Life rolled on rapidly in celebration as well. I know what my high school and college classmates were doing in the seasons of 1991 and early 1992...making babies. An unprecedented number of my friends' children matriculated from high school and into life and college life this summer. I am old enough that some of my classmates are grandparents and I am amazed at the marches to the alter all around me: youthful first marriages and the elder blissful surprise of second marriages.
My beloved neighbor Fred Voto had his Vietnam memoir published and an old friend launched another best seller. My kindle has been a constant companion.
I am a news watcher, but I have ceased to be a trend watcher. For the art business, like many types of business, the economy has ached deeply, and I needed to stop tracking trends to find my own way. Starting last October at the East Coast Art Retreat http://www.art-is-you.com , my network of creative people exploded and I have been happily networking since. Our local Creative Co-Op turned me on to some unprecedented and excellent art marketing workshops and it has become easier to keep my eyes on the prize of creating more work. A college chum shared my work with a dealer in South Carolina and getting work in place there jump started a better organized system for tracking shows and consignments in more states than I have ever had representation.
Whoo. But I sat down to do a show submission today and I have doubts. All these years of painting and drawing birds, being a nature lover and observer, set me up for an unmatched ache for the BP oil spill and its impact on the fragile Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. I could, without the aide of news crews, easily picture the devastated breeding areas and the horror of live and dead animals helplessly mired in oil. Sea birds have, especially over my years vacationing in North Truro, MA, become a special passion. My new work is inspired by the disaster and I am not sure how people will respond. My first chance to submit work from this series is today, and I am torn. It is still too soon too offer for sale. How silly is that? Yeah, I know, starving artists should have no qualms. These two are the 8th or 9th images in the series. Any thoughts?
A welcome downpour of rain has arrived. The yard became dust with little rain in July and August~ except the three garden zones I watered sparingly. The moist air has reminded me of ocean: "The Race" is what the New York current in Long Island Sound is named, and it was a terrifying band of water when I was a child. You could be on calm water one moment and see a boats of every size lurching wildly ahead, parked in The Race in pursuit of "blues", one of my favorite fish to eat next to shad. My uncle acquired a boat this year and he and Donna and I have been venturing out on a local lake and, unexpectedly, spending time on the CT river. I missed signing up for the boating license class in a flurry of art stuff, but I am motivated to "get 'er done" this year, before the fees go up. I am sure the only way I will get my bluefish this season is sailing out on a charter...or cruising into a fish market!
Feeling like life is racing by, picturing the bounty of the sea in Autumn, and off to make more art of sea birds. Perhaps I will yield to the sale, perhaps I will just keep drawing and picturing the Sound on a stormy day, bemoaning the plight of fishermen and sea birds everywhere.
