I Need An Art Studio

Diagram #1It has become abundantly apparent to me that I need an art studio, or to move out.  My current room is just not cutting it. Everything that I own is crammed into the smallest room of the house I live in (Please refer to Diagram 1). I also don’t have heat; my parents love me I swear.

This teeny tiny space, where everything is shoved into, is also where I paint. I paint on my bed, since there is no other place to sit in my room any longer. This may be hard to imagine, but painting on a bed is not easy nor is it convenient. And there have been many a paint to sheet casualties.

I used to paint in the living room. That stopped due to severe annoyance. Literally every single time I would paint there my mom or dad would come down and yell and nag at me about getting paint on the carpet or couch, despite the fact that I never ever had done so. Except that one time, when I put a painting outside in the garage where no one ever goes. So naturally my mom went out there, stepped in red paint and tracked it onto the carpet. I have never feared for my life more. I dumped so much water on this one spot of the carpet by my closet and so my mom wouldn’t get wise to what I was doing I took my entire closet apart to cover the spot I was frantically cleaning. 

Now that I think about it, I am a messy painter and always end up with paint on some obscure part of my body. Ear, lip, upper thigh underneath my painting leggings, elbow, behind my knee, you name it. But it is only ever my body… or my sheets… actually I’ve gotten it on my carpet, and well… Okay, maybe they have a point. Whatever, back to the point of this post and away from the vindication of my parents and their “rules”.

With the conclusion of my March show, I have several possibilities that are all in the works. And I really want to keep on top of this “art thang”. Argo, it doesn’t make much sense to drive 30 minutes carting all my stuff up to my Grandma’s house tomorrow only to need it all the day after tomorrow (tee hee). Which begs the question, where do I store it until then?

The answer, naturally, is in my already packed room:

And the living room behind the couch.

This place scares me in particular because my mom has a tendency to strongly hate mess in the house and in a cleaning frenzy damaged one of my paintings that I was storing in the basement.

Thus the argument I presented in the start is supported. I need an art studio, or to move out. Alas, neither will happen anytime soon. I do not have the means to afford either. Moving out could happen should I have a roommate, but at the moment I am roommate-less. Janna! Oh why can we not be back at Rutgers in our apartment? How I miss turning my head slightly to converse with another being.

Instead, I will keep fighting the good fight, and finding more places in my room to carefully jam paintings into.

Better yet, anyone want to buy anything from me?

Reflection On My First Art Show

Today, I wrapped up my first official art show at Jamian’s in Red Bank. It was a sad day. It took about 6 minutes to take my art down and another 9 to get my art out to my car and get my money. It felt like Megan and I were hanging it up only last week, and yet it was a complete month later.

I sold one painting, the infamous Mother. Although I am very pleased with the person I sold it to, I am sad to see it go. It was an important piece for me, emotionally and creatively charged. It was also featured in a short film named Wreakage that I worked on with my crew, Paul Christian, Matthew Gustavsen, Pat Perrotto and Matt Siciliano. (Pat got some awesome footage of the painting which I hope to get up here). Between the film and emotional ties, it’s difficult to let Mother go.

Yet it is also extremely poetic. This painting was a coping mechanism for me to deal with the heartbreak of losing the person I believed I was going to marry. I really thought Bryan and I would be together forever. He was my first ever boyfriend, which in and of itself says a lot about what I felt for him. I’m picky as hell with who I date and thus far, he is the only person to make it past dating to boyfriend-dom. Despite how much I wanted it to work, ultimately Bryan did not feel the same way and cut all communication with me after going over to the Philippines.

Needless to say, dealing with this was tough. Combine that with the fight with my mom and Mother was born in early January.

The heartache lingered until the very last week of February. I was tired of being sad and hurt. It was too much. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I don’t know if you would call it praying, or just asking the universe for help, but I remember crying, asking the universe for something, anything, to help me move past this, to give me a sign that things would be okay.

The universe answered.

Photo Courtesy of Gina AsprocolasSunday, February 28^th, I got a call saying I was on for the March show. I hung my artwork up Wednesday and had the best night ever at my art opening Thursday, and Saturday I officially sold Mother. At that moment, it could not be clearer to me what the universe was saying, that it was time to let it go. The universe was offering me something I needed and I was taking it. I let it go.

Reflecting on the conclusion of the show and the fact that Mother is the one piece that I sold, I do feel good. This is one painting that I can truly say a piece of my heart and my soul went into it. I hope the home that it finds is a good one. I believe it will be. It is also thanks to the person who I sold Mother to that I may have my next show falling into pieces today. So if you happen to be reading that, THANK YOU!

All of this together, I can’t help but believe that sometimes things really do happen for a reason. You just have to be open to it and seize the opportunities that are presented to you. And last, but not least, a HUGE thank you to everyone who came out to the show and supported me over the month. This was really important to me and sharing it with such awesome people made it all the better.

Calling in Old Debts

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loseth both itself and friend. And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." - William Shakespeare

This is a quote I like to use a lot, perchance, my favorite quote. Although, up until 2 minutes ago I thought the quote was actually "neither a lender nor a debtor be" and I was crediting it to Benjamin Franklin. That is, until I googled it to make sure I didn't sound like an idiot and that was I quoting it correctly. I wasn't. I also learned that among Benjamin Franklin's faults (inventing daylight savings), he is also a quote thief. For shame Benjamin!

April is the month I am calling in my debts to other people for them. I have no desire to lose friends or dull my husbandry. 

These are my 5 debts: 

1. Charlie Kelly painting for Ginacrat (Wild card bitches!)

2. Flower painting for my cousin Jennifer (almost the year anniversary of the request, whoops, sorry Jennifer. I love you!)

3. Thank you painting to my current sole repeat customer Christian (just in time for him to move out of his colorless dorm)

4. Pokemon for a first time customer and friend Capital M of Gaming Chronicles

5. Striped Bass for Patrick Perrotto (debt being called in pending inspiration)

<-- This is debt #1 for those who couldn't immediately recognize this as the best character ever on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Although I think between the stallion shirt, the silver spray paint, and the long johns, it is unmistakably Charlie Kelly. If you don't know why he is standing in front of an Uno Wild Card, well shame on you! Go watch some TV. 

So that is the goal of April. If I can complete this, that gets me about 1 painting a week, which would be fantastic. I too easliy get off track, and after this past weekend of meeting Jonathan Coulton which was so awesome, I want to do something in the vein of his thing a week, but instead, Julie Dennebaum's painting a week. And much like Jonathan, I have 4 ideas which should last me about 4 weeks. Then I am screwed with 48 weeks and 48 paintings left. Not sure if this is possible, so I'm not really all out committing to this yet. Although if it makes me as awesome as this, it just might be worth it.

Update: It is done.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback - via the internet and in person. The consensus seems to be that the painting is done. And I agree. 

I was having one of weekends where I was feeling down and forgot how I awesome I was. I blame this mostly on Megan not being around. How will I survive when she goes to Russia for 2 year?

Thankfully, I snapped out of it today.

I had a fantastic day at work (weird right?).

I had my personal trainer kick my ass again.

I get to where my new dress that is is basically what I would wear while baking a pie for a pie contest at a church picnic (love it!).

I am about to go get sushi with Pat.

Someone told me that, and I quote, "you can be the greatest woman in the world honestly, you are really smart, funny, friendly, and to mention pretty" (thanks again!).

So essentially my day was awesome and so am I.

Thus time to look at my painting. And looking at it, I agree. It is done. 

So I proudly present to you, my dear reader...

THE DOCTRINE OF MANIFEST DANGER!

The title was on a document I scanned the other day. I thought it was awesome.

And that is my conclusion of my opposite of self-effacing post. Until next time!

Is this painting done?

I woke up this morning at 8 am cause I had gone to bed at, like, 11 pm on a Friday night. Can you say lame? Essentially, I was plagued with one of those "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms mood" cause I'm a spaz and over-analyze everything. EVERYTHING. Why do I have my brain?

Anyway, in a fit of spazzy-ness, I decided that this painting sucked ass ----->

It's not that it's terrible, just that I did this originally on 6 12 x 12 inches tiles and I wanted it to be on one canvas. So I thought, hey, I'll just do it just as awesomely again.

I was failing.

The center is just too blah and I didn't know how to fix it. So I decided to just scrap it and start over.

I tried changing it in the way of "Acquiesce to Eternity" and it was just not going well. I was outside listening to my current favorite playlist, enjoying the beautiful weather and making a horrible, horrible painting mistake. I was destroying an expensive canvas. F!

Then I decide, just go the way of "Mother". People like that one a lot and it felt good to finger paint.

So this is what has come out of my painting today:

My question to you is: is this painting done?

Generally my rule of thumb is if I can't tell, it probably isn't. But sometimes I just need to have it around for a while and marinate on it, to really decide. So if anyone has any thoughts, good or bad, let me know. I'd love some help other than my brother with his ridiculous painting names (Close up of Fish Scales #12 - to imply there has been 11 others) or my sister who just puts paint on my face because she was pissed that I put it on her arm? Phst.

Will Work for Food

I really like the idea of bartering, alot. If I could live my life based on bartering, I would totally want to give it a go. I would get tired of it quickly, but I would want to just see how far I could get because the idea of it harkens back to olden times, thus is intrigues me. 

This past weekend I got an unconventional project from my friend Joe, who just opened Sonny's Bar and Grill, a bar/restaurant in Belmar. As some of you may know, today is the Belmar St. Patty's Day parade. Not surprisingly, this is a big bar day in Belmar. My friend Dave started hydrating last night at about 12am in preparation for his drinking that commenced about 7 minutes ago. Best of luck Dave.

Sonny's still has a big sign over the door that says "Casa Tequila". A new sign is in the works, but they needed something up for today. This is where I came in.

I stopped by Friday night to hang out with a group of friends, was given the banners, and went to work on them Saturday while watching Battlestar Galactica with my usual Saturday crew: Megan, Matt and Ian (guest appearance by Caitlin).

Matt and I discussed a different project for a bit that I will hopefully being working on soon (a pokemon painting for Gaming Chronicles), a new project involving "Man Sins" was born with my brother, Matt, Ian and my cousin Ryan from TN, and then I painted so banners. Karaoke was also partaken of, Plants vs. Zombies was played, and Wawa sandwiches were eaten, a solid day all around

How does battering come into this you ask?

Joe offered to pay me whatever I would charge for the painting of 3 banners. I had no idea how that fit into my pricing model. This was not a normal project.

Also, what if I sucked? This happened with a mural once. I didn't like it but I took the money anyway. I believe the person I completed it for liked it very much, but I'm still very hyper critical of my own art.

So, I was willing to do this as a learning experiment for myself, to see if this was a type of project I would enjoy doing in the future.

I also wanted to to help out Joe, who I have recently become friends with and think is a very kind and cool person. He's also an important friend to people who are extremely important to me. Thus, it seemed disingenuous for me to take payment when they were just starting up.

Then Joe offered me free dinner on Monday. I accepted without hesitation. And a barter was struck. The End.

Come out to Sonny's Bar and Grill today, for the St. Patty's Day Parade Day in Belmar. I won't be there, but you should!

Or another day. It's located on Main Street between 16th and 17th ave. in Belmar NJ.

An Art Show

My awesome and talented friend Patrick Perrotto made a video for me with footage taken from my art show this past Thursday at Jamian's in Red Bank. My artwork will be hanging there for the entire month of March. I have more stuff to write about it and pictures to put up, but wanted to get this out there. Pat's really talented and was super sweet for making this for me. Check the video out, as well as his other work: 

PatrickPerrotto.com

Pat's Vimeo site 

an art show from Patrick Perrotto on Vimeo.

Celebrating 50 Years of Love

In the beginning of February I was commissioned by my Aunt Sarah to paint a portrait "my style", of her mother and father (Patricia and Rodney) and their family, for the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary. Sarah sent me several pictures of all the family members, as well as the wedding photo of her mother and father. I agreed and put together a sketch.

Almost immediately afterwards I got extremely nervous. What if her parents didn't like it? What if I completed it and it wasn't what Sarah wanted? What if I didn't complete it on time? A 50th wedding anniversary is a big deal and I wasn't feeling inspired at all. I really felt I had agreed to complete something I wasn't going to be able to do well and this was not a situation I wanted to let anyone down in. I felt honored I was asked to even do this, I couldn't let Sarah down.

Then 2 things happened: 

1. There was a massive snow storm and my company was closed the next day (yes to getting paid for not working!) 
2. I remembered the one thing that inspired me as nothing else can:  David Lynch's film Dune.

I put the movie in and before you could say Maud'Dib, the painting started flowing and I couldn't stop. I started at 9:30 Tuesday evening, stopped to sleep at 12:30, woke up at 9, started up again and painted straight through to 11 the next evening. My bed sheets are now covered in paint (terrible place to paint, I know) and I think I ingested a lot of acrylic paint, but none of that mattered. I loved what I was painting.

The most difficult part of the painting were the beards and moustaches (and wouldn't you know, every older male in the family has a beard and moustache) and capturing the loving couple for the centerpiece. 

         

I can't tell you how many times I ended up restarting both Rodney and Patricia. First the nose wasn't right, then the eyes, then I'd get the nose and not the eyes and accidentally wipe away the nose. It was tough, but I knew I wouldn't be happy with that painting if I didn't get it perfect.

So it ended up taking me 2 more days just to get the celebrated couple complete. And I couldn't be happier with the outcome. This is, by far, one of the pieces I am the most proud of. 

Sending preview images to Sarah helped a lot. I got many texts back saying "You rule!" and "it's gorgeous" and my personal favorite "I'll bring you the cash next saturday, k?".

The subject matter also helped. I could see the love in the pictures and the happiness that surrounded all the members of Patricia and Rodney's family. I loved that I was able to be a part of their celebration. 50 years happily married is definitely something to celebrate, something I hope I am lucky enough to have.

After the presentation of the painting, Sarah let me know that her parents loved it. I couldn't have been happier. 

Then yesterday I recieved an email from Rodney and Patricia thanking me for the painting:

"writers can write stories or poetry regarding love and a successful marriage, but an artist can paint her interpretation of the couple's marriage... Your lovely painting depicting our six children and four grandchildren has captured the very essence of our 50 years together and it will hold a prominent place in our home for the remainder of our lives."

Reading those words not only made me overwhelmingly happy that they were pleased with the painting (I was really worried about that), but also helped me to remember I am on the right path. Sometimes work and life can get you down, especially when you feel you aren't truly pursuing your dreams. Then, when you get to create something that you are passionate about, body and soul, and that, in turn, affects other people in the same way, life couldn't get any better than at that moment.

Thank you Rodney and Patricia, for letting me share in your celebration and helping me get a glimpse of light at the end of the corporate tunnel. It really meant so much to me to be a part of this. 

And Sarah rocks too :D 

March Art Exhibition at Jamian's

Exciting times! For the month of March, my art will be on display at Jamian's Food and Drink in Red Bank.

I'm hanging my artwork March 3, and there will be an artist reception this Thursday, March 4, from 6 to 9 PM. I'll be on display along side artist Keith Chad. 

Jamian's is located at 79 Monmouth Street, Red Bank, NJ.

Hopefully this is the first of many art exhibitions and I think it's a great place to start. My brother plays at Sunday's open mic and my friend Megan and I can attest that Jamian's has some banging pizza.

I'm really excited about this and would love to see everyone and anyone at the reception. If you can't make it, my art will be on display all month long.

Thank you for all of the support :D

Let's Go to Candied Island

Last friday I was hanging out with my friends John and Hope. They were helping me take photos of a piece I had just completed for my Aunt Sarah for her parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary (pictures to be posted soon). I had taken the entire day off from work in order to do that and once we were done with the photo shot I had an entire day free from corporate hell! We went to go shopping at the Freehold Raceway Mall and indulge in the wonders of the Cheesecake Factory (John's first time btw). 

Somewhere during our dining, Cartoon Network's The Marvelous Misadventure's of Flapjack came up and how we all LOVED this show. Really, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. John mentioned he was surprised that I hadn't painted something from the show yet. I agreed. So I corrected that.

And so was born "Candied Island". This depicts the three main characters, Captain Knuckles (pronounced Ka-nuckles), Flapjack, and Bubby. Knuckles and Flapjack are adventurers. They live inside Bubby's mouth, love candy, and dream of finding Candied Island. 

I worked on this all Friday night, some of Saturday during an anime marathon I was hosting (where Ian scolded me to stop painting and pay attention to the conclusion of Gurren Laagan), and then finished it on Sunday night. And the entire time I was painting all I wanted was cotton candy.

So this painting, I definitely owe thanks to John for. Without him, this may never have been created.

Wow I'm F***ed Up

First, I feel weird about cursing on the internet. It doesn't feel right. I don't have a bad mouth, but the title is appropriate for my most recent completed piece of art.

It is entitled "Mother".

This is my first painting completed in 2010, is my darkest piece, and is probably the best representation of how my 2010 actually started. It started with a horrible fight with my mother and my heart being completed smashed by my boyfriend (ex-boyfriend? - the status of our relationship is something I am still unclear on, so if you are reading this Bryan, feel free to let me know).

One Sunday night in early January, I was sitting in Paul's kitchen with Paul and Gus discussing the disturbing short film we were about to embark on filming. They had made a particularly creepy mask with the help of the talented musician Mike Bruno that was black and red. The conversation slowly led to a painting to compliment the mask.

With the emotional turmoil I was currently feeling due to the aforementioned events, I was in a particularly black and red mood and thought I could definitely do something with all the emotions. "Mother" slowly formed in my head. 

Gus said he could see it forming in my head as I sat there. I don't doubt it. I had been at Paul's for probably only 30 minutes and at the moment it formed in my head, I stood up and informed them that I had to leave. I had to leave to paint. Paul and Gus understood and I took my leave.

I got home, grabbed the canvas, grabbed a quart of red paint, grabbed a quote of black paint and went to town on the canvas. This was a primal painting, no paint brush, just me, my hands, the canvas and the black and the red. It just poured out of me. My brain shut off and my hands just went. 

About 40 minutes later, I had used up an entire quart of red paint, had black paint in my hair and red paint bleeding through my socks (I never dress appropriately while painting).

I took a step back to look at the painting. It was done and the only thing I could say, at seeing what I was feeling transferred to canvas was "Wow, I'm fucked up".

It was then named by the crew of Wreakage (Pat, Matt, Gus and Paul). I couldn't name it Bryan, already have one of those. I was going to name it "Self Portrait" but Matt pretty much told me that was the worst title ever. Then Pat chimed in that it had to be "Mother". And so it was named, and then very well lit and prominent in many shots of the ensuing short film. 

The Art of Thesis

The biggest project of my 2010 (next to painting), is a film I am currently working on with my seriously talented friends: Matt "Gus" Gustavsen, Pat Perrotto, Matt Siciliano, and Paul Christian. The film is called Thesis and it is going to kick so much ass. It's the project I've been waiting for, something I love doing and something that makes life fun. I get to hang out with great people and create something awesome with them. The script was written by Gus and it's really got something. He's an amazing writer and is teeming with potential (for world domination).

One of the chracters in the script is an artist named Anja. Not only am I producer on this film, but I also get to do the artwork for Anja, which has lead to a lot of great paintings already.

 "Untitled #3"

This is one of my favorite paintings that I've completed thus far, and oddly enough I can't think of what to name this. It's something that the more I look at it, the more I love it. This was featured in the "video" within the movie that we filmed up at Rutgers in Novemeber. It was a painting that Anja was working on while Zane (our film's protagonist) was working on his thesis.

 "Zane"

This was a painting that I did specifically for the film. It is a portrait of Anja's feelings for Zane close to time of their breakup. For that to make more sense, you will have to see the film...

"The Tree is the Thesis"

This painting is one of the ones left behind by Anja. She had started it while Zane and she were still together, but when she left this was left behind incomplete.

The next painting I am working on for Thesis is a portrait of Zane. This is something Gus and I have been talking about for a couple months now, to try and figure out how Anja would portray Zane. We've discussed Van Gogh's paintings as an inspiration as well as Edvard Munch's. We are going to be doing a photo shoot with the actress playing Anja and Gus (who is playing Zane) next weekend when we shoot our short film that should be disturbing and awesome. Hopefully after that the portrait will just flow out. I already have some ideas kicking around and am excited to start it.

New Year/New Site

New Year's Eve 2008, amongst my many New Year's Resolutions, I resolved to paint more. At that point I had only completed 14 paintings over 2 years and received extremely positive feedback (both verbal and monetary). 

Reflecting on what I was able to accomplish in 2009, I completed over 30 pieces. I branched out from painting pieces for family members and into the world of friends and co-workers. I sold old paintings. I had my art on display at the Starbucks in Neptune (thanks to my friend and fellow artist Ali Taylor). A total stranger called me to tell me that she had "an eye" for art and that she thought I would be huge some day. It seemed the more I painted the better the response I got from it.

Then we come to 2010. It's time to really move forward with this. I've been getting good press in the internet world amongst gamers:

GameSetWatch article on my Fat Princess paintings

GameSetWatch article on my Left 4 Dead 2 painting

Painting is something that makes me happy. I can sit for a weekend straight working on one painting, and I don't feel a moment is wasted. Creating makes life worthwhile for me, and hopefully as I focus more on that, I'll be able to move it from something I enjoy doing, to something I enjoy doing and am able to live off of.

There's going to be a lot going on here, so please check back and spread the word!

2010 is going to be a great year.