Slow Motion after getting my life back

My Mom came into town just as I finished the MICA application. She is always pleasant enough, however she helped complicate things. I took her to see Noises Off and Kate’s press night for the Heiress. I helped strike Noises right after she got in the air. And then went to the Phillips collection with our second round house guests, Kyle and Alexia. I always enjoy the Phillips Collection, but this time the pictures seemed a bit staid. I did, however, get a big jazz out of some of the Bonnard paintings. Seeing them in the flesh really gets my juices flowing. I really admire the visual depth and complexity that they have. I feel like I would want to own one, just to be able to pass by it every day and see a bit deeper into the painting. I really want my work to feel that way. Part of the way that is achieved is having intentionally vague brushwork, something that I normally don’t ascribe to, because in today’s world it means a lack of technique

Kate got sick, and for presidents day we installed Elfa in the basement and went shopping with Sara. I wasn’t any fun to take a sick KT to H&R Block to get our taxes done. We got significantly less than we did last year, but you can only get the “first time home buyer credit” once.

I have not been able to get my mothers bed out of the studio, (Oh the irony) so I haven’t gotten any preliminary work done. I have no real plans, but my blood is boiling. I am at the stage where I have some somewhat unrelated projects on the table, but I try to do anything else besides work on them because what I really want to do is work on my own work…but I don’t do that either! Ill be out of this valley soon. I think I will get the studio back on Sunday…a good two days after my first real meeting with lobsterboy…

The application is in the mail!

The MICA application is in the mail. It was a stressful weekend for KT (and Sara) but they did yeoman’s work and helped me make the hard decisions, organize and polish the edges to a shine. It was a bit strange to have the whole thing printed out and packed neatly into its little folder. I sent it off into the world on an overnight express…see you in a few months, little buddy…

I got some real good networking done on the burlesque front. I think that I can really get a chance to produce some good work for Lobs and Trixie. He seems to want T-shirts and She wants to talk about “animal crackers” themed tour that they are doing in LA…I am trying to get both into the idea of backdrops….

My mom is in town (double booked with Kyle and Alexia…and the strike for Noises off) so my studio is quartered-off. I am in a creative moment right now, since all work has stopped for looming application deadlines….but this will really get my blood boiling, not being able to binge after the drought….Next week (hopefully I will be in progress as the next entry comes along.) I will get my studio back, and I will start to get back on track.

I have been jazzed by the “paintblogging” entries by Pizz. I have noticed that a lot of the underground (bad name, but it will do for now) artists are starting to get their own blogs now: Pizz, John K (from Ren and Stimpy), Bill Wray…and they are offering advice and insight on their work, which I would assume the pubic finds tremendously boring, but I find endlessly fascinating. I hope they keep it up, because it amps up my creativity greatly to see these guys slogging through some work, day after day.

One week until the application deadline!

This Sunday I dictated much of my autobiography to KT, in order to get my thoughts on why I want to apply to MICA on paper. I think it has gone a long way towards clarifying why I want to go, and what I want to do there. I just hope that I can get it all done by this time next week…

I tried to learn PowerPoint, and it seems pretty simple, so that’s no real challenge, technically. It’s choosing the right photos that will get me in trouble….

I got a single word email from Peter Williams….”What?”….Which isn’t helping my case for getting a letter from him. Sometimes the most colorful professors are not the most reliable in the “future favors” department.

This coming week is the “burlesque triple header”, and boy am I excited! I just want to get through this application, and then concentrate on making some new work. I don’t have any shows or gallery showings coming up, so it should be one of those rollercoaster times for me….where not much gets done, until something kicks me in the pants.

Letters of Reference

I finally got my truck back from Rainbow auto body. I am not making my daily 1.5 mile, uphill, walk to work anymore. This means that I don’t do the same type of reflecting…i.e. walking helps focus the thoughts, and allows one to sketch…

I have been having a dickens of a time getting letters of recommendation out of people. Al loving is dead, Tom Parish has disappeared into the mists of Venice, and Peter Williams is working for U of Delaware, and not returning my emails…The other people I have lined up are Scott Brooks (who will do it, in fact he did a successful one for someone else not long ago) and Hal Crawford. Other people that I might need to ask if Peter falls through…Molly Rupert, Bill Weisnewski….Ill give peter till the end of the week to respond….

Aside from that, I have been trying to get a start on the entrance essay and the portfolio requirements. Noises Off opens this Friday, and the show looks pretty good….

Saw the Cezanne exhibit on Monday, and I think that I don’t like the landscapes very much. I do enjoy the still lives, but there were few of them. The Audoban exhibit was really good too; I saw the same buzzard as Clarks, in the flesh. I am also enamored with a French printmaker…Buhot…who does these etchings (with numerous processes, an aspect that this show was highlighting) that have other, notation-like, sketches that supplement the main etching, around the borders.