Put Yourself to Bedlam

"Few artists can afford artistic temperament" ~ Mason Cooley

Under a mountain of obfuscated paperwork, I've discovered a kernel of enlightenment:

The reason so many bad artists make it in this world, is because unlike the inherently creative types, these would-bes  are able to jump the many hurdles required to get one's work seen by the public.

Furthermore, since exhibitions will occur regardless, the spaces are often filled with the output of only the most diligent paper pushers, and the temperament that allows one to push through the requisite red tape is antithetical to the spontaneous creative spirit.

Additionally, I posit that today's lack of patronage is largely responsible for this phenomena, in that in days when this type of support was commonplace, the artist was left to create the art, while the patrons took care of the  promotion. The drawback was that often the artist, his patron and their associates were the only beneficiaries; that is, until the patron died or donated the works to the public (whichever came first).

As is evidenced amidst my current pile of forms, the instructions to join shows (juried or otherwise) are convoluted beyond belief. In one particular case of a juried show, no deadline is set, nor any instructions for submission given (that I can find) other than that the artist is supposed to fill out the paperwork and physically bring the ready to hang piece to the showplace on opening day; at which time, one assumes, they will decide if it's good enough for the show and auction. What then, are they planning to do with the pieces that are deemed unworthy?

The form shows a fee to set a minimum bid, and states that if the artist expects the piece to sell, they should consider submitting works  under $500, as that is the anticipated range of the buyers expected to attend.

This puts the artist in a sticky situation. If there's no minimum bid, a piece could end up going for much less than the artist's intended sale price. Add to that the 30% commission, and participants could easily end up giving the piece up for less than they paid to produce it. It's a crap shoot I don't think many serious artisans will be willing to take, and very poorly conceived on the part of the organizers.

I wonder if these problems are because the organizers are are themselves artists - frustrated no less, who have taken the matters of promotion into their own hands by creating these open venues, while unwittingly perpetuating the same type of incomprehensible process that segregates many fine works while foisting less desirables to the forefront and so on and so forth.

A phone call for clarity met an answering machine. Two emails have gone unanswered.  What's to be done?
XXKHT

The artist at her best – wild, passionate, rebellious, and human – is often too large and truthful a creature for society's taste. The artist at her most outlandish – profane, eccentric, even a little mad – is at least as disquieting a figure.  ~Eric Maisel

Non Sequitur

(click on strip to enlarge)

'nuff said,
XXKHT

“And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.” Acts 28:8

I should just change my blog's name to My Life Retarded with KHT. It's been nothing but ME ME ME lately.
Sorry about that.

Here's the deal: I've spent the better part of the last week or so working on this piece of art* for the First Fifty. I dropped it off today, so that is that; no more First Fifty excuse, though I do have two more in mind for the series and will likely begin them next week.

And now, I'm sick. Dripping, coughing, sneezing 10,000xs a day SICK! Like poor old Publius who was lucky to survive to adulthood with all that feeding to the lions and such going on at the time, because with a name like Publius...well, he wouldn't have survived my elementary school let alone his bloody flux. 

Lastly, I haven't had anything to say in particular; and as much as it's been going on in here lately, I seriously had no intentions of writing one of those All About Me blogs. Unless, of course it's funny, and then no one in my circle is safe from public ridicule.

Oh yeah, and my daughter broke her arm on Friday, while snowboarding at Stowe. I'm beginning to think that the animals have the right idea with that hibernation thing.

So here lies Kimberley - formerly of interesting reading material infamy - left with nothing but her runny nose to opine about.  Boohoo.

You'll hear from me again when inspiration strikes. In the meantime, I'll spare us all.

XXKHT
*I'd love to show it here, but its' a vertical piece and without Photoshop, I can't  reorient the raw images. As Little Roseanne Roseanna Danna once said, "It's always something!"

I think that anyone who comes upon a Nautilus machine suddenly will agree with me that its prototype was clearly invented at some time in history when torture was considered a reasonable alternative to diplomacy." ~Anna Quindlen

There goes my new year's resolution to improve my physical health. Did you see it? It flew out the window today, when I made my first effort this week to attend yoga.

The gym has this new thing where you have to sign up for yoga on the morning of, and if they don't get enough members together to form a class, they're supposed to call you and let you know it's canceled.

Well, I did my part. I dutifully called this morning and told the fellow my name. He didn't ask for my phone number and we left it at that.

Even as a disagreement erupted on my way out the door, and despite forgetting both my water bottle and yoga mat - out into the frigid air for the first time in two days I ventured, only to arrive at the gym to:

Front Desk: "Oh, is your name Kimberley Taylor?"

Me: "Yes"

Front Desk: "It says here, Emily, see....We would have called you." "Sorry" 

Me: "This new system is working great!" as I beeline to put my coat back on.

Front Desk: "Aren't you going to work out anyway?"

Me: "No."

No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get into the scene at a gym.

Ok, once. Once upon a time, long ago, when the only way to get away from my small children was to take them to daycare at the gym. I liked it then. I could walk on a treadmill for hours thinking of absolutely nothing. I did not hear:  "Mommy." "Mommy." "Mommy." "Mom." "Mommy." "Mommy." If someone was breaking their neck, it was not on my watch. The treadmill was almost as good as a nap.

Now the situation is just about the opposite. I have to drag myself away from my warm comfy (quiet) home, and I have to actually put clothes on. And I have to remember stuff, like yoga mats and water bottles (and locks, and gym shoes etc. etc.)

This not working a regular job thing is not all it's cracked up to be. I mean, sure....sleeping 'til ten every morning is awesome. Spending the next hour in bed with coffee and puzzles is the most relaxing way to start any day (every day is Sunday!). But you start to lose track; not just of time, but of pretty much everything.

Granted, I did start and finish a large art project this week (which turned out great, btw). Art projects tend to become all consuming - and this is why I was looking forward to yoga. Yoga is more like body psychology than exercise; more for your head than your gut.

Anyhoo, I don't know if I was more annoyed or relieved when class got canceled today. We signed up more for the yoga classes than anything else because at this gym they don't cost extra, so if the gym messes that up, we'll likely quit. And if we quit there won't be any more pressure to get up, get dressed, or go outside to get to that place of sweating, and keeping our heart rates elevated, and looking terrible in our tight workout clothes in the mirrors which are on every wall mocking us as we plod along counting the seconds on the LED until our 24 minutes are up.

XXKHT

I believe that every human has a finite number of heart-beats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises. ~Buzz Aldrin

Too Smart For Me

Spent a little time in the blog Sadly, No! today. Way too smart for me, but I'll read it anyway hoping to glean a few kernels here and there.

Anyhoo...they lifted this from YouTube and I'm sharing the joy.

As Sadly, No! says, "Kids today, with their YouTubes and their video editing skills"

Love Bowie!
XXKHT

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” ~Jim Rohn

Here is the update on last weeks list:

1. Gym: 2 out of 3 which includes making it to yoga (I promise to try harder next week)
2. Produce Art out of Storm Window: Well under way and due next Saturday
3. Coordinate Garden Potluck: Done, last night. 9 people joined up and it was big fun.
4. Write something meaningful: Done, and done again.
5. Finish and mail Xmas cards and leftover stuff: COMPLETE FAILURE. (darnit!)

Add to this list: A sumptuous 20th birthday dinner party for my daughter featuring "All Day Lasagna" and a beautiful homemade dark chocolate mocha mousse eight layer cake - with eight friends in attendance.

Add also the partner breaking himself again and the fetching and carrying that naturally follows....

So not so bad! My friends will get a kick out of their Xmas cards in February. Maybe I should inscribe them, "Be My Xmastine."

Smooches!
XXKHT

"If it aint broke, fix it 'til it is." ~anon

This day has been consumed by the making of my First Fifty entry, and I haven't gotten beyond cleaning the frame and purchasing supplies.

It was no help at all that the photo processing shop is closed on Sundays - a wrench in my plans to be sure, and a disappointment when I showed up there unawares.

Next came the fun fun run from store to store looking for grommets (or) eyelets as they're also called. After standing in line just to ask a question at the giant craft store named after a saint, I was told they had no such thing as a grommet punch or grommets. Refusing to take the sales gal at her word, I wandered into the innumerable aisles to look for them myself. I mean these were grommets! Surely they had them somewhere.

I found some in the leather works aisle but they had about 8 in a box that included the grommet tool and cost almost $8. I need 32 grommets and some other stuff, so it was lucky they only had two packages so as to remove the temptation to just get what I needed, and disregard that I didn't also need four of the tools.

Frustrated, I left to try my luck at the giant hardware store (that rhymes with Chrome Peepho). Again, what appeared to be a coupla hundred miles of aisle (if you laid them end to end) and one hour and a tremendous headache later I still didn't have what I needed. The first two salesmatrons dismissed me as quickly as they could scratch me off, and the last was helpful but still couldn't produce what they did not have - small, silver toned grommets and a tool - though she did promise to come to the show.

I finally settled on an alternate that required returning to the first store. When I got there, my search led me to an entire aisle of grommety things, including a tool kit and any kind of eyelet/grommet type fastener I could think of including typewriter keys, silk flowers...you name it.

Oh how I long for the small neighborhood stores of yore. When I lived in Germany, we had four bakeries on our street; in addition to two butchers (one game and one more of a deli meats place), two coffee houses, one framer, two small grocer/convenience stores, a candy maker, two or three shoe stores, two wine and cheese shops and twice a week there was a farmer's market selling not only vegetables and flowers, but there was also an olive cart, several more bakers, the spice man and eggs and meats and cheeses respectively.

Even though I did not speak German well, I had a relationship with most of these merchants (my favorites of course). If they didn't have it, they'd try to figure out how to get it for me. Once the olive guy found out I was an aspiring novelist, he never failed to ask how it was coming - always a guilty moment,  as I was having far too much fun living abroad to concentrate on a novel just then. And dear Sabine, my green grocer who taught me all the words for her beautiful produce; by the time I moved away, she would no longer sell things to me unless I could pronounce them (per my request).

Maybe things did cost a little more the old fashioned way. Even as lower prices may mean the difference between being able to accomplish something or not, I miss the days when service was part of the purchase. I'm sick and tired of only having the option of coercing underpaid, and uninterested corporate slaves to direct me through the vast inventories, only to find that even though they stock a little of everything, somehow I'm S.O.L.

Here's hoping these #%@*& things work. There's still the little matter of mounting hardware coming up. Oy!
XXKHT

"Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity" ~ Wm Shakespeare

Oh boy, we've had exciting times 'round here.

First, and joyously, I announce the return of my beloved laptop. She's back from hospital and in, if not perfect form, much better than whence she left us.*

The next good news is that I have won a place in the First Fifty art show which is going to run here in Burlington at the end of this month. I'm in the process of making a rather large display of a series of photographs of military mannequins, framed by an old storm door panel, using grommets and wire to suspend the prints behind the glass panes (photo to follow when it's done). If I can get the curators to hang it so that it's back-lit by natural light, it should make quite an impression (hopefully).

Today's calamity occurred while we were running around for supplies, when the warm air turned suddenly cold and flash froze the pavement, causing my partner to take (another) major digger, injuring his knee and head. As I type this, he's braving it out at the emergency room alone (he insisted) - second trip in as many weeks. I suppose we should be grateful that he didn't re-injure his broken shoulder - but jeezy peezy  - he's having a bad month.

I'm hoping we're getting all of 2008's bad luck out of the way early on, so we can look forward to a carefree rest of the year. Yeah, that's the ticket.
XXKHT

*except for a little issue with Photoshop wherein I currently no longer have Photoshop - a very bad thing for a photographer, as one can imagine.

Kinky Band Name

"Four Guys on a Barstool"

"Why is it drug addicts and computer afficianados are both called users?" ~Clifford Stoll

I haven't exactly been counting the days without my computer, but I know they've been far greater in number than I'd hoped. I'm past the delirium tremens and fixed firmly in the mire of passive yearning.

At least I have this surrogate to tide me over, but it feels a bit like wearing another persons underwear, and not in a kinky way.

In the words of The All Mighty Senators: PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE!

XXKHT