My Lucky Break

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My lucky break that I missed and didn’t take. It could have been just my imagination, nothing of consequence to anybody but me. It may have been nothing of consequence, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway.

One of my day jobs was working as a sales associate in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Gift Shop. I didn’t like the job all that much, but it does look great on my resume.

One day, coming back from lunch, I noticed a new artwork on display in the foyer of the Museum. It was of a cloud, a brain shaped cloud, on a field of cerulean blue. As a matter of fact, it looked a lot like this drawing of mine, from way back.

And my mind started going. After all, I thought, as the saying goes, all publicity is good publicity.

I could see the headlines, now. “Met Employee Finds Plagiarized Copy of Her Work on Display in the Museum.” Okay, maybe not. My work “Cloud Over Greenwich” had been frequently been shown, both in brick and mortar shows, and on the internet. It might have been possible…..but it would be unlikely.

So, I moved on, not being able to afford a lawyer. Now I regret not having at least gotten a consultation…and maybe some publicity hound of an attorney might take it on spec. Oh, well.

As for displaying art in the Met, I did take part in a staff exhibition. I entered one of my pieces from the Namaste collection. Very bold. It’s called “Guardian Angel”. I still have it.

Not the only time I did a picture of guardian angels, while I lived in NYC.

In other news, I’m doing a drawing for another beauty in ugliness theme.

I do like it, but it’s small, 4 x 6 inches. I’m just not sure if it’s interesting enough to make a large drawing.

But that’s a thought for another day,

And for no particular reason, here’s a cat.

UGLY

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I’ve spent years coming up with ideas to interpret beauty. Thing is, I’m running out of ideas.

Which brings me back to something that happened years and years ago. No, actually decades. but we won’t talk about that.

I was staying with an artist, who I considered to be a mentor. Considered? She actually was a mentor, although she kept telling me not to refer to her as that….she wanted to be considered a friend.

It was sort of a communal living situation. Other creative adults also stayed there. One young woman, who seemed even-tempered started discussing her work. Suddenly, she took on a manic eyed expression on her face and said “I prefer to find beauty in ugliness”.

So, I went back to my aim of finding beauty in beauty, and that was that.

But now, after years and years….actually decades, but we won’t talk about that….I’m rethinking things.

The only thing that appealed to me in the last couple of months, was ugly. So, I decided to go for it.

I struggled. It was like the old days when I would do a drawing over and over again, not getting it right, and go over it again. I tried adding an empty billboard to this. Empty didn’t seem right so, I decided to add a billboard with fading letters to it. I’m ashamed to say, but I will say, that the faded words I was going to put were “I’d like to teach the world to sing”. Yup, bad. So, try again I did.

It was a scene at the railroad station, and ugly as hell. I don’t know what drew me to it, but it was ugly. So, I decided to find beauty in it.

After all my struggle, I’m not sure if I was successful or not. So, here it is:

Another milestone for this year….summer is almost over. It always reminds me of a sad time, and as I look at my old work from this time…..

A parade of finding beauty in ugliness.

Pending…

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Hi! Just I’d say hi.

I’m behind on my artwork. I have an idea, but it’s turning out to be complicated …even the preliminary sketch is labor intensive.

This is just to let you know I’m still here.

A lot going on in my life, right now. Including a new day job. That’s six, count ’em, six jobs this year. I’m going to have trouble keeping track of W-2’s at tax time.

The new job is great! As the manager says, it’s like a family among employees there. Everyone is similar…..I counted five bottles of Coca-Cola in use on the desk.

So, I’m pretty happy….let’s go for a walk down memory lane.

Does anyone really miss winter?

Getting to allergy time again, get out your hankies!

Wishing you a great day, relaxing in a comfortable chair.

See you all soon!

LEAVING ON A jET PLANE

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As I was drawing this, the song “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, kept going through my mind. For those to young to know it, it was written by John Denver, although many other musical artists covered it.

Sadly, John Denver died in a small plane crash, in 1997. Maybe not a jet plane, but it does add a certain bittersweetness to the song.

Anyway, here’s the drawing.

It’s large, I find I like to work large.

Speaking of call this a drawing, some artists call their colored pencil works paintings. Other artist think that’s pretentious, and call them drawings. I’m stuck in the middle. They’re more than drawings, but they’re done in pencil, not paint.

Maybe we should just call them “works”. Of course, saying the word “works”, makes me think of some of the past bosses. They were works, for sure.

Anyway, while I was spending time on this, I had an idea for a work, that really got me excited. I was so excited, it made me claustrophobic on the little train I was riding. I didn’t get off the train at the next stop and run home the way I felt. I had a commitment at the end of the line.

It has some of the elements that this has. I don’t like to say too much about my future work. Doing so, I find, takes away my energy for actually drawing.

The drawing I’m going to work on reminds me of some of my NYC drawings.

Like these works.

Gosh, how I miss NYC of the 1990’s.

Toodeloo!

What do I do, Now?

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As I was saying, there’s something in this drawing that catches my imagination.

But, now what? I had no idea where to take it. All I knew, is that I didn’t want to set it in New York city.

So where then? Rural? Another city? Suburban?

All I could come up with were either boring or cliches.

So maybe a foggy scene. What does that look like? How does that happen? Who, when, where, what, and most of all, why?

So, then it dawned on me, or more correctly, dusked on me. A nocturne! I haven’t done one for a while.

For instance, this rocking chair. Maybe that doesn’t qualify, it’s in doors.

I got the direction of the Milky Way backwards here. Artistic license? No, just Artistic Stupidity.

This is the original of what I tried to recapture.

I love snow at night. At least, if I don’t have to be out in it.

And of course

How can you live in New York City for twenty years, and not be affected by this.?

But, back to my little man. I ended up putting in a summer suburban setting. BTW, for those who might be interested, erasers don’t really erase colored pencil, but they do make highlights.

So, FWIW,

Here’s the sketch:

As you can tell, it could use some work. But do another small one? Or are big statement pieces?

Tune in again. Same Bat time, same Bat channel. And if you remember that, you’re old, like me.

I Can’t Get Over A Guy Like You

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Well, my “Crow in Summer ” bombed. Sometimes that happens. No, actually that often happens. Sometimes, I can fix it. Sometimes, I can redo it. Sometimes, though, I don’t care of enough to do either. Like now.

So, that left me with the task of finding a new idea. Nothing came at me in a rush as sometimes, drawings do.

Like this one:

And this:

But not now, no. So my strategy is to go to my picture file, conveniently stored on my phone.

I used to store pictures on paper in an actual file. What a mess! Thank God for technology! At least, sometimes.

So, back to ideas, and the search for an idea…give you a glimpse of what I do when I’m really stuck.

I thought this was pretty, then I realized it was too sweet. Too Hallmark. It’s a pass.

What a great photo! Great subject, great composition. Too cute though, pass.

What I can’t see to get past is the drawing I showed you recently. This guy:

I just don’t want to do a New York city drawing anymore.

So maybe I can find a different background. Like, walking along this path?

Nah, been there, done that

Downtown Danbury?

Somehow, I can’t relate him to that either.

So, I hope soon to find a place for this man with something to walk towards.

Until then…

Something To Crow About

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Although, I’m most fond of cats, as everyone knows, I also love crows.

Oops, sorry, my mistake, that’s not a crow.

Anyway, while I was browsing through Facebook, a suggestion for a group came up. It was about loving crows and their ilk.

Oh, no, that’s not a crow, either. I could redo it as a crow….but nah.

The group has a lot of crow art in it, as you might imagine. While I was posting my various crow pictures…….

I realize I’ve done only crows during the dark time of the year, autumn and winter. It’s summer now, I still see crows around, I don’t hear them, though. They’re also still beautiful. So, why have I not done a summer crow?

Here’s one last crow. It’s a notecard, and based in fall. I figure it would be good for a Halloween greeting.

I used to have a little poem of personal meaning I’d use when I was a teenager, first heading into New York City. It was:

The differences of, Pigeons and Doves.

I’ve updated the poem to:

Who knows? Between Ravens and Crows.

FWIW

Here We Go Again

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I’m at the Pop-up and Party again.

This is the one at which I was going to do the redo of Tarywile for. So, I got it finished in time.

Spring Thaw

It’s quiet here. On one side of me is a henna artist. On the other, is herb soap.

I think the others thought they’d make money. I was hoping, but I’ve gotten realistic. Free exposure is fine with me.

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Here We Go Again

I also have these two favorites of mine.

Oh, well, with no wifi, there’s not a lot I can do.

FAIR DANBURY FAIR

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One of the more fond memories of Danbury, is the state fair that came around every fall. That is, until 1981. Now the fairgrounds is a shopping mall. Still, there is still, a lot of good subject matter here.

Why this fuss about Danbury?

I’m part of a pop-up that just popped up on Friday nights in downtown Danbury. My first night was very slow, knowledge of the event wasn’t widespread.

Obviously, I need to work a bit more on the presentation.

HOWEVER………

It’s exposure.

I’m taking the advice of someone I’ve mentioned before. More or less, is that if you want to make a splash at a show, you should have one big statement piece, and the rest small accent pieces. I have the accent pieces…..but the statement?

I thought of it many times. I think what is best is to do an enlarged version of one of my more successful works.

My first thought was Floral Overload…

But I’ll be damned if I do all that work again. I was about rip the hair from my scalp, by the end of doing this.

So, I kept considering pieces, and considering pieces until I became utterly confused.

I called on a couple of a couple of friends. I’d like to say we had a viewing of my work with cocktails and hors d’oevres. Alas, I thought of that too late. It’s a nice thought, though.

All of us decided views of Danbury would be more inviting to come into the Pop-Up and Party Space. So, we considered a few.

My only request was no cats. I didn’t think it would be as interesting to people. Naturally, when you eliminate cats, that disqualifies about three quarters of my portfolio.

Oh yes, and no N:YC pictures.

We settled on this:

So, those of you in Connecticut and nearby New York State, the show is Danbury, on Main Street in an empty storefront, I think it’s spelled Mereiki. It’s on Friday evenings, going through August.

Oh, yes, ……the featured image of my last post was so big that it was impossible to see. So, shrunk down to size:

Definitely a New York City picture.