Home for the Holidays?

Since making money is the first priority of any self-respecting human being, without adequate support outside of one's self, I have taken on a temporary job for the holiday season. At first offer, it appeared to promise to pay relatively decently, and at a rate I could accept for the time being. The hours also appeared to be something worth doing, but they don't quite seem to be stacking up. At first I thought this might be pretty nice really, yet now I think is it in reality?
Since, I also have a slim shelter resource where my housing needs are concerned, I would very much like to be able to save my earnings for the time-being. Will this be a first in many, many years, or is it not going to make even the barest cut?
For now, the goals stated in the last two posts may be on hold because current employment represents another turn that will require imagination, to correlate it to the goal of employment in the curatorial world of art.
It is too much on my shoulders alone, being thrown from one off-beat, distracting frustration to the next. I sure wish I had a reasonable network of friends and acquaintances.

So far, this all is adding up to the ludicrous. Even so, I must keep on... plug, plug, plug.

The Artist, created in Adobe Illustrator, 2006

My own responses to an imagined availability from PAM

Since it has been more than a week from my last post, I would really like to just move forward and give myself the opportunity to develop the solutions already in my open letter, with an offer to assist PAM's development department_ by researching and writing a grant that brings artists in as residents, docents, teachers/trainers, to expand their programming and fill in the gaps or extend the dreams of the museum, or to meet their needs, or to fulfill their short or long-range planning.

• I will follow that up with doing the research to learn what the goals and dreams of the museum are, as well as where their strengths and weaknesses are, in accomplishing these goals, etc.

• Interviewing teachers, fine art directors, or their docents are good ways to find out stuff.

• Then, I may make an appointment with PAM’s Director of Development to outline or brainstorm this in person, and leave my résumé.

• Finally I will find a need, and offer to work one day a week or more, if I choose, for free so that I can get a feel for this environment to see if I’d really like to work there!

My assessment is, this is all about having a mutually respectful chance to be heard and seen when applying in the first place.

study after T.H. Benton, prisma colour

An open letter of inquiry for the new Director of the Portland Art Museum

I am a new artist in transition to the Portland area since June of this year, having moved from another Western Oregon town in the Mid-Willamette Valley. I have been planning on this move for many years while I have been a full-time single parent. During those years, I accomplished many tasks in order to develop the skills I would need for my new life. It is with the help of friends, that I was finally able to afford my epic moment early this summer.
Upon arriving to the city, one of the first contacts I made was to the Portland Art Museum because this is the institution in which I really want to be employed and pursue my art career.
Yet, as a result of the quality of my employment inquiry experiences, through the website initially, and as well as in person by phone, thus far_ I write this as an open letter from my blog to Brian Ferriso, Director of the Portland Art Museum.

My inquiry is this: why, as a new artist to Portland, would I want to be ultimately negatively impacted by something of a standardized statement: that the PAM is inundated daily by too many artists seeking employment within her walls?
I hope that you very carefully consider that as an outsider and new arrival_ my perspective may offer fresh consideration that is worth your time.

What I think is that here is an institution on the verge of its own success, yet this institution is perhaps inattentively engaged in an unwitting habit of throwing away its own riches!

The obvious solution seems to me_ IF one is inundated with an overflow of offers to help then, why not assign a currently motivated administrator to apply for the size grant that would provide the funds to HIRE all of us educated, motivated, intelligent, and talented 'inundators?'

We can do the menial tasks within the institution to free up the talent at the top, so that you can all get on with the success of the Portland Art Museum, and assert her potential for a real change! Personally, this is my motivation for being employed at the PAM.

Innovatively invest in your institution's success, Mr Ferriso. We are living in times in which it truly takes all of us, to participate in the process of how everything in American society moves successfully toward a quality of life that is again people-centered.

I hope that I will hear back directly from you, very soon!


L'orgie du printemps, oil

The road to resettling

Having one's own room; home; a place one can lock and unlock the door_ is everything.

Land of Plenty Series, oil

Now a first-timer of First Thursday

First Thursday was a wonderful experience to the extent that there was great receptivity to my work, that all of my business cards disappeared, and that my prices were equally seemingly well-received. Having directly tested my work in the marketplace, I believe that last detail about prices can be trusted...
So naming the reality of the artist/ single-mom in transition from deep healing, to much deep nurturing, into the world of work, etc... One simply cannot finance an American life as a single woman who is NOT, dependent on "male" income-ability_ by compliments alone. Wish it were true. But then how else can a general maturity concerning the desire to consciously surround a life in beauty, occur? What are you worth? These are incredibly worthy thoughts!
A cognizant sense of response-ability is what distinguishes the collector of art from unconscious frenzy trend-following. Art is a tradition of work, rich in history and work ethic that makes room for the entire being in the process of creating, no matter who one's employer might ultimately be; Pope, Emperor, self...
The cost to me to set up my booth is enormous right now. Saying so quite forthrightly, I must respectfully request that one's perceptions which may be rooted in that traditionally pedantic sense of unresolved Puritan shame-reactionism; concerning HOW to define and accomplish the fruits of one's labor, as only looking like the expected mainstream defined sources of work-for-pay_ I forthrightly request these reactions be kept to oneself.

Can American people of socially mainstream/ traditional perspectives begin to do this kind of self-observation consciously?

Ok_right here, right now_ that is that. Stress over everything on the tenuous bridge of transition swallows up one's ability to breath, and get enough oxygen to the brain that could otherwise bathe one's capacity for inspired thought were one able to breathe without undue stress! So, come on America, stop being so insecurely stand-offish about intelligent cultural reflection. Do you like my work? Then, I say, get on with solidly matronizing/patronizing my work_ I have a life to live, and messages of beauty to chorus into the betterment of this world! Reacting can go on ad infinitum, such is the drastic battle of the ego identity in it's false belief that letting go to wisdom, means some dramatically final death... reaction can just be a stuck place, simply put. Trust yourself more_ clearly resolved of reaction!
I am also grateful to have been at the First Thursday in The Pearl street booth event, as I would not have these experiences to respond to, otherwise. For these alone as it turns out, I am the richer, and wiser! You, the onlooker? What have you taken away in your eyes that consciously connects you to your heart...?
Which brings me to the observation that this blog may need to begin an evolution for the purposes of being in a "more" public, professional context: strictly focused on the images for instance. But not to hastily will I adjust this particular detail just yet. One's differences in communication, perception, etc... is so layered and varied, and hence complicated that this kind of switch may be prudent only in the long run after all. This realization too, came about last night as result of the experiences of being there_ thank-you Portland, sincerely!


Waiting, oil

First Thursdays for newcomer and ungalleried artists

I have spent a little time since arriving in Portland with some of the painters who regularly keep booths at the Saturday Market. What I have learned from them respectively, is that First Thursday in The Pearl is a good place for artists without gallery representation to show and sell original works, and actually make money.Hence, I am throwing my hat in that ring this coming Thursday since it is the first one of August.
Traditional employment is not panning out with any efficiency, and so my efforts to be a cross-over or cultural hybrid income production-wise are stuck in the inertia of social goo.
Maybe returning somewhat to my true calling out in the marketplace will, if not meet the requirements of the universal life force, attract the support of guardian angels at least...
In Corvallis, I have been blessed for nineteen years to have the benefits of a relationship with a very special matron to my art work_ at ninety-seven, her name is still Hope. Perhaps Portland will be so benevolent. Perhaps a few of my dreams of a community that is seeking my work will begin to come toward what I do, in this bigger pond. To be sure, I am the newbie here, and still dusted with the inner idealism that is most easily preserved in small town life, particularly over thirty years.
As always, there is also the opportunity to be that patron, and pledge a guardian angel's support to my fiscal sponsorship account! Thanks for your continuing or developing vigilance concerning your own educational exposure to art appreciation, and proactive collecting, and for your continued support for all the arts that enliven your quality of life in healthy, and meaningful ways!

Just Another Girl from the Neighborhood, oil

Adjustments

We have been in our first semi-permanent home for almost two weeks. More tomorrow!
It is July 18th, and adjustments indeed to city life take some doing_ the job search goes on. I wish I had the wherewithal to back up enough to be able to see the big picture right now.


Ce Chignon, après Eva Gonzales, graphite