Tax season is over…

Actually it’s been over for a while but life hasn’t slowed down much. I am so used to keeping my work life and my art life compartmentalized that this year’s overlapping has been quite a challenge. On April 16th I left work early to give a talk at an artist seminar, then back to taxes (except the tornado got in the way) and on the 17th The Carter Building had it’s kickoff ArtSpeaks event that I left work early for. It felt goodto be able to say “look at the time, I get to go be an artist now”.

I was very unsure about the talk at the VAE Business of Being an Artist seminar. I was asked to talk about my studio experience, specifically the choice of working in a group. So what’s the first thing I do, I take my studio mates with me to help with the presentation – I wasn’t scared anymore! It felt very natural to introduce my mentor, Tunde and my supporter, Lee. We are all aware of the positive aspects of sharing a space but putting them into words was beneficial. I started out in a studio space that was all mine. The other tenants in the building were friendly but we didn’t have much of a connection. I was very unsure of myself and had hoped that working around creative people would bring me out of my shell. The landlord’s wife was a rather unpleasant person to be around and I found myself hiding, not using my space to work in as I’d intended but solely as a place to exhibit First Fridays, which I hadn’t intended. I made it through 11 months before I bailed – the experience was a learning experience, one I hope never to repeat!

I found 3 other women on craigslist that wanted to share a space; we found one in the Carter Building. The chemistry was a little off, 2 left and 2 of us are still together. Over the course of that year, we learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t about living with artists! The most obvious benefit is splitting the cost. At first, this was all I was interested in. Now that’s only a small part of the equation.

• Friendship has been the  greatest. We’re all artists and artists are quirky people – we understand each other! It’s the first time in  my life that I’ve felt there was a group of people that truly understood me! And the nice thing about that is we sense the ups and downs and know what to do to help each other out.
• We each have an area of expertise. When you’re brainstorming, there can be a tendency to skip ideas if you don’t have the necessary skills to follow that path. I can now appreciate the true value of brainstorming because nothing seems impossible… there is always someone that knows how to go about a task or knows someone who does! It’s beautiful!!
• Energy. It’s so easy to take ideas and put them on the back burner because you just don’t have the time or energy to deal with it at the moment. It’s amazing how much energy you can find when someone wants to help!

I could go on with specific examples but they all fall under the above. Sharing expenses is a great starting point but the community of artists is the best result!

Tax season is over. I’ll miss my ‘number crunching’ friends but my 40 week vacation will be over before I know it so I need to tackle the garden, paint a pansy, and head out to a meeting with my art friends!

First Friday in new studio

 

I am totally worn out! It’s been a long 2 weeks getting ready for last night. My days have started early with my tax work and ended late with my art. It’s worth it though to see the bright, colorful space and feel all the energy. This is the first space that I have been able to see myself working and not just showing. I think my studio mates are very inspiring and the fun we have generates a lot of creativity. Lee and I got to the studio about 5:00 and had a little time to get the final touches done. Tunde was in Elizabeth City for a gallery opening so we were very busy once the evening started. I wish that I had thought to take pictures while all the people were there but I was so busy, I never thought of the camera! Next month when we have our grand opening I’ll do better.

Our new space is so inviting that it’s very hard to stay away, I hope this desire stays with me once tax season is over. This was my first Saturday to work, I only had to work 2.5 hours; next week will be so much longer. Six weeks to go.

Tomorrow I teach my first class for adults. I’m very excited and scared. I hope that I can share my love for colored pencil effectively. I am planning on starting with color theory, a topic I truly love. Next week we may do a little more color theory and then move to transferring a design to color.

Lee suggested that I start doing colored pencil drawings instead of handcolored photographs because people don’t understand handcolored work, they think color photography or Photoshop until they look up close. While this may be true, my heart is just not into that; I guess I could do a few small pieces and see if they draw more attention – maybe then my heart would get into it! My plan and desire is to get back to my books, Myrtle and Maude are waiting!

New studio almost ready!

We have worked non-stop all weekend and we’re almost finished! Our excitement is still high, can’t wait to move in and start working!

Saturday, we were still constructing, I was in charge of painting the doors and finishing up walls.

The back storage unit is finished and almost full!

Our new logo “Without Borders” posted over our new yellow door.

New Studio

It’s way past my bedtime for a tax season night but I’ve been working hard with my studio mates and our spouses to get our studio ready to move into this weekend. It’s slightly overwhelming; thank goodness tax season is starting off slow!

  before

during, Sunday

Tuesday night

Bob hung the door tonight, most of the construction is done, more painting to do and moving!!

Busy networking weekend

February’s First Friday was cold and wet; normally a poor attendance month, this one was no exception. The first reaction is usually, “why did I bother to be here tonight?” And the answer is, “ the people that come out are interested in art and you actually get to spend more time talking with them.” I enjoyed meeting the people that came into my studio and made a few friends, exchanging ideas and explaining techniques.

The other big event for the weekend was the VAE Art Auction Gala. As an executive board member, I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know some of the people that are involved with VAE through other channels. I spent Friday morning helping schlep art work from the VAE to the Marriot for the event. Saturday night I was the event photographer. It was an awesome experience! The lighting was difficult so I’ve had fun working in Photoshop and Lightroom to get the flesh tones right. After 2 days, I’m only half through the project. I need to experiment with using the higher ISOs and giving up the flash; my camera is supposed to handle low light without noise – I just don’t trust it!

Sunday was our Carter Building tenant meeting; the enthusiasm is building! We have 2 events planned, Art Speak and Community Palette. Art Speak will be in April and will feature our own  Lope Max as a guest speaker. His talk will be followed up with artist demos and portfolio critiques. In June we are going to paint a community mural. Everyone is very excited about the mural project; ArtSee magazine is planning on featuring the event! We’re hoping to have a few local celebrities stop by to paint on the mural, maybe a Hurricanes player or two, to entice more people to come out and experience art by painting part of the mural.

This week is dedicated to gathering marketing tools. There are so many places to post events that it is overwhelming! We’re working as a group to develop a list; I’ve got 2 that need to be done by the 10th and I can’t find where I filed the information away. I think I’m a bit too organized; everything is filed away and I can’t remember the categories!

Lee Ball and Tunde Afloyan show off our new Carter Building Art Center sign! Please send friends to cbaraleigh.com to see our list of upcoming classes and schedule for our Summer Art Clinics for children in grades K-8!

Glenwood South Website is done!

It’s been a tough few weeks but I finally have every thing working the way I want it on the web site! The last challenge was to fix the logo/header on the map page. All the HTML appeared to be the same and on the first few glances, so did the CSS. This is one project that the CSS is very long so I had to print it out, compare, correct, and print it out again. After numerous adjustments that didn’t seem to do much, deleting floats and adjusting font sizes, I finally removed a line of text and everything fell into place! Time for the Bailey’s!

Check it out, www.shopdineglenwoodsouth.com. My very first professional logo design too.

I’ve been hard at work on the Carter Building web site as well, updating pages for the new Carter Building Art Center. Students are starting to sign up for classes and the building as a whole is starting to get noticed. Our hard work is starting to pay off, now for sales!!

 

I am learning so much about the marketing of art and businesses in general. I’ve learned more about web design than any certificate program and had a lot of fun doing it. I’ve got a great mentor, Tunde Afolayan, and several wonderful critics; they keep me from making a fool of myself!

Messing with my iPad

All I wanted for Christmas was an iPad! My family thought I was nuts but they got me one!

First things first, I added ebook readers and they added games. Now I am learning about the apps that will allow me to conduct business where ever I am. This is my first attempt at blogging from my iPad, I hope it works right!
I also signed up with Squareup.com to handle charge cards for my business, it's a great service that I wouldn't have access to without iPad.

I learned a new trick yesterday: it's called the two finger scroll. My website uses a horizontal scroll bar for several of my pages and they weren't working on my iPad. I did a lot of google research over 2 days and worked with the css3 'if then' statement: my css works when I decrease the size of my browser window but the iPad wasn't affected. I finally searched scrolling on an iPad and found the 2 finger scroll! Use 2 fingers together to slide across the page and viola!, the rest of the page shows up just like it does on my desktop. Still don't know why the 'if then' statement doesn't work but I'll save that for another day!

Skjonesart.com

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