i’m gonna keep this short and sweet and will probably flesh out both of these points later in longer posts.
#1 – i have high quality #RESIST stickers, DIY yard signs (spray paint stencil on coroplast), and so far a handful of handprinted grey 90/10 cotton/poly heathered gildan unisex crew neck tshirts with blue ink for sale. message me with any interest and i’m happy to answer questions and/or hook you up. these are kinda basic tshirts that i can get locally at michael’s and a few other places so even if i run out i can probably go find more of them in whatever size you need. the unisex sizing runs from small through 3xl i think though they were out of 3xl when i went there, so i only have up to 2xl right now. if you need 3xl i can try to find some. these will be $20 plus postage. i am still sorting out what other brand/style of shirts i will do pre-orders for for a future run, so stay tuned if this kinda basic heavyweight unisex t is not your jam. (they will likely cost a little bit more though cuz they will be 100% cotton, lighter weight and probably premium quality.)
#2 – i have signed up for my second year of taking CVP (the creative visionary program) from art2life because they offer an 80+% discount to alumni to repeat the course and i didn’t really finish some of it last year and need the jolt of energy it provides to motivate me in the studio going into this year. i will write much more about why i decided to do so in a later post.
full disclosure: art2life like many companies has an affiliate program that pays out a percentage if you get new folks to sign up to CVP, and i have signed up for that affiliate program. so i will be writing a much longer entry about what the program and art2life in general has done for me and will tell you more about all that, but for now i just wanna tell you that art2life does a totally FREE week long online workshop to introduce nick (the creator and head artist/coach) and his philosophy of teaching art and to get people just making some fun art together. at the end of the free workshop they tell you about CVP if you have interest; if you don’t, then you got a free week of art instruction and hopefully made some fun art and learned a thing or two without any obligation.
the free art of your life workshop will be from march 3rd – 7th. (really bad timing for me since that’s mardi gras week, but fyi all the online sessions are recorded and sent to you via email so you can always do them later.) if you are an artist and want a fun week of working with thousands of people around the planet on some art prompts, or even if you aren’t an artist and just wanna try it out, have some fun with whatever materials you have on hand, and get a taste of this kind and uplifting community, or just find out what i’ve been going on about for the past few years with art2life, go ahead and sign up using this link that’s highlighted. as an affiliate i of course do not make any money off of you signing up for the free class but they do give prizes for the affiliates who get the most signups to the free class, so if you are even thinking about taking it, just go ahead and sign up using my link so i get credit for it cuz maybe i can win some free art supplies! (you can always unsubscribe from the emails if you decide it’s not for you.)
but seriously the free workshop is really worth doing, especially in these dark times we are in right now in the US. the upbeat, supportive community and coaches really raise your energy and for me it’s really inspiring and motivating – it’s not just about how to make art but how making art can help your life. i myself will definitely be tuning in! if a bunch of folks i know take it then we could do a little group to talk about it and share what we make!
anyways, more on all that soon but figured i’d put it out there as early as i could since people need to plan. and like i said, for my new orleans folks, you can always get caught up on the class after mardi gras – it might make a perfect post-mardi gras activity.
happy mardi gras everyone! attend your local protests! call your representatives! make some art!
this year has started out weirder than any other year i can remember. first new orleans starts 2025 in literally the first hours of the first day by having a domestic terrorist attack in the french quarter. many people killed, even more injured, by a radicalized military vet from houston driving his truck onto bourbon street full speed at 3 in the morning while new year’s eve revelers were still partying, running people over. thankfully the bombs he planted didn’t go off or there would have been a lot more casualties. it was an awful way to wring in the new year and we all woke up so stunned and saddened that morning.
then of course the inauguration of a fascist president, which thankfully was overshadowed here in new orleans by a once in a lifetime weather event – a blizzard across the gulf coast. we got 11 inches of light fluffy snow at my house and many places around the city measured 12-13″ even though the official count out at the airport was only 8″. the city was shut down for 3 full days – no work, no driving cuz we don’t have the infrastructure to clear roads quickly, just playing in the snow, being vigilant about our pipes and water pressure, trying to stay warm, and watching all the local meteorologists have the best days of their life. it was magical and cold and nerve wracking all at the same time.
the snow has melted and the rhythm of the city has gone back to normal. the last few days have been about digesting the flurry of awful coming from the tyrant in the white house. i’m not going to give much space to talking about him or his administration, but the reality of what this country has voted for is starting to settle in now sadly.
as for me? well i smartly made a choice to go on a break with one of my afternoon clients while the other one was in puppy training camp so i could have my afternoons free to be in the studio. it’s worked well in general though i didn’t get much done with all my extra free time during the blizzard cuz the snow was just so distracting. but for the most part i have maintained several hours of working on various art projects each day. well except for the week that i decided to switch phone carriers and had a clusterfuck of issues that required me to be on the phone with customer service every single afternoon for almost a week. and then there were the few days right before the pussyfooters blush ball – the mardi gras ball i attend every year that always has a theme which requires some crafty accessorizing – when i was working on pink-and-orange-ing shoes and belt buckles and cowboy hats for this year’s western theme. but still, i’ve done well this month with art.
is anything finished? no. but i do have many new pieces in process which i hope to finish soon. i took bibby gignilliat’s mixed media online course as it was a self-paced, low $ investment offering that i hoped would give me some tips and tricks for dealing with collage as the basis for mixed media painting. and it did! honestly there wasn’t a whole lot more info than one can glean from her instagram reels but the lessons were more fleshed out and you get to see her make some pieces from start to finish. i just love her style and energy and while i don’t want to be “copying” her i do want to use some of her techniques and build upon them for my own interests.
above are two of my mixed media pieces on wood panels that are in process. i kinda like where they are now in a minimalist way but i think they need more to make them interesting but i haven’t figured out what exactly. i thought sitting with them for a few days would help but honestly i now wish i’d just kept going as i think this kinda mixed media work is intuitive and all about energy and i clearly had some good energy flowing the day i made these. now i’m a little stuck in that don’t-want-to-mess-it-up place but i need to just do something to get back into these.
simultaneous to working on about 7 different mixed media pieces like these i also started playing around with some small 6″x6″ collage pieces, since i had all my scraps out. i was covering up old canvas board tiles i call them, ones that didn’t work or i just didn’t like. and i had an early success or two so i thought i was onto something… but similarly, i seem to have lost the energy for them as i went on to try to make several more and they aren’t coming out as good as the ones that i just did spontaneously.
above are the first two spontaneous ones that i really like. i kept it to a limited palette of black, white, red, kraft paper/brown bag and newspaper print. the black and white really pop in contrast to the muted browns and beiges and the red adds some interest/energy. hopefully i’ll be able to salvage the other 3 i have going so there’s a little set of them. they are good exercises in composition.
the month is almost over and i’m not sure how i’m feeling about possibly losing my afternoon studio time, or some of it. i have some pet sits coming up which will eat into that time as well. i welcome these warmer days post-blizzard though because it’s very hard to motivate myself to get in there to work when it’s 30-40 degrees outside cuz it’s not much warmer in the studio, even with the space heater on. so hopefully this will be a productive week.
this is already a very long post so i’ll stop for now. more later. i have more on my mind to share beyond this little catch-up session.
just a quick post to say that RESIST stickers are back in stock!
i’m in the process of setting up a big cartel web shop but it’s not quite ready yet so in the meantime, i’m happy to do this old school.
these stickers measure 5.5″ x 1.42″ so not as big as a traditional bumper sticker but big enough to read from a distance. they work great on cars but also scooters, motorcycles, skateboards, laptops, water bottles or anything else. they are uv-coated and weatherproof and fadeproof. they last forever – i still see lots of these all over town from 10 years ago when i first made them!
they will be $2 each. 3 for $5. 6 for $10. 9 for $15. 12 for $20. i will cover USPS first class postage for up to 10 stickers, which means i’ll throw them in an envelope with a stamp (or two). more than that and i’ll have to charge you a couple bucks because it’ll have to go in a padded envelope at first class package rate. if you want it to get there faster, like if you are hoping to stuff a stocking for christmas, i can send it priority mail if you want to pay for that, but not sure it’ll be guaranteed to get there. obviously if you want to pay for overnight or some other service like UPS or Fed Ex i’m happy to do so with the caveat that my pet work schedule is ramping up after this weekend so the closer it gets to christmas the less time i will have to deal with this. so get those orders in fast!
if you’re local to new orleans, just email me and we can work out a pick up/drop off and you can pay by cash or venmo/paypal.
venmo = @mags504 or paypal = artbymags@gmail.com. send them as friend payments so i don’t have to pay fees, please.
if you’re not in a hurry to get these, feel free to wait until after the new year when things aren’t as hectic. i won’t run out. i got a large order and will re-order as necessary. would love to see these all over again like i did during the asshole’s first term in office.
first, my efforts to add woo commerce to this website and host my own web shop have been short lived. apparently installing woo commerce somehow fucked up my site to the point where it wasn’t even loading. i tried to diagnose the problem but that’s way above my skill set so i just uninstalled it and the site seems to be back to working just fine. i guess i will have to investigate other means of e-commerce or pay someone who knows what they are doing to set me up with some kind of a basic level shop on my site. (if you are reading this and you do that kind of work, message me so we can talk.)
in the meantime i’ll probably do what i’ve often done which is just use my instagram feed as a means of showcasing anything i have up for offer with a first come, first served message-me-and-pay-by-venmo (or paypal) sales model. so stay tuned. i will try to give everyone a heads-up if i get my shit together. i need to order some frames for the 12″x12″ wood panels and i have so many paintings that need finishing so i’m just not sure what if anything i’ll have ready to go for holiday season this year. though i would very much like to sell some art to free up some space in my tiny one-room studio.
second, the election. well, what can i say? if you know me you already know what i say. yes i was a little bit surprised but not really. this country continues to show itself for what it is. we were all stunned last time; we shouldn’t be this time. i’ve taken the last week to feel my feelings, be shocked, depressed, despondent. i didn’t sleep several nights this past week. but i’m slowly coming out of shock and getting resolute about the things that need to be done, especially practical things that need taken care of before 47’s inauguration. things like renewing my passport (expediting that shit so it’s good for another 10 years), making a few medical appointments that i otherwise might have blown off (cuz who knows how long i will have my obamacare health insurance under the new administration), getting all my vaccinations (covid/flu, maybe shingles?) getting my car in for servicing, etc. i want to be ready for anything in the new year.
what else? well i’m heading into my busiest part of the year for my pet business, which is why it’s always hard for me to get it together to sell art at this time of year. thanksgiving is looking to be busier than usual and it just doesn’t stop all the way through christmas. yes, i am so so grateful to be busy. but also, i don’t know how much art i will be making or selling, but maybe i’ll find some bursts of energy in some of the momentary lulls.
oh, and since a few folks have asked, in case you didn’t see me post about it on social media, yes i will have RESIST stickers (pictured above) again. and eventually shirts and maybe some other gear. i’ll post again when the stickers actually come in (2-3 weeks) and after i’ve dug out my printing press from the corner of my studio so i can get back in tshirt production. i’m also hoping to come up with some new designs that speak to the moment we’re in, though i don’t yet know what those will be. but i feel it’s one of the things i can do as an artist to help boost folks’ spirits and gird them for the battles ahead. the #resistance lives and needs a wardrobe. lol
ok, i think that’s it for now. hang in there friends. more soon. thanks for reading.
the last few weeks have been a lot, and have given me much to think about.
one of my human clients, craig coenson, died. he was the husband of a couple who’ve been my clients consistently for 13 1/2 years, 5 days a week, pretty much since i began my pet business, dog walking and frequent overnight petsitting. so over the years i’ve become friends with both of them. it’s a friendship based in one particular context, sure, but in that many years we’ve seen a lot together – things that have happened both in the world and in our lives. it’s a certain kind of intimacy that is shared when you work in someone’s home and care for their beloved animal family member(s). so it was shocking and upsetting to me that he died so suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep one night. he was 63, very fit and vibrant, but did apparently have a heart condition. i guess it just gave out.
you just never know when your time is up. any day could be your last. accidents happen, or health issues – known or not, managed or not – can take us at any time. craig died way too young, too soon. i’m sure he had all kinds of plans for his future that won’t ever come to fruition now. i grieve his loss and feel so much empathy for his wife, kathy, and all of his family, friends and coworkers. he was very loved and will be missed.
his abrupt death has really made me take stock. as i wrote here in this blog not too long ago, i’ve already been far too aware of how quickly time is passing now that i’m older, that the days ahead of me are fewer than those behind me. but craig’s passing has been a reminder that no tomorrows are guaranteed. that you better do the things you want to do in your life sooner rather than later, and be sure to tell your people that you love them every chance you get.
this having happened is the backdrop to the next thing i’ll tell you about. a few days ago i went to a social/info session for jazzfest crafts artists. it’s something i became aware of last year as my friends debra and karen – karen is an amazing artist who has exhibited at jazzfest for many years – invited me to go, but last october i was on vacation in new mexico the exact week the social happened, so i missed it. luckily they invited me to go again this year, so i tagged along just to gather info and take a step in the direction of maybe someday applying to be a jazzfest crafts artist. it was definitely out of my comfort zone. but it was low key. i met a bunch of other artists, some who have sold at jazzfest before and some who are new and applying for the first time. the jazzfest crafts admin folks gave a little presentation and answered questions about the application process. so i now know a lot more than i did before about the nuts and bolts of applying and being selected to sell art at jazzfest. everyone there was very encouraging and friendly. i’m glad i pushed myself to go.
will i apply? i could… it would take a monumental amount of work to pull it together for this year though. applications are open now and the deadline is the 3rd of december. but probably not, not this year. one of the requirements is to submit a photo of what your booth would look like, with all your work in it. i do have some finished pieces but not enough to fill a booth, and none of them really look like they were made by the same person! i simply don’t have enough to give jurors an idea of who i am as an artist… which is sadly still something i am trying to figure out for myself.
i still haven’t really found my style or groove with abstract painting. every time i think i might be onto something, i change directions and want to do something different. do i want to paint solely abstract and focus on texture and color? do i want to do mixed media incorporating collage and/or found objects? do i want to do abstract folk art? do i want to paint on canvas? wood panels? paper? do i want to go back to silkscreen and/or stencil printing? work with the gelli plate? all of the above?? my adhd brain has me bouncing all over the place every single time i make it into the studio and i no sooner start working on one thing than i want to switch to something completely different.
all of this is a long way to say, i really don’t think i’m ready to apply to something like jazzfest. i just don’t have my shit together. most artists at least have some semblance of a style, a reason they create what they create, something they are known for – either a style or a subject matter or even a process. i have a hundred styles right now, none of which are refined or honed into any kind of consistency. i feel like i’m still in the make-a-lot-of-bad-art-until-it-starts-getting-better phase, and i still have a ways to go.
and yet, i can so clearly visualize it all, largely due to the fact that i used to be a crafts artist and did the art market scene to some extent with my stenciled stuff back in the post-katrina days. i can visualize completing the application, photographing my work, putting together a booth, and even the logistics of being out at jazzfest. i can visualize everything except the actual art that i would be selling. that’s the sticking point! so i guess i should just use this new knowledge about the application process as a way to motivate myself to work harder to get my shit together for next year. to keep making lots of art until it starts to make sense, until i start to understand what my motivation and style is. so i can articulate that. because that is part of the application… and part of being an artist.
so yeah. yesterday i finally got back into the studio. it’s been a while. life has gotten in the way and i’ve gotten very good at procrastinating/resisting creating, or really even stepping foot into my studio, lest i have to confront all these big thoughts. i spent much of the day in there, tidying, setting myself up, and painting. working on old stuff. working on new stuff. i have so many things in process/unfinished. it did feel good to be painting. but it also feels super frustrating to spend the whole day in there and not feel like i made any real progress on anything. sure, it was therapeutic to just play with paint. but if all i’m doing is playing with paint, performing art therapy on myself, then i probably should just give up this dream of being a successful artist one day and just be in the moment and enjoy what i’m doing. right?
that’s my struggle really. is all this – all the classes, the art supplies, the playing with paint, mixed media, gelli plates, etc. – going somewhere? is it my learning and gestating phase, before finally coming into my own as an artist where i am able to make an income again from my creativity, cover the cost of renting a larger studio, and cut back or quit the pet business? or is this it? am i just using the process of creating as part of my wellness routine? ideally the answer would be that it’s both. but it would alleviate a lot of self-imposed stress if i just let go of the hopes and dreams part of my art being the way i make my mark on the world and leave a legacy, or of it being my retirement plan.
sigh. sometimes i think those hopes and dreams are what keep me alive, keep me looking to the future, striving, continuing to be curious, give me purpose. sometimes i think they are holding me back, keeping me in a future that might not ever happen and preventing me from being here now and being fully present, enjoying every minute. do other people have these existential debates in their heads? other artists? or am i just an overthinker?
i woke up this morning really sad that i have such a busy work day that will keep me out of the house almost the entire day and into the evening. no time in the studio today. most of this week will be like that too. october is the start of busy season for the pet biz that won’t stop until january. so if i want studio time, i will have to steal it in 20-30 minute spurts in between clients or in the dark of early morning or evening, which generally is not when i like to create. (my studio is not well lit in the darkness, and being a leo, i am ruled by the sun so my energy is lower when it’s dark.) will i go another few weeks before i spend time in my studio again? i hope not but it’s a possibility. i just have to keep reminding myself that our tomorrows are not promised, so i should do what i want to do today while i’m still here. and if making art is really want i want to be doing, then i need to be doing it.
time just keeps flying. why is it the older we get, time seems to move so much faster? i guess it’s because we’re more aware of the eventual end of our own personal timeclock, even though we don’t know exactly when that will be. we do know that there’s less time left on the clock than we’ve already experienced. and i don’t know about you, but that weighs on me every single day.
sigh. well here we are in mid september. i’ve survived yet another hurricane hitting new orleans, francine. it was really quite a minor hurricane, a cat 2 only momentarily so mostly a cat 1. and the whole southern side of the storm on the other side of the eye wall had no rain, just crazy winds. but those winds were enough to make my power go out at my house at 11:30pm on the night after most of the storm had passed, and the power stayed off for exactly 36 hours. long enough to melt all the ice i’d frozen beforehand in the freezer to help keep it cool; long enough to require me to spend $25 on ice trying to keep the freezer going and to fill up a cooler with the stuff from the fridge; long enough for all that ice to start melting and some of my food to go off, resulting in me getting really sick after eating a frozen pizza that had meat on it which i thought had remained frozen, but i guess not. yeah, that was no fun. i really hate throwing up! so now i’ve thrown out all the stuff that was perishable from my fridge and freezer cuz i don’t want to have that experience ever again. it was very unpleasant. and expensive, as i’d *just* done a $150 costco run the weekend before. oh well.
anyways, i thought i’d be happy to have a few days off work (wednesday, the day of the storm, and thursday, the cleanup day after when many still didn’t have power, including me) and that i’d get some painting done, but that didn’t happen. turns out sitting in my unairconditioned studio, even though the temps outside were pretty bearable, isn’t very motivating.
i never finished that last series of mixed media paintings i talked about in the last post. they’ve gone to the not-done pile that is almost overtaking my tiny studio space. but i started a new series, covering up 4 older 16” x 20” canvases that weren’t going anywhere. i decided to let the thing that’s been exciting and motivating me the past few months – politics – inspire me in the studio. last week before the storm i rather spur of the moment had some play time in my art journal – something i haven’t done in a really long time. what i came up with was a sort of deconstructed american flag.
i really hate the color combo of red, white and blue. i’ve always thought it quite garish. and i’ve recoiled from patriotism in any form since a child. i hated having to say the pledge of allegiance and often did not, even in elementary school. something about being forced to do so never sat right with me. so the democrats’ current effort to “reclaim” patriotism doesn’t really work for me, even though i have let myself get a bit swept up in the vibes of kamala’s campaign. but flag waving patriotism is not something i can get excited about. however i did decide that using the colors of red, white and blue and playing with the elements of the flag while adding one of the themes of kamala’s presidential campaign, “freedom,” might be a good art challenge.
i ended up really liking how it turned out and so thought, well, i have all these ugly canvases sitting around just waiting to be covered up – why not try to do a series of actual paintings based on this same concept? the thing that started it all was that i (re)discovered a bunch of protest signs i’d printed out on heavyweight paper in 2016 for various street demos against trump’s “winning” of the election that year. one of them said “democracy is dying, do something.” so i tore off the “do something” part, thinking of michelle obama’s dnc speech this year, and glued it down with gloss medium onto one of the canvases that i’d painted blue. and then i added some stripes, though i ended up not liking the original fatter stripes and went back and made skinnier, messier ones like i did in my art journal, which i’m still not super happy with but it’s closer to working. and i started adding all kinds and sizes of stars with the eventual goal of having 50 or maybe even 56 to include the territories.
i’ve added more since i took this picture but it gives you an idea of where i’m at with these. there are 4 canvases and the others use other slogans from the current presidential campaign like “hope is making a comeback,” “a new way forward,” and “joy.” but “do something” is the furthest along as it was the first i started and feels like it has the most energy to me.
i’m not really sure where any of these are going or if i’ll even finish them but it’s been a fun challenge to wrap my brain around. i spent some time this weekend creating my own collage papers with paint and then cutting out various sizes of stars to collage in on these canvases. i think that is working but i feel like the paint/background needs more layers so some will likely get covered up and i’ll have to make more. the composition is lacking something – maybe just some really big stars, not sure – but i keep playing with these whenever i have a little time.
(i still think red, white and blue is awful but it’s made a little less garish by layering and scraping several different shades of blue with grays and whites and creams for a more distressed look. these canvases have a lot of texture on them from underlying layers since they are cover-ups so that is helping.)
what else? i’m still in the art2life academy but haven’t really utilized much of its resources beyond the facebook group. not sure i should stay in it but every time i think about quitting i find some videos in the vault that i want to watch, so i don’t. nick sure is good at marketing! lol
louise fletcher’s free find your joy taster course came and went. i signed up for it just so i could get the emails with the video links and i watched some of them while painting but didn’t actively engage with her prompts. and had no interest in going through FYJ the full course a second time, despite the deep discount for alums. my year-long access to FYJ 2023 ends today so i spent some time last night downloading all the pdfs and copy/pasting some of the lesson info so i’d have a record of it if i ever want to go back to it. i like louise and will keep following her on youtube and her podcast art juice plus i get her newsletter but i don’t think i’ll be taking any more of her courses.
nick also had his free taster course breadcrumbs which i also signed up for but didn’t really engage with other than to listen in on some of the videos of live events. his free taster is the lead-up to the paid spark program which i did in 2022 and enjoyed but i have no interest in doing that again, especially when i still have access to all the CVP material that i really need to go back over again.
i have a stupid busy work week this week so not sure i’ll have much time in the studio. it’s always the challenge – how to make time to paint when what i do for a living is get paid to give my time to other peoples’ pets. i racked up a $750 emergency room bill from the fall i took in my backyard in july so i need to work as much as i can to make the money to pay that off, but it leaves me sad and pining for my studio time.
it being september i am already thinking about how to use the holiday shopping time as a way to sell some paintings but at the same time don’t feel like i have a lot i’m proud of and wanting to sell. last year’s “open studio” was fun and made me a little bit of cash but my house really isn’t set up for it and i don’t have the energy or the setup/supplies to do an art market, so not sure how i will do it. maybe some kind of online sale/drop is the best option for me. we’ll see.
that’s all for now. thanks for reading. i’ll write again when i feel like i have something to say.
