When I put up my show at My Wine Cellar in 2012, after roughly a 20-year hiatus from painting, I had been painting for about a year straight. I knew I had to find some venue to showcase all the work that was piling up. So I dropped by a local restaurant that showed original art, inquired with the waitress and was handed a business card. As she instructed, I sent an email with a link to my Web Site to the email address on the card, and I got a show. That was pretty easy, the work was mostly ready and I just had to tweak it and mount it. It was a successful show. There was a lot of pent up passion in the work, and my audience had been following it, and they kindly showed up at the opening reception and I sold a lot of work. I also sold the next 4 paintings I painted following the show just on the momentum.
Last year was similar. I had a bunch of work that needed to be seen and I solicited Pita Jungle. The curator from Pita Jungle called me about mounting my work in Chandler and I said yes. I arranged a reception and there were sales to my client base, and also sales to Pita Jungle’s patrons, and my year ended very well as a result.
But my opening in July will be different than those experiences. I received a request in late February from {9} The Gallery about a show in July. I was hesitant. First, it opens in July. Nobody wants a show in July in Phoenix… But I got past that by rationalizing that the show at My Wine Cellar opened in July, and it had done well, so good things can happen in July. The other issue was that because of the exposure of Pita Jungle, a lot of people had already seen the work I had in stock, and you just can’t open a show with old work. So I had only four months to develop the show.
My usual painting speed is two canvases a month, interspersed with some smaller work; dog portraits, and things like that. For some artists this may be very slow, for others, it may be fast. I think artists paint in their own unique rhythm. My natural rhythm is slower than the rhythm I’ve been painting in recently. This accelerated painting was fueled by a lot of inspiration because of the opportunity to have my first gallery opening in a long time and the professional prestige that comes from that. My goal was to get 12 pieces done for the show. I came up with this number by looking at the space, estimating the size of the pieces and also, allowing one existing work to be in the show because it’s strong and fit so well within the theme. I succeeded in completing 12 new pieces in record time. I am now happy but emotionally spent.
Another BIG difference in this experience is that I am used to continual feedback when I work. Part of my rhythm after finishing a work is posting it on Facebook. I can gauge the piece by the reaction it gets. Not many people have seen these works. My students have seen many of them, they actually gasped at a couple of them, and they also continued to come to class during the process, so that has been encouraging. My sister has seen some of it, but she doesn’t count, because she’s programmed to be nice to me by bloodline. The same goes for my friend Linda DeArmond, who is always too kind to me. My photographer has seen them as I took the whole show in to be photographed yesterday. He did a lot of complimenting, but then, he wanted to get paid.
But YOU haven’t seen them. If you have been paying me any attention at all in the last 4 months, all you have seen are detail images like the partial image on this post of the work “While You Sleep”, and I’m tired of that. I want you to see the WHOLE THING! I’m dying to show you the whole show! And I know it’s July, but I hope you will come and be my audience for these never before seen works. Only then will this show be a show. When it has an audience.
“Flora and Fauna” – July 3rd at {9} The Gallery – 1229 Grand Ave, Phoenix AZ – 6 to 10 PM – Be there, please!
I am calling Gary, my son, today to make a date to see this show! I am excited, too. I thought it was going to be in ASU’s downtown gallery on Central but this is close, too. Just down a block from Mollie’s showing. Gerry