Mask:  Unicorn, clay wall sculpture, hand made, one of a kind, 12"t x6.5"w x 4"d, by Tammy Vitale $125

This mask was originally made in 2005 and I find I have no picture of the original.  The name, Unicorn, comes from a crystal I had placed between her eyes.  Her eyes were painted differently then.  I’ve never been really happy with her and have had her out but she hasn’t sold (a pretty good indication she wasn’t happy either).  She sort of looked cross-eyed.

So this morning I went down in the studio with the intent of bringing up one of the new raku masks to photograph for today, but I got sidetracked matching it and the other raku mask I made last Friday with pieces of redwood driftwood I got from HealingMagicHands of The Havens.  And I can’t photograph them because they’re drying with heavy pieces of wood and the mask so I have to leave them quiet for several hours.  Oh, and crystals.  One with the original crystal from this mask.  Which means I had Unicorn in my hands and got to thinking about what to do with her.  So I repainted her eyes, did some more work on her finishing adding warmer and cooler colors for good shadows and gave her that earring and the stones over her eye, which seem to uncross her eyes (it’s an attention thing – fool the eyes into seeing what you want them to see).  And here she is, ready to be re-presented to the world and I know I’m happier with her looks and hope she is too!

I have resigned myself to my new hotmail system and am working unhappily with it.  At some point I’m going to scrounge around and see if I can find another system that I like better.  I have had 4 recommendations for gmail (google mail) so that will be at the top of my list when I go researching.

Spent much of the weekend at the annual AnnMarie Garden Artsfest 2007.  Since I didn’t apply this year (tired of sending in my $25 yearly and getting turned down, except the year of Isabel, when I got accepted but Isabel did in the show.  They rescheduled the following week, but I had my own show going then and so couldn’t participate), I joined the Calvert Artists’ Guilds’ double tent.  This was the first year AnnMarie Garden (see a video I made of the Garden earlier this year here ) invited the local artist groups to attend.  A good move:  they need to support more local art.  Local artists (self included) helped them get the show off the ground back in the mid 90s.  So as they grow, perhaps they are recognizing they need to return to including more of us too.  I should note they offer a room year round for artists to sell their wares.  It’s pretty much do it yourself, but it is a spot to show for a weekend, and sometimes one needs that!

It was an interesting weekend.  I learned much.  I ran into many old friends and almost all of them named other places they have seen my work locally.  This is great.  My work is noticed and known.  I got a great new recipe for glaze from Gayle Cochran (The Pottery Chick – any of Alyson’s folks visiting?  How about that for a catchy tag!), who does pottery working with slabs.  I may have to buy a different clay to get it to work like I saw it work on her plates (none of that particular glaze are on her website but she has some lovely work there.  Be sure to go look).  The glaze will make a gorgeous torso (we do such different work it will be great to see the outcome.)  As I find again and again, clay workers are generous with their information.  Gayle also shared that many of the lovely designs she gets on her platters are from flocked wall paper designs.  Lace I know and have used.  Flocked wall paper?  Who would have thought!

I ran into another friend.  We know each other through our now 26 year old sons.  We don’t much travel the same circles so it was great to run into her.  I’m going to talk to her a bit about the local Chamber of Commerce (you may remember I have joined the Solomons Island business group – cheaper.  Marci is an outreach person for the Chamber and she reached out!  So we’ll talk.  They ARE expensive for a sole proprietor artist – but this is my year to go for it!)  And there was the usual assortment of folks I always run into at these art things, which is always fun.  I sold 2 tiles and a raku mask.  And I also got some interest in one of the torsos I had up.  So it was a good weekend.  And the weather cooperated magnificently – neither too cool nor too hot: just right.  And no mosquitoes.  A real gift from the Universe.

I will finish up with the part-time job tomorrow (I expect a 10 hour day) and then I can really begin to focus on my art business.  The part-time job helped me make it through to 59.5, and I can now access my IRA without penalty (and I’m going to do that because it will allow me to focus on my art without worrying about $$ and then my art will make up the difference.  I know this.  Hey, Universe, you listening?!)

thought for the day:  …there is no ready vocabulary to describe the ways in which artists become artists, no recognition that artists must learn to be who they are (even as they cannot help being who they are.)  We have a language that reflects how we learn to paint, but now how we learn to paint our paintings.  How do you describe [reader to place words here] that changes when craft swells into art?

Artists come together in the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice their art alone.  Period.  That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share.  The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but the similarities.  Today those similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity – audience, critics, economics, trivia – in a self-conscious world.  only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art.  The rest may be necessary, but it’s not art.  your job is to draw a line from your life to your art that is straight and clear.  David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art & fear:  Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking