.
Debauchery?
I suppose, but, also,
life and joy.
Someday again.
I completed a piece a few days ago, that brought New Orleans up for me again. I am hearing from artist friends in the area, that my beautiful town is not doing well, and it hurts my heart.
I've only been to New Orleans twice, but it captured my heart at first step.
Someday again.
Loree
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It has been too long since I wrote - the art has taken over my creative life and so I have done something about it. [Fair warning that this is a pure commercial!]
I am offering in my eBay store a series of 8 page illustrated story booklets. The buyer/Muse gives me a title or first sentence, and I write from that point, wherever the story leads me. I adore writing like this... have two first sentences already, and they're wonderful to work with!
Anyway, take a look... as soon as the first are written and produced, they'll be available, too - then when all 100 are written, we'll have a book ready to publish!
in a land of wind and trees, an Artist was, late one night, contemplating Past Choices, and Current Consequences, and Next Steps. All in all, she was pleased.
And somewhat surprised that this was the case.
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Yes, I am. One of those. Yes, I am one of those artists with A Day Job.
It wasn't always this way - once upon a time I had a beautiful studio gallery in a wonderful old school by the side of a scenic highway on a hill above a river. Nine hundred square feet of open and light and just me painting twelve or sixteen hours a day, with two dogs playing in the yard and happily greeting visitors. Tourists would drive by on their way to see our beautiful Columbia Gorge, and a few every day would stop in, and a few of those would buy a painting or a drawing or a card or a book. And that paid for the studio and to keep me eating.
Then I had to move. And the studio went away. And now the puppies play in a small back yard and we drive back up the hill every day to hike in the woods - rain or not - and the house in town has paintings against every wall, art supplies on every flat surface. Including the floor. It's not as good. Harder to keep the mundane world out with no door to shut against it. Harder to let the mundane have a place not overrun with the detritus of creation. How it is.
I am still a fulltime artist. And but also, I work all night, five nights a week, to keep myself in supplies and electricity - in that order.
Not doing much writing these days - I suppose two fulltime jobs is enough for anyone. Soon, though. And within the next year, I will have mastered this art of selling in virtual space enough that I can walk back out of the world of ordinary labor, and back into that place where time finds its own rhythm, work is done when its there to do, and a creative rampage can be allowed to roll until it runs dry, rather than being controlled by a clock.
I am one of those.
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Today was one of those. Clear blue sky start of winter. Two much loved dogs and one tall woman up on a hike in the woods flaming yellow and red and orange over the top of the ever Oregon green. Ice crusting the puddles left from the rains of three days ago, delighting the pups in much the same way as a rare day of snow. Sun taking the chill off the air. Rain and wind coming.
There is so much I want to do, with my art and my writing and my life. With the days getting shorter and the time moving ever faster, it feels some days like all of those wants won't fit in the allotted time.
So for just right now, I will trust that I am on the right track, and go paint.
... and it is a chilly November one at that. Clear starry sky let out all the small warmth of the day, the car windows are frosting up, one lone tree frog is clinging to window glass for warmth.
Today was a good day. I got an unexpected commission for two paintings, I got a bid on an auction piece and a nice note from the bidder, I got to paint, I got another note from someone absolutely delighted with the print they just received, I got to watch Vegas. Doesn't get a whole lot better than that. At least as far as it goes, and if I just focus on that bit.
So I was thinking, as I sometimes do, about RiverSong, my sweet spot on the river. It was a home that I lucked into - at the time I was within days of the lovely old farmhouse I was in being bulldozed to put up more apartments, and desperate for a place to live. A friend returned a call I had made months earlier and told me to call a couple friends of his who were looking for someone to live in their house while they spent their annual seven months in the suns of Mexico. Long story shortened...
The home was a magnificent A-frame log house, with a loft all around the edges of an open living area, two story windows looking out on the Sandy River, heated clay tile floors, 3000 feet of deck with a hot tub (river side, of course), a guest house, and a garage big enough for two RVs and a boat - also with a loft. I saw that house, and knew I was home - not only because of the house, but because that spot on the river sang to me. The next day I gave notice on my corporate job. The day after that I turned down the substantial promotion they offered me. And for the next year and a half, I wrote. 428 poems, 48 short stories, one published book. Started one literary magazine. And then they sold it and I didn't have a million dollars to buy it.
My life since then, and my life from now, has been and will be always aimed at getting back to that home. Because I want to sit on that deck again and, this time, paint. Because I miss the otter family playing on the rocks in the middle of the river. Because I miss the rampage of the water when the rains come. Because the heron and the deer are engraved in my heart. Because I want my dogs to have a river to swim in and because I want back out in the trees and the quiet.
May all of us get that which our hearts most need.
The best to you,
Loree
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I was told, by some very good artist friends of a mine a bit ago, that I was - perhaps - taking life a bit to seriously and it might be a good thing to lighten up. So I did a couple new woodstains - one a bouquet of TwoLips, the other a bright and big-eyed giraffe (who I later realized has sort of a doggish ear rather than those nubby things real-time giraffes have... but you've gotta admit, that'd be not taking life too darn seriously!). So now they are listed in eBayland, and on t-shirts and light switches at Cafe Press, and, all in all, it was a happy excursion into a new series.
I will confess to beginning already to be a bit frantic about the holidays - so many projects I wanted to have done by the middle of this month, and simply not enough hours in the shortening winter days to get to them all. So this weekend I am prioritizing the dozen mid-stream projects. And, maybe, cleaning up the house just a bit.
Maybe.
You all have a marvelous weekend, and go out and dance a night away for me.
As always, all the best to you,
Loree
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... and delighted to be. I have been working my tail off the past couple weeks on new works and feeling the crunch for the holidays already. So many things I want to do, and so little time in a day!
I have just put a Limited Edition of Citizens Of The Violet Light up in my eBay store (otw_studios) - plus several new works; am building up my Cafe Press store, working with my eleven artist friends on getting the Its Worth A Million But I'll Take Fifty site, and hoping for Spirit Of The Staircase to do well in the EBSQ Textile competition (go vote!).
Enough with the advertising...
It's turning towards winter here in Oregon the last couple weeks. Have been running the woodstove at night, and the hikes in the woods with the pups now involve mud. (Oh, well, its only upholstery, right??) Feeling the need to get back to writing - have been getting a lot of interest in my published book, and seems like it would be a good plan to get back to it and get the hundreds of manuscript pages around here into usable form.
Getting ready to tackle the whole website thing. Gotta tell you, all this technology stuff isn't my best thing - but I'll get there.
That's it for today!
Always, wishing you all the best,
Loree
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