Inspired Monday: it's back!

Hi, folks!  Bet you wondered where this feature had been, eh?  Well, it went away for a while this fall/winter when I got really busy moving and prepping my old house to rent out, BUT...I think Inspired Monday will be back on a sporadic basis.

And this Monday's is a big one, one that's super-inspiring to me...

It's Carol Rosetti, whose work you might have seen posted around Facebook or anywhere that cool, life-improving images can be found.  Her art is inspiring on many, many levels...

Snow time like the present? (I know, booooo...)

Happy New Year's, guys!  Guess what we had last night, right here in Tucson, Arizona...

Snoooowwwww!  It fell for quite a long time last night, actually, and it stuck!  Wow, did that take me back...I hadn't seen that much snow fall and stick since I lived in Idaho.  It was still around this morning, too!

This kind of thing is exciting to us Arizonans...I know it might not look like much, but it was enough for my husband and I to throw snowballs at each other and the dog, and that made us very happy. (Maybe not the dog, though...)

More snow pictures and New Year's ramblings under the cut...

Inspired Monday: breathe in, breathe out...

It's been hectic around here lately.  Of course, when is it not?  I'm gearing up for my exhibit at the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild, which I set up next week (eek!), as well as the Hilton Indoor Fine Arts Festival the weekend after that (double eek!).  Plus, the theatre company I work for just moved, so I have been over there almost every day this past week getting them organized and knocking down walls, AND I'm preparing for a play I'm assistant directing in September at a different theatre company.  Whew.

It can be a little frazzling.

There's always a picture of Scotty that matches my emotions.  This one is the "excited yet slightly crazed" look.

So that's why, for this week's Inspired Monday, I'm sharing one of the ways I de-stress: meditation!

Wait no, don't leave yet, hear me out...

The other thing I do

I have a confession to make...I've probably hinted about it on this blog before, although I've never actually come right out and said it, I don't think.  Some may look down on me for it, some may think less of me, but I don't care, I just have to say it...

...I am an actor.

Once, I was even in a play where we all got our pictures on a big billboard.  My mom saved the part of the billboard that had my giant face on it.  Then occasionally I pose in front of it, because it's awesome.

Yes, it is true.  But I had to get it off my chest and out in the open, because it's as big a part of me as art is!  I've been doing both of them for about as long: for as long as I could pick up a marker or a crayon, I've been drawing, and for as long as I could stand up and say words, I've been acting.  And heck, theatre was how I met my husband, how I got my first job, and how I got a lot of my first freelance art/design gigs.  I owe a lot to it.

Inspired Monday: walk it off

I've been taking lots of walks lately...this should come as no surprise since I've mentioned on here that (one of) my day job(s) is as a petsitter/dog-walker.

Here's one of my charges.  She enjoys grass.

If you're feeling stressed, creatively stuck, or just need to take an energizing break, then my advice to you would be to go take a hike!  Literally.

Take that, summer!

So...it's hot.  Have I mentioned that yet?  Because it's really, really hot.  This is already the kind of summer where I wish I was a snowbird and had a summer home in some much cooler clime.  Like Siberia.

I know, I've used this photo before on this blog.  I don't care.  Non-Arizonans need to understand how painful this part of the country can be sometimes.

But!  The last few weeks, I have been testing out a brilliant heat-beating idea.

Show prep madness!

As I may have mentioned, I'll be selling my work at Monterey Court here in Tucson this Saturday night...actually, I'm pretty sure I only mentioned it that one time, because ever since it's been finalized I've been in major preparation mode.

A Pile O'Prints!  Plus on the left you can see a package I just shipped - a cat portrait off to Florida.

 I ended up making 17 large prints (like the ones above), 20 smaller prints, and six sets of greeting cards.  So Tuesday was Packaging-fest 2014!

Why an arts degree is (almost?) as valuable as a business degree

I see these posts on Facebook from time to time that my theatre friends share: Why a theatre degree is better than a business degree.  They make excellent points, for sure, and I do feel like my theatre skills have helped me in my regular career a lot (both in my art business and in my various "day jobs" I've had throughout the years).

But I don't have a theatre degree.  My degree was a BFA in illustration.  Is that valuable, too?  You betcha.

Making canvases that double as hurricane barricades: one of the many valuable skills you learn at art school.

 Here's why I think that people with fine arts degrees are just as prepared for The Real World, whatever that means, as people with business degrees:

Summer time...time to sit back and unwind...

So it's May...and that means summer!  Well, honestly, in Tucson pretty much any time after tax day starts feeling like summer, and it continues until (or beyond!) Halloween.  Difference being, now the national chain shopping centers have gotten in on it, and you'll see stuff like swimsuits, cover-ups, pool toys, barbecue skewers, etc. in the seasonal aisle of Walgreen's, so that's how you know, "oh yeah, the rest of the world is finally having summer now too!"

And soon it becomes monsoon season, a.k.a. "the time when Whitney's phone fills with pictures of cool rainclouds and/or storm sunsets"!  That's always fun.

Remember when you were a kid and summer was SO EXCITING OMG because you got three whole months with no school, and you had fun things like camp, going to the neighborhood pool or water park, maybe sports or other summer activities, beach, vacations, road trips, and oh yeah, did I mention no school?  Super-fun.  

However, once you're done with school...it is no longer like that.  You still have work, same as always, only now it's scathingly hot while you work.  Not so cool.  Dammit, DJ Jazzy Jeff!  You've set my expectations for summer fun way too high!

But summer can still be enjoyable even as an adult, right?

The structure of a craft fair booth (the less decorative but necessary stuff)

So although my first arts and crafts festival (on my own as an artist, not working someone else's booth) is probably four months away, as you may have noticed from this blog, I'm going a little crazy with planning.

I realized that, prior to even being accepted in a show, I need to do a test run of my booth setup, not just so I know how to do it and what it will look like, but because many shows ask for a photo of your booth as part of your application.  And I don't want to look like some noob and not submit one...but although I have helped design and set up booths for other people, I don't want to submit that, because that's not what my booth will look like.

Although this booth WAS lots of fun to set up...but mine will not end up looking anything like this.

  What this means...is that I've been looking for DISPLAY FIXTURES!

Getting ready for an arts festival/craft fair - what to do and how to do it

Over the past year I did a few arts festivals with the jewelry studio I worked for, and now I'm starting to think about applying to some of them as an artist myself.  Having done some already will give me a bit of an edge, I feel...each time we do another craft fair, we learn more, and the whole process gets easier.

Ahh, the smell of art commerce is in the air!

I'm hardly an expert, but I've picked some tips up from other people we've met at these fairs who are experts.  Based on my experience, and what I've heard from other artists, this is what I would advise...

Happy Year of the Wood Horse, everyone!

It was Chinese New Year on Friday...I keep track of Chinese New Year every year, not just because I make my mom a sculpture of whatever the Chinese zodiac animal is that year (her birthday is tomorrow...it usually falls around Chinese New Year), but also because that's when I make my resolutions.

I took this photo for a class in 2006...no one notices or cares that those are South American beads with an Asian deity, do they?

See, actual New Year's Day is really not the optimal time to make resolutions, I find.  Sometimes you're hungover, or at least really tired if you stayed up particularly late the previous night.  And January can sometimes be a depressing month, because you're feeling the post-holiday letdown.  Whereas if you wait a few more weeks, well, now you're into February, spring will be coming up soon, you're probably feeling a bit more optimistic and heading out of the winter slump...plus, you're already 6-8 weeks into the New Year, so you already have some idea of what the year's going to be like and what you can realistically accomplish!  That's how I view it, anyway.

I, of course, have several art-related resolutions...