Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in artchick48's LiveJournal:

Thursday, January 13th, 2005
3:10 pm	CREATIVE DISORGANIZATION AND GOOD INTENTIONS! Well! I said before I was remiss...really it's more like creative chaos. I do have good intentions...this journal, my website and 100 other items on the "to do" list. Fact is, there just aren't enough hours in a day ( or night ) I'm sleep deprived as it is. BUT! breakthrough! After my beautiful website ( thank you Susan Fox! ) has lanquished finished for 2 years, it is woefully out of date. But 2005 is the year that gets fixed. I promise to do much better. Everyone knows the big ebay bust of 2004, right? OK then, 2005 is the year, we will be updating my website, adding a shopping cart AND update new works. My collectors will be able to purchase prints and originals. There will be a page added to show my gallery representation as well. Susan Fox is going to do the redesign ( or layout)keeping the original design. She will also be giving me a tutorial on how to make simple changes so I can keep the work updated...this will be wonderful. I am a tech challenged person, so can't say when it will be finished. I'm still working with portraiture ( commissions ), listing prints for auction at overstock.com, ebay.com and artbyus.com, and working with galleries in both Carolinas. Some of my artistic goals in 2005, are to learn classical realism and palette for portraiture, work in oils more, enter a few competitions and shows and work towards getting a publisher for my work. Another idea I'm toying with is, working on a step by step demo CD for beginning painters. If this transpires, the CD would be offered on my website. I thought it might be interesting ( or boring, hmmmm?? ) to put a link on the site to my journal. Maybe then, I will make time these very late nights, post a few comments. My state of mind is either pensive when I'm in a low cycle or chatty. Hopefully, you will find something of interest between the art chat or the ramblings of a mad middleager. I want to wish you all the healthiest and happiest New Year ever! Until later! Lee (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 11th, 2004
2:03 am	I AM REMISS! I am BAD! Totally have forgotten this journal. Ebay wiped out my me page, not sure I had a link there, maybe... guess I will add one again. Anyway, taxes are gone, THANK YOU GOD! My "Ancient" (trees) is on exhibit here in Greensboro. The High Point Furniture show fell thru...but that's OK, extenuating circumstances, not mine for a change, lol. I'm still working on portraits, getting ready to submit one for a competition...don't expect to "win" anything but making myself "do it" for the experience, better hurry the deadline is May 1, I believe, so need to get that on my calendar. Another special juried show coming up early summer, choose a building, past, present or FUTURE, right here in Greensboro, not sure which I will do, gotta get out and about with the camera...I favor OLD buildings, a historical home would suit me, something with charm. I've been very productive lately and hope to continue. Ebay has made more changes, NOT favorable AS USUAL. The oils are progressing nicely but not where I was hoping to be. I wonder how different it would be had I started with oils, they are messy! But little by little, I'm "getting" them, just have to find the technique that works for me. (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 21st, 2004
1:29 am	The best laid plans.... or progress?? go awry sometimes. It seems I'm pulled in many directions these days as women are...still, I have managed to work in oils, 5 paintings, 2 portraits of artist friends, a landscape, a nude, a WEIRD strange piece( nekkid lady in the middle of a dark dark sea ). Still getting the feel of oils. Everyone says the colors are luminous, I haven't seen it yet but could be because I am having to learn mixing my palettes all over again. A rose is a rose is a rose... so NOT. Colors in oils, though they carry the same names as my acrylics are not the same hue at all. I keep chasing the mixes all over the palette trying to find just THE right color. Well, it will come. I still haven't attempted a blended, smooth piece yet but that's coming soon, perhaps more FRUIT or realistic florals. My florals have never been realistic, fruit yes. Also am indulging in pastels, well, to the degree that I actually bought a lovely set, still haven't tried them yet, waiting on some of that Wallis paper. Too many things pressing, shows coming up, one juried in March for April exhibit. I still need to apply to the NOAPS also, that is National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society. I haven't a clue what to submit for the March jury, realistic or some artsy fartsy work. One is always at the mercy of the juror and they are fickle at best, many times judging according to their own personal prefs. Last year I missed this particular show, thank you God, because the it was an extremely small show, the juror being one of these personal prefs types who ONLY juried in MONOCHROMATIC schemes. Not many shared his ultimate vision which resulted in the smallest show in recent memory and history. Well, you just never know will the juror favor realism or textured pieces with a single tiny teeny TEAL square in the center while passing up masterpieces...the lucky winner receives cash of $500 with a solo exhibit booked at the gallery for the following year. No doubt I will submit ONE perhaps 2, though the juror ALWAYS chooses the one I least LIKE, that is the one I believe to be the most poorly planned, poorly executed, so maybe I'll go with my standard ONE. A local artist contacted me to see if I might like to show a large piece at the High Point Furniture Market in March. SURE....now if that pans out would be a bit of exposure. Speaking of exposure, I've been creating my own. This little thing called the business card, well, ( insert sheepish grin here ) I've been leaving a card EVERYWHERE I go, at the doctor's, at the restaurant, at the vet. OH NO! I don't pass them out, I simply leave one behind in an open place. The BIG DREAD.... and major procrastination.... TAXES. This week end I hope to produce another interior DOG painting, framed again. There was a really nice sale last week on ebay that went to $330.00, 17 bids I believe. Perhaps I can repeat that success again, we'll see....so much I want to paint, am anxious to work on more QAE portraits, have 2 I want to revise, and I want to repeat one larger because the subject ( Lisa Russo ) calls for it, beautiful long hair, was unceremoniously chopped in too small of a support plus I would like to BLEND those oils. She has a solemn serious expression about her beautiful face and eyes, I would like to give her the slightest hint of a smile. While waiting for my daughter at physical therapy today, I was reading Helen Van Wyk's portrait book. Every artist NEEDS to embrace self portraits, she said. Not just once but over and over ad nauseum. Rembrandt painted himself at least 70 times during his lifetime, whoa, models must have been in short supply, seems a trifle egocentrical. It's almost 2 AM, so my ramblings need to cease. Good night all. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 10th, 2004
12:50 am	What's in a RESOLUTION? If we don't meet our resolutions, have we failed? If we fail to make any, are we slackers? Can we make too many, and become superoverachievers? I always try to start with a focus for each year, sometimes several. Like most of you, health is important, family is important, destressing and simplying our lifestyle is important, and setting career goals is essential. I'm only 5 years into my second "career", as a budding artist, thanks to my grandmother artist, Esther Leach Thornburg. She passed away in 1998. I've told this hundreds of times, and I'm sure I'll tell it 1000 more. She is responsible for my painting, for she left me her entire library of art books, her paints, her brushes, her notes and journals. It was a godsend really, coming at a time in my life when my health had taken a beating. Painting literally washed away the dust of a humdrum existence. No wonder that's my favorite quote, and now in my stupor I can't recall who said that. Picasso?? Painting became an escape for all that ailed me, for all the shortcomings and disappointments of my life much as reading had been in years past. It healed my weary spirit. I've learned to let go of things and people that weigh on me. Stones don't float. It's this letting go, loosening my hold on those I cherished far more than I was cherished. There was freedom in that, giving myself permission to just let them go. Allowing my circle of life to become smaller has in truth expanded my life with liberties I've never known. One can't always follow the book. We have to sometimes write our own chapters and heed our own counsel, trust our own wisdom and listen to the flutterings of our heart. I literally stepped into this, but I suppose it was natural that I would. After all, my left brain fried. The first 20+ years of my work life involved mathematics and analytical thinking. DETAILS. Enough tedium to drive one loonie. I was always creative in something, mostly decorating and painting, walls walls walls; sewing was another creative outlet, clothing and home sewing. It was always about DETAILS. An avid do it yourselfer, there was never anything that I wouldn't tackle, mostly from the sake of saving money. I'm the biggest tightwad in the world therefore I have taught myself many things; wallpapering, furniture refinishing, laying tile, home repairs (I have POWER TOOLS!), cutting hair, etc. I had plenty of energy and plenty of time, now both are in short supply. I'm selfish. Most of my energy and free time goes into painting Fine Art ( and sometimes not so Fine Art ) yet I am still a woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister. However, entering the 6th decade of life, I have realized that my youthful energies have been, for the most part, spent. In a word, I am slow. The body has slowed down, the brain has slowed, things that I accomplished quickly and without much thought, are now almost monumental. I must force my brain to focus scattered thoughts into a singular powerful pentrating ray. I must branch and flower in the autumn of my life, something not easily achieved. Still, I will venture forth studying OILS with a view towards learning as much about the human figure as possible, and portraiture, learning new palettes and methods. I believe thus far, it's been good to paint all things, yet it's been an impediment as well. It's been difficult to say, I will be a still life painter, or a painter of animals or a landscape painter. Add to that, I will be an Impressionist painter or a Realist or a classicist. My style has settled into what it is, and that is of a traditional painter, using non traditional means, that is, I'm self taught. Perhaps I can go a bit further on my own. At some point, I must seek out a mentor, a master painter. I laugh as I write this because my mentor will no doubt be my junior. But first I will explore oils and the human figure, and portaits, the cadillac genre. I believe this area of study can advance my work tremendously, much as the study of the old masters advanced my work in 2002. 2003 was an experimental year, with emphasis on my own originals from both my own photo references and imagination. Within human figure work, I must seek out living breathing models, work on gesture and facial expression so that EMOTION becomes the power in my work. I think this is an area that can be my focus as figures can be placed within interiors, or landscapes or surrounded by living creatures, i.e. animals; horses, cats, dogs or surrounded by still life objects. To create a portrait of a living breathing soul is to make a connection, to capture the spirit as well as a physical likeness and to preserve the memory of someone. There isn't a lifetime stretching out before me any longer. My time to learn and absorb is limited. Still, I must be will myself patience and perseverance. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 8th, 2004
11:44 pm	NEW YEAR'S ROCK THROWING Ack! Ever have days so bad you wonder how you made it through? Details are fuzzy, and days pass, blur and meld into one another. And ALL the best intentions, plans, dreams, goals, can be thwarted with a single phone call. I have had this intuitive and overwhelming feeling that 2004 is the brink, the edge, a cliff, winds of change, SOMETHING is coming. Something GOOD, I can only hope, it's almost palpable. I can FEEL it, not an uneasy something. Ah! It will reveal itself when time is ripe. Still, haze and fog block the view like peering into a room just darkened. A single phone call slam dunked this perfect tranquil KNOWING feeling and once again I was reminded that I am in control of precisely NOTHING. As my friend, Nancy Kaye says often, "life unfolds as it should". I say life sucks. And majorly at times. I can say that. Yet I still KNOW that things do work out as they will, perhaps not as I wish, but as they must. We all go the way of the earth. A time to be born and a time to die. How I wish that I could look forward to death, if only it were a joyful occasion as birth. That's a dilemma for a Christian, for me. I wish I could welcome death, but it is a sorrowful parting; that it's a temporary parting makes it no less painful. You've heard of the "sandwich" generation I'm sure. That's the fickle hand of fate when you hit that 5th decade of life, kids still at home to be cared for just a while longer. Just when you are about to be free from responsibility in one direction, you are about to be unblessedly free in another, aging parents, approaching death, needing more and more help and care to fend off the spectre of a nursing home. You see it, you feel it, you dread it. Every emergency becomes a mere rehearsal for the "real" thing, that thing we all fear, when we lose a mother or a father and we can no longer see their face or hear their voice, share a laugh or even a bitch with each other. It's an unbearable sensation, a sense of rising panic that it will come and we can't stop it. So it's one foot forward, auto pilot kicks in, we move forward though we wish time might stand still for just a while so we don't have to think of the inevitable so life can be perfect for just a lingering moment longer, just a little more time to love. I may sound morbid tonight, or sad but truly, right now I'm content. We dodged the big bullet. This time. This week. I can breathe again. For now. Until next time. Life keeps unfolding, revealing, changing us one by one. Perhaps my musings will reflect in my work this year, perhaps my work will evolve into something more, perhaps emotional, perhaps mystical. Life unfolds as it should. Blessings to you this coming year. May you and yours be well, be happy and properous! Lee (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, December 22nd, 2003
12:07 pm	My first journal entry.... Hello to all during this holiday season! Like most people, right now I'm on "vacation". The difference being, when you're an artist and take a break, there is no paycheck! YIKES! A major CON! BUT! The PRO is that I am my own "boss", no one standing over my shoulder, no pressure, other than what I impose on myself. With a family, this flexibility saves my sanity! Right now, I've put painting aside to allow myself to be caught up in the spirit of the holidays which, for my family, is Christmas. There's been decorating, baking and goodie making, and a little giftwrapping. We decided several Christmases ago, that things had gotten out of hand, Christmas had become a stressful time, there wasn't even TIME to reflect on the true meaning. Still, there is much to do, family get togethers and special events that make this time of year so special. When some of the hub has died down, I plan to give myself a present and that is a few days to play with OILS. That's a goal that I've set for myself this year, to give this medium a good try. Well this is overlong for a first entry, I'm sure I'll get better at this. For now, I wish you love, peace,joy, good health and prosperity now and throughout the coming year. Lee Smith (Comment on this)