Inner Peace

"Seek peace. When you have peace within, real peace with others will be possible." - Thich Nhat Hahn

This weekend I have been searching for peace within. To heal from being beaten and bruised emotionally from others. I hope you all are able to find some peace for yourselves as well and to be able to move forward in a positive energy for the week to come.

Thanks for reading,
*J

Art Event

My friend Sean has organized an ArtOff to happen here in Traverse City on Saturday June 14th from 7pm-10:30pm. Artists have 3 hours to create a work of art which will be voted on by the audience with a silent auction to follow, benefiting Little Artshram. The audience will vote on best of show and the winning artist will walk away with a cash prize! It will be held above Right Brain Brewery in the Warehouse District; there will be drinks and appetizers.

I've reserved my seat as an artist, now I have to decide what to draw/paint for 3 hours...in front of an audience. I'm super excited about this event. (In the last post, I was complaining about the lack of good arts events in the area. Funny how things work out.)

If you are an artist in the Traverse City area and looking for a different type of challenge that ultimately benefits a good charity, please send in your reservation. And if any of you are in the area on that Saturday, please come to the party, please come support the artists.

See you there!
*J

Four Years Have Passed.

Pictured Rocks, Lake Superior

Pictured Rocks, Lake Superior

"Backbeat the word was on the street
That the fire in your heart is out " - Wonderwall, Oasis

I miss Marquette. It has been four (FOUR?!) years since I've graduated from college. How did that happen? I really am having a hard time accepting the time lapse. Not returning to classes every fall is very strange, as is not having a large group of artists around. No studios, no one in my same situation struggling to express themselves visually. No one to talk art theories with over coffee. There's no more art lectures or artist talks, no major exhibit to work for. And certainly no professors hating your work. I truly miss it.

I have attempted to join and become involved with the artist community here in TC, but most artists here are retired and do not possess the motivation I feel I have. They struggle to exhibit their work in spaces around town and there are barely any art talks or lectures. Exhibits are few and far between. Most arts events are scheduled during the day hours, the hours which I am working a full time job. Can anyone explain to me how I am to attend the watercolor workshop or the ceramic lecture at 10 am? Or 4pm? I work 8-5:30! Come on, I can't possibly be the ONLY artist in town having to hold a full time job? And I most certainly cannot afford to take the time off to attend the event. Hmmm, pay the rent or attend an art studio class?

During college I was highly motivated to exhibit my work and was excited to talk with other artists about their process. I held the President position for the Art Student League for two years. And I truly believed being the President of an organization would help me stand out from the crowd of job applicants. WRONG. I graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting with a minor in Ceramics. And struggled to find a job. Maybe I should have moved to Chicago or New York. These past four years have been a struggle for me to keep producing my art, and to surround myself with like-minded artists. I feel like I walked across the stage at graduation and immediately lost my art circle. I am an island.

This past weekend I visited Midland, MI with Mr. Wonderful. His brother and sister-in-law live there. His mother, sister-in-law and I went shopping downtown. We wandered into a wonderful little art gallery named the Northwood Gallery and I spoke with the Gallery Director, Mia Dvornic. She was very knowledgeable about the local arts scene and we spoke about the arts community in TC. I touched on my frustration with the arts community here and she said "Well, maybe you should do something about it. Be more involved. Make them change." Maybe I should. It just seems like such a daunting task. I remember how difficult it was to motivate my fellow art students to be involved. I'm just not sure if I'm up to putting that much energy into an art group again, but I'm beyond frustrated with the lack of arts events in the area. I need other motivated artists around me to help keep my motivation high. I'm sinking into the "not painting" mode again. It's not that I don't want to be painting, I can't find the motivation to do it. It's a sick cycle. I love to paint, it re-energizes me, but I struggle to keep it the front runner of my activities.

This is not the life I was supposed to be leading after graduation. This is not what my college promised (sold) me! I was supposed to land some awesome job just prior to graduation and be making $50,000 a year. Ha. The ugly truth is that just because you attend all your classes, you are on time to every class, you are engaged in extra-curricular activities and spend sleepless nights with your head in your books or in your studio does not guarantee you anything. It most certainly will not guarantee you a job after graduation, nor will it guarantee your circle of friends. College is a guarantee for debt, and barely anything else. Getting a job/career has nothing to do with classes and everything to do with networking and butt-kissing.

And the twisted part is that I miss it. I'd like to go back to my ignorance: attending classes, learning, producing art, having a nice space designated for art-making and a circle of awesome artists. I'd like to be living the lie, blissfully unaware of the impending reality soon to come.

Thanks for reading.
*J

New Drawings

"And remember, you can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead." - Winston Smith


Above is the car drawing I promised so long ago, back when I lost my camera cord and couldn't upload the photo. I estimate this drawing took me about 8 hours total. I am currently debating adding color to it, but this most definitely will be made into a painting. I already have the canvas prepped for it.


This drawing is from a magazine ad for shoes. I am such a shoe-aholic it's not funny. I just needed some relief from the cars for a while, so this drawing came to be.

As side notes:
I am still researching the Orphan Bill.

A few weeks ago, Danny at Dad Gone Mad requested comments to his blog with links. I am an avid reader of Dad Gone Mad, Danny is an awesome writer and has a great sense of humor. (Definitely take a minute/hour/days to read his blog!) A fellow blogger DeeDee at Random Ramblings has compiled these blogs together in one place, it's quite the list! If you have the time, check them out, there are some great bloggers out there. I have a plan to sit down later this week and check them out and thank those who have commented here. I appreciate all of you who read this and leave comments, you don't go unnoticed.

*J

New Path to Follow

"Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work. " - Robert Orben

"What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it." -Lee Iacocca

I have taken a new position with a design/sign company! I cannot wait to start and make a real difference somewhere, to go to work in the morning and actually care about what I am doing, have some pride in my work and feel some respect for my employer. This has been a long time coming; I wasted two years of my life with a company who didn't harbor one ounce of respect for me personally or my creativity.

I'd like to thank my friends and family who have supported me in this long and increasingly unhappy time as I worked to change my place of employment. I have only 11 days left until I start work in a better place. I vow to never again stay working for a company who cares so little about me or my coworkers. If I am going to spend 40+ hours of my week working for someone else, with my hard work ultimately benefiting someone else, it will be in a positive environment. I deserve to be a happy worker. And so do you. If my statements resonate with you, please, I urge you to make some positive changes, it can be done.

*J

The End of the Copyright, the Orphan Works Bill

"Apparently a bill is pending in Congress that would virtually strip all rights to creative works from artists, designers, musicians, you name it. The bill has been referred to as the ‘end of copyright’. Currently and since 1976, in order to be more compatible with international copyright laws, if you have created something you do not have to pay to protect it. It is automatically considered so. Under this new bill apparently, this would change, whereas if you wanted your work legally protected, you would have to pay to do so. If you could not pay or afford to pay, then your work would be up for grabs by (most likely) people with more money than you. Nothing you create would be protected and putting anything online would be placing your work directly in harms way. You would have to pay to own your own work or that work would be deemed an ‘orphan’ and available for use by anyone willing to pay the government the right to license. The scariest part is that this also encompasses anything you release online, which for many of us is our best work because we use the internet to promote ourselves to potential employers and contractors.

The legislation was introduced about 3 years ago and, rightly so, has been difficult to pass. The bill is being reviewed today and could pass very soon. My question is how do bills like this even get introduced into legislation when they fly in the face of working Americans? How broken is our system?"

The links for more information about this:
Senator Leahy’s full text release of the bill here
Wikipedia’s Orphan Works entry here
Advertising Photographers of America’s page fighting the bill here
General information about the bill and it’s repercussions here

Please take action here.

Please also visit Artemis, she has posted about this bill as well.

This bill makes me completely sick to my stomach. I cannot focus my thoughts adequately to post my reaction to this yet. My livelihood is in serious jeopardy here.

*J

The Kentucky Derby & Meeting the Family

Walking past to get to the fence, at 8am workers are setting up flowers.


The "rich" area, hidden behind the large screen.

For one of the races the horses run on the grass just beyond the hedge. Blink and you'll miss them!


Another race on the track.
Mr. Wonderful's friend and sister-in-law. Great people.

Mr. Wonderful (red hat) and his brother contemplating their bets.

The weekend was awesome. Friday morning Mr. Wonderful and I left Frankfort at 7:30am and stopped in Grand Rapids at the GRAM, the Grand Rapids Art Museum for the Andy Warhol exhibit. Very interesting exhibit, go see it if you are in the area. There were many pieces I was not familiar with Andy doing, and I have read a lot on him. Sorry no photos, the museum banned photography. The museum itself is gorgeous, very spacious and lots of natural light. I have two complaints: 1) grates in the floor. LOTS OF THEM. As some of you know, I HATE grates...cannot step on them. Each room had about 4 long grates in the floor, I was constantly stepping over the grates to get to the artwork; I'm sure security wondered what the hell I was doing. 2) metered parking in front of the museum is expensive and when your time runs out the bat signal must be sent out for the meter cops because I had a parking ticket on my car. We were five minutes over. 5 MINUTES PEOPLE. Jeez. And 25 cents gets you 10 minutes. Ouch.

After the museum, we stopped in Holland to pick up Mr. Wonderful's friend and change cars. In Midland, we picked up Mr. Wonderful's brother and sister-in-law. Drive for hours. Get to Louisville, KY at about 9pm to another friend of Mr. Wonderful. This couple's home was gorgeous, beautiful wood floors, big picture windows, house sits into the side of a hill, has 2 decks overlooking a large drop-off into the woods. And the decks are built around a tree! Three other friends met us there, most of them stayed up all night.

7:30am Saturday we leave for Churchill Downs, the racetrack, park at the University of Kentucky football field and walk 5-6 blocks to the gates. At the security check, I think I made the security guy uncomfortable; he asked if I wanted a female officer to pat me down, I declined (what's the big deal?). He patted me down and looked really uncomfortable doing so. Hehe.

Walk through the tunnel (about 1 block) underneath the track to get to the infield. It had rained the night before so the grass was pretty soggy and the area was muddy. We set up our tarp on the grass and the fold-out chairs right near the fence on the turn past the finish line and the guys proceeded to place bets on the races. Mr. Wonderful's sister-in-law & I got to pick the names we liked best from the list of horses for each race and the guys would place a small bet for us. The guys won the first race, but didn't win any of the others. I jokingly said we were going to be millionaires from betting on the races and if we didn't win, then send all the horses to the glue factory! For the Kentucky Derby we bet that Eight Belles would win, she came in second place and then unfortunately was put down after falling on the track. (Cue jokes about me sending the horses to the glue factory.) We didn't see her fall or be put down, thank goodness. I couldn't have handled that. The energy was enormous when the horses ran out of the gates and quickly turned melancholy when Eight Belles found misfortune.

Overall, the Kentucky Derby was amazing. The grounds were beautiful, massive amounts of people showed up, the mint juleps were good, the rich people wearing their hats and seersucker suits were fun to watch and I learned how to read the stats on horses. I would definitely do it again. Mr. Wonderful's friends and family are a riot and I think I made a good impression.

We left the Derby after the 12th and final race. Mr. Wonderful made $6 on Eight Belles, but I told him we didn't want the "blood money". Walking back through the tunnel with 50,000 other people was fun. (Read: I HATE CROWDS. Especially being stuck in a dark, damp tunnel with drunks who are screaming, making the tunnel echo. And then a light bulb went out half-way through the tunnel. Mr. Wonderful probably has bruises on his arm shaped like my fingers.) We stopped at Mr. Wonderful's aunt & uncle's house for the night just outside of Louisville. Sunday we met his other sister-in-law and his niece for lunch. You know, so almost every family member can meet me and decide if I am good enough for him! Again, I hope I made a good impression.

So the weekend was perfect. And most of his family has met me, all except his oldest brother and parents. I guess his mother is grilling the family for info, Mr. Wonderful is not giving her enough to work with! Too funny. I highly recommend the GRAM (Don't park in front of the building!), the Kentucky Derby (Wear pants. The weatherman may say it will will be 76 degrees but he must have not factored in the wind.) and Kentucky in general, it's a beautiful place.

Thanks for reading,
*J