Beam Me Down Scotty

Fact is, I didn't get to JR's other eye. But I did get the grid laid down and positioned him on the page in between laundry loads. (Glamorous huh)? I am going to add another figure in the background. In the photo I'm working from, the figure is his wife--but I was thinking about adding an SUV and some countryside. Stiff neck time for my red neck boy. I'll have to go photo hunting through my archives--I seem to recall some SUV shots I took on Pismo Beach. Could even be a truck.

I woke up this morning thinking about production--how many paintings do I need to have my own art show? Pretty uppity thoughts for a nobody who has been in a total of three group shows in my entire life and who has sold her work sporadically out of her house.

Nevertheless, I recall reading somewhere that you need twenty paintings to have a show--which means, I think, you need more. There's going to be some you reject as not good enough or you love it too much to part with it. I'm guessing thirty four maybe forty?

That's a lot of paintings. One every week or two to pull it off in a year. As it is, I'm hung up correcting Mice and there's two more paintings in that triptych. I just started producing Four Seasons, a four part painting. And here's JR with SR to follow. To make my fantasy a reality, I'm going to have to clear away the rest of my life and punch in the studio promptly at nine and punch out at five. Forget about blogging--too time consuming. Paint. Paint. Paint.

Product is such a harsh word for art, nevertheless, pictures are product and in the business of art, I would be the manufacturer, albeit craftsman putting together an inventory. Then I'd have to be a publicist and a showman as well. I would need an overall plan for production and operating capital for the year. Also lots of energy to work two jobs.

When I think how much money, how much energy,OMG. It's no wonder so many of us have chosen to earn our livings doing something else and our art, the stuff from our hearts, we've relegated to spare-time-hobby status. A low status in the public's opinion and in some artists' opinion too. To them you're not as low as a hobbiest, you're a tad higher in stature, you're a student...but I won't get into that.

I'd better give up my high highfalutin idea, return to earth and punch the clock. JR needs his other eye (or an eye patch) and I need to go shopping. Breast Cancer treatments have added pounds--as has placating my distress over the situation with too many pistachio nuts and extra splashes of wine. Beam me down Scotty. This fantasy is over.