The painting above, called "Hay in Winter" is from a photo that I took in Lexington, Virginia, while there this past January. It is my first attempt at snow and will probably be my last as I move to much warmer climates in San Antonio. Downsizing hardly describes the current "pitch everything" mode that I am currently in. I hope to arrive in San Antonio mid May and if I possibly can, will be so organized on this end that it will be a breeze on the other. Ha!
I met some really helpful and interesting and kind artists while there. Marcus,an artist who also works for his glass artist friend, filled me in on a number of good tips on galleries and possible locations for a studio. Hank, who has a lovely gallery featuring primitive Mexican work and has been in business at the Blue Star area for 25 years, and some folks that I need to call and get more information from that were given to me by others. It seems that everyone I spoke with was either an artist, knew an artist, wanted to be an artist, or "just loved" artists. It was a very welcoming visit, although terribly hectic and surely not enough time to do all that I wanted.
I have come away after having met so many new people in such a short time in San Antonio, feeling that there is a universal lingo and simpatico feeling among artists. We shared tales of sharing artist's space and the whole "beehive" mentality and the difficulties that go with that. The frustration with the fact that so many people want artists around because they bring huge cache to any number of places, but that seldom does this help with sales of artwork. We commiserated about how snarky other artists can be because so many are easily threatened. We laughed at those who call themselves artists and who couldn't draw worth a hoot and didn't see the need for it. It was like groundhog day again from some of the conversations that I have had in Virginia many times with so many of my artist friends. There are many different kinds of artists out there doing all kinds of interesting and wonderful things that it is hard to define so much of what is being talked about and what is happening in our art world.
Reassuring in some ways because there still is an immediate kinship and understanding that somehow we are in this whole creative soup together.
I'm going to do my best to try and keep up with this blog, but it's going to be a real challenge. Ten years worth of artist's stuff is a lot to deal with. I have lots of paintings I don't want to move....
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