I just got surprise art in the mail! Thanks Ren!

OCAC is offering their four professional practices classes again in January- Copyrights and Forms of Doing Business & Dispute Resolution on the 23rd then Contracts and Consignments and Taxes for Artists on the 30th. They're $55 each, but there's a discount if you sign up for all 4.

My schedule will allow me to take three of those (everything but Copyrights). See you there?

More info at the OCAC website.

Another of a good series of posts over at prairiemary again- Buy Low, Sell High

Another thoughtful post, this time on Art over at prairiemary. You might need to go back a few entries if you don't know who Timothy Patrick Barrus and the Cinematheque boys are to get that bit, but a good post nevertheless.

I think my dreams may be taking a turn for the better- I woke up this morning with the phrase "Pajamas are the answer!" ringing in my head.

hm.

"The search for love and the search for wealth are always the two best stories. But while a love story is timeless, the story of a quest for wealth, given enough time, will always seem like the vain pursuit of a mirage."

-Mark Kurlansky, from Salt: A World History

That's THURSDAY the 5th, not Friday, for the OCAC show.

...because I'm in it!

Opening 4-7pm Friday THURSDAY Nov. 5th
running Nov. 5th-24th
Hoffman Gallery, Oregon College of Art & Craft

Juried OCAC Student Exhibition

Just got the call informing me that both pieces I submitted were accepted for the OCAC show & competition.
yay!

And as sad as I am that the beach retreat I was so looking forward to got cancelled, it means that I will actually be in town for the opening on the 5th, and so can attend. The cancellation also gives me two more days to get my submissions done, photo'd, and sent in for the Armory show in January.

-whew-

tonight: a great show, bells, candlelight, plenty of feast, and many thank you's

Sitting down to type a little while the fish & rice are cooking. I've raised the blinds on the windows because it's a beautiful fall day from where I'm sitting. The window squares are full of bright yellow elm leaves and blackish rain-soaked bark. I like seeing the branches and the critters running around up in the huge old elm. Sky is full of pale dove grey, deeper blue grey and white, and the light is diffuse and seemingly all-penetrant in the way that fog is- gentle, pressing, spreading shadow like a fine soft coating all over the surfaces of everything.

The task of today is the setting of realistic goals and making good predictions in regards to my limits in the next week and a half. I'll choose one more piece to finish, not two. I'll plot out the time I need to make minor adjustments on a couple of pieces and to wax everything that needs waxing. I'll also determine what day will be the day I can take or re-take some photos and do the paperwork/CD burning. Goal is to have everything submitted next Wednesday since I leave for the coast for 4 days on Thursday. I can meet that goal if I keep on it. I have a full week of shows this week, and a partial week after that, so I may not get a lot of sleep but heck, that's what the getaway at the coast will partially be about.

I'm aiming for my work-presence to be like this fall day, and like the kind of Sun that certain kinds of alchemical work require: gentle, pressing, constant, fully saturated. Not a grind that will make me come down with the flu or somesuch. Not trying to do everything with high intensity. Nope- steady, even, full of breath. Sit up straight, taste the rice, move the hand and be here. It's what I have all these senses for, anyway :)

I've had the good fortune to be initiated into a fair number of minor mysteries lately, some maybe not so minor. Thing is, I know they'll stay good and secret for two reasons. One, some things -no matter how much I may want to- just do not translate into words or speech. Maybe song or poetry, but I'm no singer or poet. Maybe not even then. And that's fine. Just underscores that everyone else has to find their own way in and that doesn't happen by someone talking about it, really. The second reason is that these are the sorts of things that would be of absolutely NO interest to anyone except maybe another person doing the very specific and specialized thing that I'm doing. And even then, not here. It would be seriously boring. We dwell in our own houses, and save our geekery for display there. Outside, it's more show than tell. I'm still working on that one :)

More than anything right now, though, I thank the Gods that I have an inkling about what exactly it is that I chose to do, and that I have so many loving, understanding people in my life that regard my obsessions as a plus rather than a minus. And that I am here in this locale, well-supported to do it for the moment.

tiny garden goat courtesy of The Diamond Island blog