Winter Hiatus / Do-Over

This year has not started out so great.

A lot of health stuff and subsequent realizations about health and people...and then some significant lifestyle changes...and then deciding that we need to make decisions because of all that stuff.
Not a high fun quotient.

During all of this I also made some bold decisions about my photo art, including cancelling a solo gallery show.
I know; there are a million people who would kill to have their own gallery show...who would do whatever it took to secure that...and I go and cancel mine.  Aye yi yi, right?

Well good. Maybe by cancelling I opened the door for another artist to get a gallery show of their own.

I cancelled the show for a couple of really good reason (see above, paragraph #2) but there was one more reason that got me off the fence when I was stuck in indecision about whether to do the show oe not for awhile:  I just don't love doing them.

I don't love the prep involved especially to someone else's standards.  No surprise there as I have never done well with rules.

I don't love giving away 30-40% of the profit and having to up my prices to make up for that. This is probably a really big primary reason that I won't be doing galleries for the immediate future (I reserve the right to change my mind at a later date) as I strive to keep my prices low enough so that the art is available to almost everyone.  Changing that goes against the core.

I made the decision that instead of gallery-type events, we're going to do a handful of art fairs and festivals.

We'll get to set up our only little world inside and around our 10x10 tent and I can add some of the other things I'm passionate about like my painted signs...and have a fun, eclectic site that we are in charge and control of.  I'm way more suited to doing things that way and when/if I get overwhelmed by noise and people, JP will be right there to take over.  The truth is that my creative endeavors are a partnership with him and could never even happen without him.  He loves being a part of it and when I do gallery-type shows all he gets to do is lug all the heavy crap even though he can talk about my artwork almost as thoroughly as I can.

Simply, we operate best as a team so I'm doing less "I" and more "us".

There is one thing on the agenda coming up that "I" will be doing because he can't help with it:  I'll be giving a talk at the Trenton Free Public Library in October, so those of you who stalk me might want to take the day off of work that day or have one of your operatives show up for you.  I'll be talking about my artwork while also talking about how to see things in this visually-saturated, high-paced world we live in.  Or something along those lines.  Who knows, I still have months to plan it.
In my former life as a senior editor of reference books, I used to speak before quite large groups on a regular basis so I'm not really freaking out about this.  At least not yet.

You can check out my event page to see what fairs and festivals are coming up...for us.

Going forward, I also plan to amp up my writing, although it hasn't waned at all even through our recent trials and tribs.  I've been writing and publishing under a pseudonym for years and that i$n't going to change but I want to do more earthy writing as the real me.  This raises the fun quotient significantly.

I might even find some time to update and add to my poor website, which has been languishing half-done for months.  Bleh.

Where does the time go?