Have you as an artist ever found that the cold computer doesn't recognize how we do business?
Today, I was applying to the AAPL 93rd Grand National. I had decided to "eliminate" some of my paintings from my application in my mind, because I noticed how critical some jurors are and I have been honing a critical eye toward my own submissions. Keeping them off the internet, so they are exclusive to the show I apply for, and will be truly fresh to market when they appear in the professional shows.
I had planned on 6 paintings to narrow down to three, I created three "in my mind, from the compositions I had photographed, because paper is precious to me getting ready for invitational shows this Fall.
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One year without income took it's toll on my bank account and savings. Not to mention draining thousands from my retirement fund before I ever reached retirement age. So I look critically at the "realism" part of the AAPL, and decide to examine my real compositions, before painting them. I could, I suppose be like "well my artistic vision for this piece is...." Which I do from time to time, when moving a dead tree from a composition or playing with the time of day for multiple colors of the same scene.
However, for this show, I really wanted to be truer to what I "actually remember seeing". With photo references of some places and for some places the indelible impression of awe as the reference in my brain from travel pre-Covid.
So I painted two of the six on paper, and found that I would only select the one painting for the show, so that is what I went to submit, way ahead of time, too. We still have many weeks before the deadline for the show, yet I had waited nearly two years to paint my precious scenes, waiting for the skill to develop more.
Then came the juried art services website. I had already uploaded my painting and filled out most of what was needed for the application, weeks ago. So PAYPAL was my obstacle. I'll explain what I mean about computers not knowing how we as artists need to do business sometimes.
You see as a professional artist, I've found that I need to have multiple streams of income, as I gear up that list of collectors that see beauty and value in my work, as well as collectability. I switched you see from Sculpture and printmaking in school after studying 2-D and 3-D design, I found my home too small for a printing press the size I needed, and also too small for the blocks I was wanting to create from. A foundry was not close to my home either.
So I applied my 2-D Design skills toward learning painting. God knows I wanted to take painting in school, yet it was as if He threw up the knowledge that I could learn by watching and listening to that still small voice inside, instead of others. Observe what you paint, and really see, don't just look, is what it seemed I was being led to do. I tried Him by letting Him select the colors once, when He woke me and told me to paint.
He had me paint and as I swirled on color, I "saw" an image. I painted it and I sometimes call Him my co-creator, yet that rarely is believed.
So back to the multiple income streams, as I co-labor with Him.
I "teach" in public schools, or the gallery. My workshop in 2020 Feb at the gallery A.R.T. On The Square...the first in a series of 6-7 that I had planned, had all of 2 people attend! Yet, they gave surprisingly good feedback as one seasoned artist, switching media and one new to painting. The surprise of other seasoned artists in the area was noted. Then, COVID happened.
I tried to teach where I left off by offering the second workshop in April of 2021. People weren't ready to gather and weren't all vaccinated.
Only a well known public speaker and president of the co-op was able to get adult students that month. So I joyously took three drawing lessons from him and learned two tips, I hadn't learned in my beginning drawing class in school.
I taught in Public schools yet when they shut down, that income stream went away. I sub in a pretty large school district in the suburbs and the district art coordinator, asked if I minded being on the preferred sub list for the entire Fine Art Department during COVID, when we had students both on-line and in schools last September through May. Because people were not subbing during that as much. I agreed. I used caution and I kept painting. I traveled Texas, and honed my skills. I taught when in town, and eeked out some paychecks to cover some travel costs yet made no money, and incurred a big overpayment of taxes, that they have yet to send the refund for to this day in August, 2021.
I took steps to write and illustrate books for the home school market....(still in progress).
I signed up for freelance websites, to illustrate for others. Sometimes focusing on bringing another's project to fruition, can have skills develop that are useful, in a profession such as art. I looked for commissions on freelance websites for paintings.
I applied and got rejected from the National organizations that had juried me into their ranks in 2020.
I made use of that year. Income aside, since there was none from my "profession", except for "art sub". I found to keep all the avenues straight, I needed multiple names for these income streams, a trickle as an income stream does not make a great bank account. So I still blend the $ from them into one account. Otherwise, I'd just being paying fees to the bank.
Today, using my artist name, I applied for a show I know is worthy of the painting He revealed to me. I didn't pay for all the paintings I thought weren't up to their critical eye, just to see them eliminated and my paper used up. I used that mind's eye that the great creator has been honing within me. I painted "in my mind", as many artists do before actually picking up a brush or laying down pigment. And I made choices as to which of His glorious spaces to put down on paper. Then I paid for that one.
PAYPAL didn't like my artist name. They blocked me for 5 days, because I typed that instead of my "legal" name. I have 5 DBA certificates. Each for a different income stream.
This year I even filed for an LLC, to house them all, and with one of the DBA's. I figure it will streamline this existence as a professional artist/professional teaching artist/professional art consultant/ Preferred sub/ art writer/art illustrator ect. I suppose I could have many more names and "hats" yet, I'm trying to keep them all moving forward to develop their streams of income in a strong manner, with a firm foundation grounded in love. I'll get that retirement income replaced someday as well.
Most likely during retirement years. Yet for me retirement, just means working my own hours, on my own projects or ones He directs my way.
So I'm choosing not to sweat the small "pet peeves", as Max Lucado states in his book, How Happiness Happens. I looked it up on The Christian website, and I recommend that all artists read it. Here's the subtitle with title.
How Happiness Happens: Finding Lasting Joy in a World of Comparison, Disappointment, and Unmet Expectations
I even caught about 6 episodes of Eric Rhoads daily broadcasts over the last year, after trying to subscribe to his magazine and finding my subscription wouldn't go through. There's a reason, I wasn't to spend that $70 at that time. (No worries though.)
I had already developed a pleasing technique with the Creator Him by my side, so having the creator help me create seemed preferable to a human being during a time of travel for me throughout Texas.
Plus I found that if I combined my art mentor podcasts, along with watching something from my website mentor/ AMP marketing and site development podcasts, that it pretty much was enough for me to handle.
After all, my dad passed over in July of 2020, which spurred me to create the website while staying by the phone while he went to hospital surgery in the first place. I figured my dad and my creator would approve so that the art I co-labor on or create when He lets me fly solo, could be found by others, while they stayed at home, and learned new hobbies and I learned the Texas landscape, instead of traveling East as usual.
I am proud to have been an art hobbiest while I was a vocal performance major in the 1980's. I am happier still that He helped me find it as a profession after my children grew.
It turned out that He works everything for my good, too, even through the disappointments and mourning. Those organizations that juried me in over 2020 might not have, if I hadn't been painting Texas. You see OPA has so many people now, they classify us as West or East. I've considered myself a Southern Eastern girl for 50 years, yet I'm sure that painting Texas was what got me in to OPA. They happened to be in Texas at the time.
I've lived in Northern states too, yet my manners are Southern in Style right down to being made fun of in Virginia for holding my pinky out when sipping from my milk carton in school. Saying ya'll instead of you guys was habit after many years, yet I still claim my City of Brotherly Love, and my Kalamazoo, and still try to convince my native Texas friends that Virginia is not just for Lovers, it's also in the South.
Now I've been invited to paint Colorado. An invitational En Plein Air Event where only 25 were selected. I cried with joy, when I read the judges bios and saw that the pastel artist was so well thought of and that He liked my work enough to include it in the 25. Practice in 2020, or "honing my artistic skills while developing a Southwestern Body of Work", was just what He knew I needed.
Now that skill can be used to eliminate many of my photos from the East from being painted on paper, (except for the best compositions I select myself or He points me toward). My Eastern Body of work has benefited. As a result of listening to His call to hone my skills and Bloom them here in the Southwest, during this season, even going to view photos and remember my awe, results in greater skills translated onto paper or canvas.
I NEEDED time to paint. I used the time to paint. I benefited from getting ill with double pneumonia. I traveled alone, except for Him. And once, with one of my boys after healing greatly.
There are lots of tidbits of info, I'd love to learn, like for some reason Frisket use eludes me. I simply paint. Perhaps, He will show me another episode of a painter using it, by popping it up on my screen like one of the handful of Mr. Rhoades episodes I watched.
Or maybe, I'll just play with it someday soon. Watercolors are still in view.
