Now after how many years? I am back to Blog again. 

It's been a long journey, and now I am here, in Lunenburg Nova Scotia, with my Mr. Clean husband - he just gave himself a new nick name last night while cleaning the kitchen. No cats, but a full size studio and a sweet little store front. My CC Lord Studio Gallery is shaping up. 

Nick has the ceiling done with knotty birth tree planks bought from his friend who owns the mill directly. Cost me less than $600, plus labor $2500. Great deal!

Snow outside, but I am not bothered at all. In fact, I gladly take it as one of the accomplices that help makes this world so beautiful. 

This is 8:30 am and I am going back to bed, up since 6:30, and get more ready for today's farmer's market with Mr. Clean - also a Mr. Late-Riser.

I don't know how i can be less serious and more fun, carefree, spunk.... I don't enjoy reading what i have written, but every time i write anything, i am serious, even when i want to be fun!

Getting serious

4th year into my artist life, I'm getting serious now. Art is a serious business  that much I have learned.

Once I read about a quote from an artist, "Respect each and every stroke (on canvas)." Now it means more to me, not just respect the work I am creating, but respect art itself. Yes, it's getting serious and I am not joking about it.

Now when I receive a $20 dollar bill for my work in the market, it means more than the value, it means the connection there is between the customer - the viewer of my work and me - the creator of the work. And you know what? That is huge. Yes. It is huge to me.

It's a serious business being an artist.

SELF-LESS

In general I want happiness in life, but I found the path to unhappiness often is more obvious and easier to take; jealousy, suspicion, self-righteousness, etc. I'll make an effort to exam my "feelings" when I am not happy, and most of the time, it was me who need to detour.


Joy, my daughter misbehaved last night. She talked back at me and her auntie, i.e. my sister. Joy thought the comment we made at dinner was unfair, so she was arguing with me first and later my sister in the restaurant. The dinner ended up abruptly as we all felt miserable.  So, instead of hang out in the night market as we planned, I walked out of the group feeling really bad. I saw Joy left the group shortly after me heading back. I could see why she wouldn't stay... That's when I decided to walk back to the group and continue exploring the night market with my sister and her daughter without Joy.

We had fun. But the mixed of anger and humiliation and sadness about Joy's behavior bothered me all night and this morning.

I worry this 26 old daughter will suffer in her personal relationships as well as at work if her temper is so short and strong. As a single mom, I also felt I spoilt her - I didn't do my job bring her up "properly" in her manner,  And now, like my sister commented after Joy left, that it's a little "too late" to "discipline" her as a child. I will just have to let her go, make her own mistakes, and live her own life. It's difficult for me as her mother, but it is the only way that she can grown up, just like I did.  

Pike Place

Market has been kind to me this summer. (Or was it me that's been smarter? Smarter in how I set up my booth, mat my prints, etc.?) I feel blessed that I could safely say I have a viable job now. (Which is important to me as I love to be financially independent at least to some extend.)

Unfortunately in my Chinese friends' eye, this gig is not about art or talent, it's about survival, and they praised me being "brave" for making a living with this low-life job, a market vendor! One of them showed up with her husband, going through my work (while the husband standing afar looking over his nose), picked up a print, and decided to "go for the smaller size" - as a favor. Yes, as a favor to me!

I kept my smile on, thanked her for coming. Yes, at least she showed up and showed me her graciousness.  

Illustration Day One

Slow in the market as expected. I decided to start on the illustration project for my story books instead of sitting there moaning. It's really COLD.
Pencil first - as I didn't know what I'll do eventually - acrylic? oil? water color? Or even collage? I thought I leave that decision to a later date. I should find out first what this woman (me, of course) could do first before I assign her more specific task. So, yes, the harmless pencil first.

Drawing seemed not overly difficult to her - of course with a lot of eraser work, two images came out before too long. One is the swirl before the mirror - I like to know if she could do the swirl. One is flying high up - the perspective was a little challenge.

My design is to make the main object(s) - where the eye should go - with stronger and more realistic and to leave the rest in kind of sketchy and cartoon style. Still, this is only in an experiment stage.

Let's see what tomorrow will bring.

Skyline WA

I went online and searched under "paper painting" - an artist came up. Elizabeth Nelson. I was amazed by the way she uses acrylics first before putting paper pieces on. I was very very tempted to follow suit and planned to do my next piece her way. But then, when I started this piece, my "task mode" kicked in again (logically, I still think it's harder to use paper to deliver the shades in the background, although my painting skill is not as good as my collage making), so I chose the long way this time again. After I made the background, I thought it would be much easiers if I painted the thin branches, I was this close to start painting.... Now I have done it, I'm glad I did it with paper only. 

Painting? Next time. I promised.

Puzzle D'Arte

How fun now I have a kindergarden sign in the market. I think this will bring fun to my booth. My neighbor Sue is so excited about this business, she constantly calls me and shares more puzzle ideas with me. I hope my business will take off and one day I can hire her to work for me.

I can see my hand was kind of shaking when writing the sign, but I tried many times to "improve" it, failed. Still the first time writing is the best. So I decided to leave the shaking hand as is. Just so it is more "real" and "personal" - I think.

I also will give my magnets a cute name "Magnettos" - and besides art images, I will try to print some "fun mottos" - (but where to find fun mottos??? Hmmmm... maybe I could find some Chinese words??? Ideas, ideas, ideas.

This is such a hard business - I made between $0 to $45 in the last 6 days in the market. Plus it's freezing cold. But I somehow can start seeing the light, and start enjoying the fun of building my little booth in this little corner of the universe.

Do it well

I stopped my work tonight to watch a movie with ML. Tomorrow I'm going to the market with what I have and although it's close to Valentine's Day and I still have tons to do to get enough stuff done for the market, I decided not to rush into anything any more. I just want to take one step a time and create something really nice for the market, not just whip things up (like I used to, I have to confess), it has to be something nice even in the "touristy" product line.

I "feel" the idea Message in a Puzzle will fly.

Too bad I don't have a puzzle machine to make curvy puzzles. I think sooner or later I will need to buy one. But I need to wait until I'm ready - i.e. enough good arts to support the business. Here are what I have so far, but I'm not sure if they are good enough... I need to think. Calm down and think.

One step a time, Carol. There is always tomorrow.    

Message in a Puzzle

This will be one of my product lines - puzzle with a message in it. It can be used as a love gift for holiday greetings. I will print something generic for sale off the shelf. Or people can write up their own messages and we mail out the package for them (to remain anonymous until the puzzle is put together).

I feel this will be a good idea for the market. We will see.

Puzzles and New Year Wishes

Just two weeks ago I had an idea. If I use magnet, I don't have to have puzzle machine to cut curvy puzzles. I could just cut into various triangles - yes! So I give it a try. And even my picky daughter Joy agreed it looked fun to play. So I cut some with my collage prints (laminated with a vinyl surface then onto a mat board + magnet sheet) and gave them away to neighbors, friends to test out. It took me 30 minute to finish putting one together and I also found out triangles are harder to push around on magnet. So I changed it to irregular square shape. I also gave up lamination with vinyl on top. Vinyl was to protect the surface from dirty fingers, but it turned out it could be sharp at the edge on the fingers too. So I checked on other puzzle making website, nobody used lamination, so I decided to cut short one step.
Then I cut short one more step. I apply the image directly to a thicker magnet instead of a layer of mat board. Mat board is too hard on the knife.
I started the business in the market, the first day I only sold 7 magnets. Second day, three magnets and one puzzle. Tomorrow will be the third day.
Name is also something I work on right now.
Puzzle D'arte, pack-a-puzzle, message-in-a-puzzle, puzzle-me-this, Magnettos. I love them all for different reasons.
In the market, everything has to be "right on" - people are busy and there are hundreds of little stands. If you don't catch their attention in the first second, they are gone. So what will be the name that catch the eye and the mind?
My new year wish is to make my Pike Place Market gig a viable one by selling both touristy puzzles & magnets as well as my art, and I could  paint and do the art I love while waiting on the booth.
Angels, please bless me and help me get there.

The next

After spening all the time (not to mention the money for the frames) preparing for the show, I made about $400 for selling some prints yesterday. The gallery owner told me some buyers may very possible come back later in the month, but still, a feeling of some kind of loss (not lost) and emptiness.

Barbara reminded me again today, doing art isn't going to make a living. I think unless I can engage my collage with some kind of business ideas.
So here are the things I can do:
1. Go back to the Pike Place Market and be one of the make-do vendors?
2. Aggressively promote my collage to more galleries, attending contest, doing shows?
3. Give art classes? (Two people showed strong interest in taking my collage class)
4. Make and publish children's storybooks with my collage illustration?

I think instead of feeling sorry for myself and worry about the financial outlook of being an artist, I should just do my best until all ideas runs out.

Yes, that's what I'll do.

Jury Selected!!!

CONGRATULATIONS ___CAROL LORD______________________________



The National Collage Society, Inc. jury convened on September 24, 2010 to select collages for the 26th Annual Juried Exhibit. This jury reviewed your slides:


Matthew Kolodjiej, Artist and Associate Professor of Art at the Myers School of Art,

University of Akron, Akron, Ohio

Ellen Rudolph, MA Art History, Case Western Reserve University, Curator of Exhibitions,

Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio

Laura Bidwell, Graphic Designer, Collage Artist, Photographer and Arts Patron, Peninsula, Ohio


This jury selected your collage titled:_________SUN DANCE AND HOME COMING



The NCS, Inc. will retain your slide (if submitted) for our permanent collection. Your other entry (if you had two) is enclosed. If you entered with a CD, it will not be returned.

There were 211 artists with 412 entries – 32 entered with slides and 380 used digital images.


The exhibit will be available globally online for one year starting on November, 1, 2010. The e-catalog will be sent to you directly via e-mail in PDF format. You will be able to print a copy either on your own printer or at a copy center.


Gretchen Bierbaum, President & Founder

National Collage Society, Inc.

254 West Streetsboro St.

Hudson, OH 44236

330.656.3673

www.nationalcollage.com

Occation shots

There are times all you need to do is to aim and shoot, effortless. I think this is one of those:

It's on my way to the Oysters House in Olympia WA. It was 7 pm, streets were busy with cars and hungry people. Wait, let me take this shot first. Oysters can wait, so can you. And it's worth it, isn't it?

Fall is Around the Corner

Or is it here already?

I looked up in the sky on my way out of the door, wait, wait, let me grab my G11, it's just too pretty to pass. Only three minutes later, the red on the tree was gone, leaving the pink sky to lid our walk in the neighborhood.

What a lovely evening.

How disappointed

I thought once my friends sign up to "follow" me, they will automatically receive an email notice from Blogspot whenever I post a new entry. It's not true. I will still have to do it manually.

So disappointed.

All three of Us

This is an image stuck in my head during shooting with my D300. The those northwestern giant trees seem even bigger in the reflection of sunset. Because it's so vivid, this piece didn't take me too long to finish. I call this piece "The Three of Us" - one tree is lonely, two doesn't look right, three is unbreakable. That's why.


I like the multiple layers of the tree trunks. I also like the similar-color patch arrangement around the roots – to give it depth and flow.

I added the very tiny blue lines in the center to catch eyes. Did it work?

Off to my next piece now.

Dock in Sunset

When I was making this piece, my mind was extremely busy.

1. I wanted to try something more abstract with collage. I wanted to be able to paint on my mat board freely without thinking "does this look like a boat? Does that look like the post?" I just wanted to dance (so to speak) with the flow without thinking too much...

2. At the same time, too many other things in real life also were fighting over their territories in my head. Options in life sometimes can be so messy and muddy...

3. And two images came to mind in turns: one is a fully packed dock resting in the sunset I saw in Olympia. The pinkish sunset glow on the packed boats hitting the rush hours before. One is the big orange sun in Northwest last week. I tried to capture it with my camera, four attempts, but I was either too late or too slow or too clumpsy...

So there you go, the dock, the sun, the pink, the heat, the business and the silence... all in one.

As for this piece, this is how I look at it. Don't ask what's this or what's that, just step back, try to only look at what most prominent is to you in the picture, and let the rest take care of itself. This way, a beautiful and peaceful image shall merge out of the chaos. (See it?)

And that's good enough for now.

D300 - on my way to becoming a serious photographer

I bought this Nikon D300 DSLR with Nikkor AF-S 17-55mm f2.8 G ED DX on Craigslist. It comes with:

Sigma EF-500 DG ST flash

2-Extreme III 4gb memory cards

B+W 77mm UV Haze filter

Tiffen 77mm red filter

Domke camera bag

battery & charger

remote

lens hood

Very excited!!!

A different angle

 Tunnel to a dream land.

When we see something from a different angle, everything about it changed.

A note to remind myself.