visual artist – One Life Fine Art Blog

Time to Plan (your Art Show) for Better Times

As I write this today it seems half of Calgary is shut down to limit the spread of COVID-19 and the shops may as well be for the amount of stock left on their shelves due to panic buying. My daughter’s university practicum is cancelled, putting her educational plan in limbo, and I am worried about the safety of my mother and her husband on her upcoming trip to Calgary from out of province. They are in the high risk category for complications if they were to get sick. So although I think my household could handle the illness, I will be following the suggestions for social distancing and hand-washing. I am doing that so my older family members don’t get sick, and so I don’t have to self-isolate and miss out on my mom’s visit, should she still choose to come out (I would totally understand if they decided to postpone it though, given the circumstances).

For me social distancing is not a huge problem as my children are not little anymore, I don’t regularly commute for work or work around others, and I had no big events lined up for March. I can play it by ear for the smaller gigs I do have coming up. However many of my peers in the arts are seeing their shows, performances and day-jobs go on hiatus while the world implements extraordinary measures to flatten the curve on COVID-19. Many are uncertain of how they are going to pay their bills, as they don’t fit into the standard employment categories. I am hopeful that recently announced government assistance to workers in the form of paid leave and EI benefit waiting period waivers will somehow be adapted to assist the creative workers who have seen their engagements cancelled as well.

They have poured all of their love and effort into their ventures, only to see something completely out of left field wipe those plans away. It is not something that an artist can plan for. Global pandemic is not usually a SWOT Analysis consideration for these ventures. All we can do is make our best laid plans for what is likely and hope that the odds will be in our favour when it comes to opening day.

As frustrating and futile as it may seem at the moment, now is the perfect time to have faith in the future and start making plans for that next big project. If you are at loose ends with all the cancellations going on, now is the time to make some art, and make a plan to show that art. I have already seen one 30 day challenge circulating specific to COVID-19 response, with discussion about having a charitable auction or show of the results. So go ahead, get in on that, make some art and plan that show for better times!

Here is a video I made to help you get started putting your art show plan together:

Subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss the series as episodes are released. Stay healthy, make some art, and get ready to get out there again when the time is right.

Art/Life: Monday – Friday

I am so close to releasing the video about planning a timeline for an art exhibition. Behind schedule but still on task, and planning to have that uploaded for this Friday, but in case there are further delays, SUBSCRIBE to my Youtube channel so you will not miss it when it finally does come out. In the meantime, I recorded a wee video diary over the week I began the research and script for the above mentioned video project:

You’ll see in the video the foreshadowing of future delays on that project. But I really was not thinking of this video as an explainer for my shocking lack of adherence to self-made deadlines. Rather when I recorded it I was thinking about providing a window into my workweek for all the people in my life who don’t have any idea what I do as a full time artist Monday to Friday since I am not producing reams and reams of art like a human printer, or clinking wine glasses at art openings every night.

This diary represents a limited window as my typical workweek does not usually end on Friday, and if I seem tired in the video clips, it is likely because I am; I recorded them at the end of my workday, usually between 10 and midnight. Although I do aim for balance, I don’t always achieve it.

Fellow artists with day jobs and/or young families (believe me I sympathize, I have been there) look wistful while saying “it must be nice to be able to make art all day,” and family simply cannot conceptualize that at middle age I am no longer able to handle being up to 2 am every morning and all weekend to finish writing proposals that I deferred so I could do things with them or for them “because I am just at home in the studio/office anyhow.”

If you are my family and you are reading this, know that I still love you and still love spending time with you, I just can’t be your ‘go to’ person with time during the day. We can visit in the evening or on the weekend, just like we would if I were in an office or shop somewhere Monday to Friday 9-5.

Aside from the assumption that studio time is free time, the idea that as an artist I spend all day making art is misleading as well: As a picture framer (my former day job) I spent all day making picture frames, so the idea that as an artist I would spend all day making art is logical. However I was hired to fulfill the service being sold while the business owner dealt with administration, vision, strategy, and bringing in customers. As an artist I am both the business owner and sole employee. I don’t hire someone to make the art while I concentrate on selling, promoting, marketing, administering etc. etc. etc. Potentially, I could produce a painting a day every day for all 260 working days of the year, if that were the entire scope of my job. However the majority of my week as a working artist is spent on activities that support the studio financially and lead to the opportunity to make artwork. So networking, marketing, developing projects and writing proposals, which may (or may not) result in the creation, exhibition, promotion or sale of artwork.

Hopefully this video gives part-time artists an idea of what to expect when transitioning to being full-time. You may not be making as much art as you think. In fact you may be making more art now, in the tiny pockets of time you currently have, as it is not split between art and administration. I also hope this video gives non artists, who have artist friends/family, an understanding of why you may not see them (me) more often.

Are you a full time working artist? What does your 9-5 look like, and what do you wish others knew about being a full time artist?

Happy Family Day Alberta!

Because families start with love:

I love that Family Day follows Valentine’s Day here in Alberta! Because, as the song says, (insert name here) & (insert name here) sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G; first comes love, then comes marriage (or whatever relationship definition works for your reproductive unit), then comes (insert names here) pushing the baby carriage. So in honour of that special bond that grows between two people and then is shared with the next generation, Happy Family Day from my family to your’s!

I hope you will enjoy watching this Valentine’s day video that I published to my youtube channel for Valentine’s day, and that it inspires you to encourage your next generation to pay the love forward as well!

A Valentine for the World

I’ve made 6 new sunflower seed paintings remind you to share your love with the world! I’ve published a new video to Youtube for Valentine’s day documenting the process of creating all six and I encourage you to subscribe to my Youtube channel so you don’t miss that. Remember to sign up to the sunflower project if you have not already by visiting my website here.

Medium of Exchange:Process HUB@302: March/April 2021

Its a bit early for a SAVE THE DATE announcement, given we are looking over a year down the road, so I am just putting it out there that the show we have been working on putting together for over a year now, Medium of Exchange: Process (a follow up to Medium of Exchange: Debt (2010)), has been invited by the Alberta Society of Artists to show in their gallery! Jesica Campbell, Penny Chase, Jessica Hauser, myself and Koren Scott, will be mounting the exhibition at HUB@302 in March/April of 2021. I will be documenting the development of this show here and on the One Life Fine Art Studio Channel in a series of videos and posts exploring how to mount a collaborative visual art exhibition like the Medium of Exchange shows. I expect the first video will be published later this month. If you are not already subscribed, you should follow the link to my channel and subscribe so you don’t miss that series.

A Better Butter Tart (painting).

So This is what happens when an initial idea doesn’t pan out on a canvas. Originally I was going to do a series of small paintings with a recipe card for pancakes overlaid with agricultural and ingredient images. It just wasn’t working, so I abandoned the set after the base sketches were done, and decided to re-use the canvas for these lovely little food still life paintings depicting Canadian heritage treats with tea, books and various items. So here is the first of three of these original oil paintings shown being painted directly over the original sketch. Speed-painting and time-lapse painting video’s of the other two paintings will be uploaded to YouTube in March and May, so if you would like to see them as well you should definitely subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Back to 2018: New/Old Video

2020 Revisits 2018

I discovered that I still had some footage from a 30 day vlog project I was recording in 2018, testing if I wanted to do this video thing. It turned out that I had way too much going on at that time to juggle a regular vlog, and so I shelved the footage. In between then and now two thirds of the footage went missing, but what remained was still an interesting look back for me as I reflected on what happened to those projects and involvements, and how they affected 2019. Now that I have decided to work on my Youtube Channel for 2020, I thought it might be fun to do a rewind and update video based on that test project. One thing I realized watching the footage, I love that haircut! It might be time to book a visit with a hairdresser.

One Life Fine Art Studio Channel UP NOW:

My Youtube Channel is up and I have a favour to ask: I have polls on each of my first 3 video’s to ask what you would like to see in future videos? Please go to the channel, watch a video and answer the poll when it pops up. If you don’t have a youtube account that’s Ok, you can leave your comments here for me instead. Thanks a bunch for helping! Here is a “time lapse” from the Sunflower Project: