Each year, I make a Christmas project based on the family cats.
This year, Bonnie and Beans were painted on a zipper pouch!
I used Golden acrylic paints mixed with Golden fabric medium (GAC 900). I haven’t heat cured it yet, but would probably only spot clean it, and only if absolutely necessary, anyway.
I’m always interested in how creative people structure their time, so I thought I’d share a little bit about how I work. Especially since what so many people see is just the finished product, and that is just the tip of the iceberg!
My artwork takes a long time to do. Not as long as, say, a photorealistic oil portrait, but it is very process heavy and needs a lot of protected time, as it is not work that I can start, stop and come back to. If the acrylic dries on the plate, it is unusable for my process, and if I try to rush through and end up with an off-center or flawed print, it’s back to the proverbial drawing board, or literal printing plate, to start over again.
So, printing the art itself is something I usually batch over one or two dedicated days of the week in my studio and in that time I can print roughly four pieces depending on the size and level of detail. (It also helps with cat control, as the kittens still aren’t allowed in there and I don’t like having to shut them out more than necessary. One, it makes me feel bad and two, they bang on the walls and rattle the door. I think the house panther is about three “aha” moments from unlatching the doorknob.)
When I’m not actively printing or hand-embellishing completed prints – either for my own work or commissions from others, I do a LOT of research. I would say that a typical week is 50 percent creating the art, 40 percent research, and ten percent admin/marketing/operations which includes things like invoicing, cleaning my work space, looking for and responding to promotional opportunities, updating digital platforms and responding to commission requests (not all of these tasks need to be done each week, thankfully.)
My days are structured like any other workday, usually getting started around 9-10 am and finishing around 6 pm for family and TV time with the kittens.
I sometimes work over the weekends, and I’m always reading on my off-hours, and some of that is research time as well. On weekends I try to recharge and work around the house or go see shows by other artists for inspiration. But during the pandemic I have been mostly at home.
Because my work centers on the Pine Curtain Project, I am always on the hunt for compelling vintage images with compelling stories, ideally that contribute not only to my own family history, stories and memories, but also to the larger cultural history of East Texas. As I wrote in a previous post, I’m focusing on a few main topics this year, which is not to say that other images and themes aren’t included as well. But, I am finding so much information just on these topics, that I am very busy researching, reading, cataloging and analyzing information.
Combining my art so closely with writing and research complicates things in some ways, but in most ways, I feel that it leads to a more rewarding experience for me as the artist, and hopefully for the viewer as well. As a person who likes a little more structure in the day, I feel that this project lends itself well to providing that structure while still leaving plenty of room for the flexibility needed for the creative process to do its thing.
This week, I discovered a few new online resources to help my research:
The JStor academic database, which has a free tier during the pandemic
The SFASU East Texas Research Center online libraries
The Texas Historical Commission library
AND, yesterday, I received my copy of “They Left No Monuments,” a volume of East Texas human interest stories by the late historian Bob Bowman.
I’m just scratching the surface of these resources, but I have already learned so much! It’s really exciting to read this information, find archival images, and think about how it might fit into writing, art or both.
I’ve settled into a routine where I work and write in my studio most afternoons, and in the evenings I dig around online and read. Routine and purpose have been things I really miss about pre-COVID times when my business was stronger. If you are struggling, too, I urge you to just pick something fun to do and dive in. If you have a fuzzy assistant or two to keep things lively, even better.
“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”
― Bob Ross
There is so much room for JOY in art, something that I too often mentally push to the side, overpowered by the daily details and challenges of being an artist and owning an art-centered business. But, when I step inside my studio, see something amazing at a museum or gallery, or discover a new artist whose work speaks to me, even if I’m low on motivation or inspiration, joy appears.
Recently I discovered a local artist’s blog. They write about their studio time, commissions they are working on, sketchbooks and inspiration. No monetization links or newsletter subscription pop-ups, no “thought leadership…” just a working artist who likes to make art, write about art and share their art. How much more simple could it be? But how compelling it is! As soon as I see that the artist has posted a link to their blog on Twitter, I click to read it. This person is not an art influencer in any sense of the word (and that’s a compliment) but I so love to live vicariously through them. And they have inspired me toward a different perspective.
Writing and art. Thoughts. Ideas. That’s what it is, for me and for you and for everyone who creates online, really. These are your creative treasures, don’t reduce them to “content.” And it’s important to remember that just because you create something doesn’t mean you have to to attach a performance metric to it.
But like many other creatives making their way in this digital world, I find that those are hard habits to break. For me personally, it’s hard to pursue an interest or new project without immediately thinking “can I monetize that?” “Can I build consulting services around it?” Which is great for the business side of my life, but not so much the creative.
At the end of last year, I thought that 2020 would be a “sabbatical year,” and well, you know, LOL to that. I picked a word for the year in March and then just didn’t do anything else. And, it’s fine, mostly. But there are still a few months left in 2020, the world still spins (for now!) and I can still add something positive to my life.
My husband continues to work from home and the kittens still live with us, so I’ve been doing a lot of hopping from room to room with my laptop, phone and reading glasses throughout the workday. One goal I have in the spirit of art bringing joy, is to spend more time in my studio not only as a place to make art, but also just as a place to be; to work and write and enjoy life. It’s small and messy, but it has big windows and a comfy couch, and I should be in here more often, if only because being here makes me happy.
The kittens are too little to be invited in, but my little house panther wants it so badly! He bangs on the door and one by one, pulls down the stack of books I’ve placed in front of it to avoid seeing his paws and face in the crack and feeling guilty. It is like being in the panic room of a horror movie when the goblin is bashing its way in. I do see his paws and I do feel guilty! But too bad, Beans! I’m claiming my space and tuning you out, or putting you in the cat room for a few hours. Your sister, too, because you both cry when we separate you. Sometimes it’s okay to redirect distractions, not to be more productive, but just to be happier.
I just love art, and it started to feel silly and disconnected for me to approach my personal art, experiences and thoughts as only things to build a business around or market my work through. How about building a joyful, creative life, which is really what we artists and art lovers long to do? Regardless of the subject matter (not all art is joyful, of course) we love our happy little art accidents, the game-changing breakthroughs and successes, the inspirational discoveries we happen upon and the communities that we work in. Why undermine those joys just because we also want to support ourselves?
Going back to my new favorite art blog; the artist recently named their studio, and I’m inspired to do the same. It’s a fun thought exercise, and really helps add to the sense of place. I haven’t decided on a name yet. In my very early days, I was MollyPop Studios (RIP). I’m not sure that fits anymore.
For the next little while, as I create and read and think, I think it will be fun to consider, not necessarily in regards to a business name attached to the art itself, but as the physical place where I work from. A word or phrase that resonates with me as an artist. A place that feels like home.
Like the rest of the world, I had a hard start to 2020, made harder by the fact that my house was empty of kittycat feet for the first time in nearly 18 years. I missed Molly the most when I was home in a quiet house, and the pandemic made for a lot of that, even when my husband started working from home in March.
I’m not a dog person, and definitely not a kid person, but I am 100-percent a cat person, in case that isn’t obvious. I missed Molly so much, and so many other changes coming after her death just made it harder. Everything was different. At Christmas we had a Molly, I had a career that was going somewhere. James was working from his office, which gave him the social interaction that he needs, and me the necessary time and focus to successfully work, write and create. We had planned a year full of travel, fun and forward motion. And then, of course, it stopped. And while we still have our health, most of our income, and the basics and many extras of the life that we enjoy, we have lost a lot, too. We both lost close family members in the first part of the year, and even our neighborhood still looks weird and a little bleak after the tornado that blew through in October 2019.
Molly was my first cat, so I hadn’t been through this process before. I still missed her so much, but over time, was also opening up to the idea of bringing something good into the still too-quiet house. But, had enough time passed? Would I be able to love potential kittens for who they were, or would they be “not-Mollys,” which would be unfair to them?
A few weeks after Molly died, I was out with friends when James got home from work, It was the first time that he had to experience coming into the silent house without me or Molly in it. He was greeted by a little black cat, a House Panther, who approached him, scratched a little bit on the welcome mat and then walked away. We had not seen this cat before, and have not seen it since. But James felt, and I agreed, that maybe it was an intermediary, sent to tell him that Molly was okay and that there would be more cats in our lives, and that would also be okay.
When we started putting “cat vibes” out into the world, I didn’t care what the kitties looked like, where they came from, if they had three legs or one eye or anything like that. I just wanted cats that were healthy and didn’t hide, and I wanted two, so that they could have more companionship than Molly had, especially as we plan to resume travel in the future.
We jokingly began looking for kittens under bushes and in ditches on our evening walks, and I even had a song, “Where are you, Kittens?” set to the tune of “Where are you, Christmas?” that I’d sing around the house.
And there’s a song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, “Our House,” that I’d listen to and feel so sad. “With two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard, now everything is easy because of you…” I wanted easy. I was ready for it. In my world, I felt things would feel “easy” when the cats came, because the noise and the feedings, playing, misbehaving, all of that would make the house feel normal, and normal was close enough to easy.
So, in early May we went to East Texas for my Auntie’s funeral, and I got a lead on some cats. On my birthday, the 15th, we decided it was time to choose two, and the next weekend, we met my mom, cousin and aunt in Athens, Texas and picked Bonnie and Beans from a huge cat carrier where they were lounging with their siblings.
Beans is a black kitty, a House Panther chosen not only for his expressive face, but also because he reminds us of that little kitty of hope that visited James in January. Bonnie’s bright eyes and “fairy ears” charmed us immediately. Being Texas cats, they have Texas formal names: Bluebonnet, and Bosque Coffee Bean. But Bonnie and Beans for everyday.
Now everything is easi(er). Easy? No way. We are still in a pandemic. James is still set up on his laptop in the middle of the living room while I carve out a few hours here and there to try and pick up the pieces of my career and creative practice with the ground still shifting under my feet. Covid is still raging and now it’s in my home community in East Texas, which is scary because there are many fewer resources there, and the population skews older and more fragile. I don’t know when we will travel again – we have planned trips and canceled them at least three times in all this, and I’m really sad that I won’t be going to LA this September to see the beach and art adventure, and to see my old friends, and meet their new baby.
But we have the kittens, and with them, a routine. Kitten food, play time, naps, more food and TV time before bed. They don’t know anything about a pandemic, they just explore and romp and play. They are fun to watch. They’re lap cats who love toys, unlike Molly, who was of course still perfect in every way. Having two, it’s fun to watch them interact. They take turns tossing a toy mousie around, and they love to be carried from room to room in what we refer to as “the royal procession.” Sweet Beans has attached himself to James, and Bonnie runs around chortling like a delighted banshee. They are happy cats. It’s nice to feel like we are doing something right. When things feel so hard, it’s nice that something is easy.
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