9 Things I Learned in April

  1. A stainless steel refrigerator makes a kitchen look darker than a white one. We never realized how much light that old white one was reflecting into the room.
  2. Someone wrote Easter words to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and it is stunning to hear it sung by 2 Canadian sisters, one age 10 and the other age 19.
  3. My painting called “Yokohl Oak” is actually a tree where bikeriders heading up the Yokohl Valley Road regularly stop to rest; they call it the Bike Oak.
  4. Amazon has a severe quality control problem in its instructions to sellers. Does this sentence make any sense to you? • “Starting July 1, 2021, Individual Sellers will longer need to do provide customers with a prepaid return shipping label for in-policy returns.” (No, I did not click on any links in that email!)
  5. Shutterfly, where I order photographic prints, has changed to the point that I think it might be time to find another photograph printing company. Why do so many web businesses have to keep changing, becoming less helpful, shrinking their offerings? Anyone know of a good place to get prints made? (No, I don’t belong to Costco).
  6. April has its charms, in spite of only being my 3rd favorite month.
  7. I found a new podcast to listen to: it is an artist interviewing other artists. Might not be your cup of tea, but if you like hyperrealistic paintings, you might enjoy seeing the podcaster’s art, Andrew Tischler, along with another artist that he interviewed, Renato Muccillo. (I’m getting a clue as to why I still feel like a beginning oil painter.)
  8. A friend from Kansas sent me a recipe for an orange cake several years ago. In spite of never having made a layer cake or having round pans, I made the cake. Apparently I am as much a rogue baker* as a rogue knitter, but the batter tasted great so I knew the cake would be decent, in spite of looking a bit wonky, as if it is covered in lumpy gravy.(Yes, eating sugar again. Wanna make somethin’ of it?)
  9. Sometimes people make an appointment to stop by my studio. What I learned is that sales do sometimes occur, so I need to stop viewing this as an interruption to work — it IS my work. These 4 paintings found new homes due to the in person visitations in April.
Pippin, AKA Orange-Bob-Square-Pants, is oblivious to the herd of giant plant-consuming rats behind him.

*Cut the sugar back by 1/3, tripled the amount of orange juice, substituted butter for margarine so skipped salt, used square pans, added about 3 times as much vanilla, doubled the nuts, added orange zest to the frosting, and had to guess how to duplicate mixer speeds with wooden spoons and wire whisks.

Post Show Thoughts

“Still Here” is over. This is my first time to exhibit in Arts Visalia, and I don’t have anything to compare the show to, particularly in light of the virus approach to handling things. Four pieces sold, and the director thought that was great, because some shows have no sales. (That would be highly disheartening.) Many cards and a few books sold too. The last day had steady visitation, a great time to visit with friends and meet some new people with an interest in art. In spite of the low-key approach, not knowing if the video interview and the virtual show was viewed much (thank you, those of you who told me you watched!) and the wondering about actual visitation levels, I think the show was a good experience and worth doing.

These are the pieces that have new homes (when they are shipped or retrieved).

Yokohl Creek was by far the most favored piece, both by those who saw the show in person and online. One smart person wasted no time claiming it; I will package it up to ship on Monday.

Someone I don’t know bought Yokohl Sky, which is always a boost of confidence.

Dear friends bought the cabin drawing while we were hanging the show! They had to be sneaky about it because I would have happily just given it to them. (A wise friend once taught me this: “If your friends won’t do business with you, who will?”)

Of my 13 pencil drawings of flowing water, “Rough and Tumble” has been the favorite (It is the background of the homepage on my website), most often spoken about or wished for. A friend bought this one too, which really warmed my heart.

Deep Thoughts About Custom Art

This photo of Moro Rock and Alta Peak is not current – it is wishful thinking.

Seth Godin says “Humans are lonely. They want to be seen and known. People want to be part of something.” Or as Anne Lamott puts it, “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared.”

Seth also says, “People don’t want what you make. They want what it will do for them. They want belonging, connection, peace of mind, status.”

Further, “Create experiences. Using a product, engaging with a service, calling customer service. Each of these actions is part of the story; each builds a little bit of our connection. Offer these experiences with intent, doing them on purpose.”

He is all about marketing, and speaks and writes with great abstraction. I try to apply what I hear him say to my art business, and finally, in these words, I think I can gather some practical advice. Let me translate:

  1. People need to be shown kindness and treated as if they are significant (because they are).
  2. Custom art commemorates and legitimizes, celebrates and pays tribute to the things that matter in people’s lives.
  3. Spending time to hear someone’s stories, look at his photos, listen to what matters to him, take more photos, make sketches, and involve him in the process gives the customer an experience to remember, one that validates the things that are most important to him.*

Does this make you want to hire me to make a custom painting or drawing for you?

I use pencils, oil paint, and murals to make art that people can understand, of places and things they love, for prices that won’t scare them.

*The masculine pronoun is intentional here; in this context it means all humans, regardless of biological gender. “They” is a plural pronoun, and I am speaking of a theoretical singular customer here, “someone” and “the customer”. This blog does not cave to current trends.

Ten Things I Learned in March

Even after being away for twice as long as I lived in Lemon Cove, I still love the place. (No Trader Joe’s there, for sure.)
  1. If you find a surprising rip in your clothing while out in public, packing tape is a handy quick solution. 
  2. Farmer Bob’s World is a new citrus museum just outside of Ivanhoe. I posted about it on March 12.
  3. Somewhere I read that the way to wake up a body part that has gone to sleep is by shaking your head. What?? Someone please try this and let me know!
  4. If you want to leave money both to charity and to people in your will, use your IRA for the charity, because they don’t have to pay taxes on it, but people do, just as if it is their own IRA. Just list the charity or charities as the beneficiaries. You’re welcome (because now you don’t have to pay a lawyer to tell you this.)
  5. Three Rivers made #3 on a list of the 12 most charming small towns in California. Really?? They obviously didn’t dig very deep and learn that our air is foul, we are uneducated, unemployed, and fat. And, there is no Trader Joe’s. Here is the site: PureWow True, it is fabulous here in February and March.
  6. I met someone who is convinced that Elvis didn’t die and is now in the Witness Protection Program as Pastor Bob Joyce (or Robert E. Joyce, as in “rejoice”) of Benton Arkansas. That guy was born in 1953; Elvis was born in 1935. He sings like Elvis, but so do lots of impersonators. It made for some fun conversation (and DuckDuckGo searching).
  7. One of my drawing students has been painting with watercolors on used tea bags. Yes, you read that correctly. Her inspiration comes from Ruby Silvious. This  sounds too bizarre to believe until you see it. I grabbed this image from My Modern Met
  8. When pictures are hung in a group in a gallery, it is called “salon style”; when 4 are grouped together, it is called a “four-pack”. 
  9. If you live in Tulare County, have a power outage and the restart kills your 33-year-old refrigerator on which you have a DNR, call Frank’s Appliance first. (Whirlpool goes the distance.)
  10. There are 2 kinds of naked ladies bulbs: one is called Lycoris and works where the winters are cold; the other is Amaryllis Belladonna and pops up in August after all hope for a decent looking yard has expired in that dismal month. (This learning was triggered by a gardening blog and is not relevant to March but I learned it in March, so there.)
    Amaryllis Belladonna, always a nice surprise in my yard in August, because the deer don’t eat these.

8 Things Learned in February

  1. It is possible to teach drawing or at least help established drawing students via email.
    “Rocky”, a pencil drawing by my anonymous student AKA “C”
  2. Paul Buxman is an artist from Dinuba here in Tulare County. He is also a farmer, and the subjects he chooses really appeal to me, although his style does not. He is a very accomplished painter, and speaks with humble authority about living and painting this area. We have never met, although I have read and heard about him for years. There is a great interview with him on the Arts Visalia page here.
  3. Blog reader and virtual friend Marjie sent me a recipe for persimmon bars when she learned that I don’t like persimmon cookies. I cut the sugar in half, and they were excellent! Who knew? I usually reduce the sugar when I bake by 1/4 or 1/3. I wonder if I can slash it even further, but this will have to wait until next persimmon season.
  4. Vinyl Composition Tile (VCT) used to be cheap flooring; now it is expensive, and there are very few solid colors to choose from. Several, nay, many cracked tiles in my navy and white checkered kitchen floor need replacing, but navy is discontinued. I suggested to the flooring expert that I just use red and let it be a random pattern. He said, “We call that a ‘scatter pattern'”; I said, “WAIT! It can’t have a name, because I just invented it!”
  5. More flooring news: if you have a cement slab foundation, it might make alkali pebbles beneath your linoleum or VCT. These pebbles will grow like stalagmites, lifting, cracking, and making holes in your flooring material. You cannot prevent this. Twenty-two years is considered a good long run. There will be no scatter pattern in my kitchen; there will need to be an entirely new floor, and it will not be VCT this time.
  6. I found a gardening blog by Anne Wareham who wrote a book called “The Bad Tempered Gardener”. She lives in Wales and keeps a garden that people pay to visit, along with writing for gardening magazines. I wonder if anything I read by her will translate to the Central Valley of California. . . prolly not. Too bad her book isn’t in our county library. Her subtle humor in her blog posts and photo captions feel very comfortable to me. An added bonus: she used to be a knitter – how does one stop being a knitter??
  7. Most of the murals in Exeter have hidden items. One of the earlier ones was painted by a friend of mine from high school, and he hid a Monopoly shoe. A few years ago, I could not find it so I emailed him for help. He couldn’t remember where it was either, and the brochures from the Exeter Chamber of Commerce didn’t even mention it. When my cousins visited a couple of weeks ago, together we walked the murals, looking for hidden items. Suddenly, I saw it! It is quite faded, but it is still vaguely visible in the Waterman mural.
  8. It is possible to paint on concrete stepping stones. I used some leftover exterior white paint for 2 primer coats, and then 2 coats of exterior latex for the brighter colors. It was easier than doing tile mosaics, easier than pouring wet cement into molds and tapping in some tchotchkes, and will be easier to maintain.

Peculiar Sights

Strange and vaguely interesting although peculiar sights have crossed my path lately.  Before I show you these, there is some confusion about “site” versus “sight”. A site is a place; a sight is something to see. I saw these things, so they are sights, at various sites.

Hey Central California artist, will you just land that plane already?

Yeah, no. 

Have you noticed how many people use this absurd expression? Now that I have alerted you, you will hear that the airwaves are filthy with this strange verbal juxtaposition.

Are you going to show us or not??

Just having fun in February, my first favorite month.

February Distractions

February is my favorite month. Wait – it is my First Favorite. I also love March and April. In February we can get brilliant sun or cold storms, the green shows up, wildflowers begin, and fruit trees pop into bloom in orchards down the hill. I would like February to have 31 days and August to only have 28. (Just 14 would be fine too.)

February brings distractions.

I’ve been weeding baby poppies, hoping to give them a chance to go bonkers this spring.

A friend requested some help laying artificial turf at one of the vacation rentals that she manages. (This house)

Then a friend let me come by to pick some Mello Gold (super sweet grapefruit looking citrus), I had a package to mail, and a book was FINALLY ready for me at the library. My vacation rental manager friend and I have plans to make some stepping stones for one of her yards, another place needs some ferocious weeding, Trail Guy and I like to take walks, several friends like to come to Three Rivers to go “hiking” with me (they call it that but I don’t take a pack with water or food so it is just a walk), and I have a big knitting project on the needles.

Maybe February needs to be 40 days long.

Virtual Drawing Lesson Thoughts

In working with my drawing student C via email, we discussed the fact that the drawing of her horse Rocky got finished in record time for her. She is such a good thinker and clear communicator that I decided to share what we discussed. These are her conclusions about finishing quickly and my thoughts.
C’s drawing table is where she can work any time she passes by without having to set things up.
It is so helpful to have an art project be accessible so it isn’t a project unto itself just to set up. 
C felt dependent on my help when in class and a little intimidated to just dive on in.
I need to find a way to encourage my students to be more independent so they don’t wait for me to tell them each step; at the same time, I understand why they wait for instruction, because who wants to erase?? 
C felt a little intimidated about being with people who are more advanced than she is.
It takes awhile for people to realize that their classmates are super encouraging and that all of us started at the beginning, not suddenly arrived as accomplished artists. I sometimes purposely bring something ugly and early to show my students so they won’t feel embarrassed by their own early origins. My students all make better first drawings than I drew AFTER I started accepting commissions. 
C had confidence drawing horses, a subject that she has painted several times.
She is right about having more confidence when drawing a familiar subject. I often remind my students to pick something they love, because they will be staring at it for L O N G time.
 
I love that my drawing students become friends, love listening to them all get to know each other, love learning from them on a variety of topics. Sometimes I wonder if it would be more efficient to ask everyone to stop talking and focus. Then I remember being in a colored pencil workshop when the very unpleasant instructor shouted, “QUIET! NO TALKING!” and I never want to do that. So, we’ll just keep on as things are, and I will continue looking for ways to encourage independence.

A Torrent of Words about Freebies

WARNING – this is a long post.

An old family friend (which means our parents were friends but he and I didn’t know each other very well) invited me to design a cover for a publication for the college where he is a professor. This is our emailed conversation (and I corrected a few grammatical errors so it isn’t verbatim-you are welcome, Professor Friend):

“I have enjoyed the CABINS OF WILSONIA book.
 
I would also like to know if you might be interested in doing the cover for the next issue of [unnamed university] JOURNAL.
 
I have edited this journal since 2006.  It is published annually by [unnamed university] and is thematic, including a mix of scholarly articles, literary pieces; artwork and personal reflection — all peer-reviewed.
 
You can view back issues at:
[oops, he gave an email address here instead of a website link]
 
For each issue, I have asked local artists to do the cover with original art.
 
The theme for the 2021 issue is EARTH, AIR and WATER. 
 
If you are interested, I would need something by mid-July.”
 
I responded:
“I’m glad to know you have enjoyed my book–thank you! If a picture is worth a thousand words, that book is about 265,000 words.
 
I’m interested in doing the cover – thank you for liking my work enough to ask.
 
Here are some questions:
1. Do I email someone at the address you put in your email in order to see back issues?
 
2. Is this a competition?
 
3. What is the image size needed? For publications, I make art to the right proportions, but larger because it all looks better reduced.
 
4. Is this a freebie?
 
5. Do I submit a sketch for approval before beginning?
 
I’ll probably have more questions. I almost always do.”
 
He replied:
“Your artwork is invited so there would be no competition. On occasion cover art contributors have provided more than one creation. Our editors do sign off on all of this but it is not peer reviewed like articles submitted. 
 
I think that [accidental email address] is accessible to anyone even though we typically publish 250 hard copies for subscribers, etc. 
 
It is true that the cover art created is a “freebie”, the only consolation being that your work will be publicized in a different way.
 
With reference to size, our hard copies are 6 by 9 inches.”
 
I wrote back:
“The link you sent does not take me to a website; instead, it opens up a new email message box.
 
In the many years of earning a living with my art, the promise of exposure has yet to generate any income-producing work. So, instead of creating something new, I will send you work that I already have. I have accumulated a large body of work and am happy to share with friends and often with strangers. 
 
If you have any specific ideas in mind, let me know; it will help me narrow the selection for you. I’m guessing you lean more toward rivers than the ocean (water) and mountains rather than farming (earth). (We can forget about air because my work is far too literal for that one!)
 
The size of 6×9” doesn’t tell me if it is horizontal or vertical, but I imagine you have a graphic artist who can adapt the design of the cover to the direction of the art.”
 
Look how much time it takes just to clarify what is being requested for a freebie. University professors may know a truckload about their particular subject, but sometimes get handed tasks for which their degrees have not prepared them. I am enjoying our correspondence and do feel privileged to have been asked.
 
More will be revealed in the fullness of time.

What is an “Artist Statement”?

An artist statement is not a biography, nor is it a list of accomplishments and awards. It is a few paragraphs meant to cause someone to want to view the artist’s work and provide a bit of insight into the reasons the artist makes the art.

The most helpful questions I’ve read about writing a statement are these:

What do you want people to see in your work?

What is a distinguishing characteristic of your art?

Based on your conversations, what do people find delightful or surprising about your art?

The least helpful “advice” I’ve read about writing an artist statement are these questions:

What informs the color in your work?

What are the paradoxes in your work?

How do your cultural roots inform your practice?

This is what I have come up with. Does it make you want to see my work or help you understand why I do what I do?

My artistic goal is to show people that Tulare County has beauty, and we can feel proud to call it home. I also want my art to ignite the viewers’ curiosity about the places that I paint and draw.

Using pencil and oil paint, I am a studio artist who makes art that people can understand. My style is straightforward realism with tight detail, a somewhat cleaned up and brightened version of real life. I like my paintings to look good both close up and from a distance, which is a result of having used nothing but pencil for the first decades of my career.

My favorite place, Mineral King, is clearly a huge influence on my choice of subjects; I think it is the most beautiful place in our county. Recognizing art of familiar places brings delight, so to that end I gladly accept commissions of the places and things that people love.

And you thought I just sat around drawing all day.

Pippin would like to know what in the world I am going on and on about.