happy 4th

Finally moved in to the new place, stuff is everywhere! Mine and his, we are going to take this extra day off and spend it sorting, organizing and working to make our new place a home. The cat is tweaking with all the changes.

I have an art cave that needs to be set up properly but once it is it will be awesome. Our kitchen is huge and I can't wait to start cooking delicious meals and trying out Indian recipes!

As for artwork updates I have fallen in love with a new brush pen and as soon as my scanner is hooked up I will be posting all the drawings from my tiny sketchbook. I have also started a large painting of myself nude, but not sure about the comfort level of showing it. I want to push myself into a place I've never been before comfort wise and I don't know if this is the way to do it. I also want to experiment with big dripping paint and hyper realistic areas, a mix of loose and tight that I cannot seem to achieve. Try and try right?

I have a positive attitude about the new found changes in my life, there is no looking back, only moving forward.

priscilla project

So, I had an old painting in a show recently in B-lo. It was only for a day or so, I didn't even get to post about it before it happened. It was to benefit the Priscilla Project, an organization that helps underprivileged women.

her name is Etta

news and stuff

So, it's been a while since I uploaded anything....because I'm lazy. Lots of changes are going on in my life some good and some unexpected and tough to deal with. Let's catch up, shall we?

I'm relocating to a bigger space sometime soon, I'm looking for an apartment as I write this actually. I'm really looking forward to a new space because with that comes fresh beginnings and also opportunities for redecorating! I love my tiny apartment but it's time to move on.

I love my job, business has been great and all of our customers down at Merge have been a blast! I recently made a new friend in town from LA doing a show at Buff State. His name is Eric Schwartz and he is a very funny comedian, check out his stuff on YouTube. He likes pineapple juice. ALSO, we are totally organic now and the food is amazing. Check out the Merge website for events and our new spring menu. (wow, I sound like a commercial sorry.)

I recently started doing P90X exercise program and getting back into shape. I've put my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu studies on hold for a few months. The aggressive mentality needed to succeed and tackle obstacles I run into while training became too draining for me. I look forward to getting back on the mats when I'm more mentally prepared, right now I'm stretched a little thin. I'm trying to take care of myself physically and mentally.

While some really bad things have happened to me in the past few months I'm trying hard to simplify my life while simultaneously realizing that life is infinitely complicated. We are all touched by death, loss, regret and hopefully, if we are lucky, love. It's all a part of living and while I don't LIKE the shitty parts, the great parts wouldn't be as wonderful.

new directions

Recently, I quit my 9-5 to work part time and focus on making art with the ultimate goal of applying to grad school for my masters in painting. It seems that with more free time comes fluidity that I'm not accustomed to. I'm working on trying to buckle down to follow all the little paths that interest me.

Figure painting is my number one obsession and what I plan to build my portfolio around. I started a painting of my friend Lacey, who was kind enough to come by, dress up and sit for me. Like most of my projects after I get about 1/2 way through them I realize a lot of things that I should have addressed in the beginning of the project are starting to make the project unravel. So, I'm back to square one with my Lacey painting. How do we try and realize whats going to be a real problem with our materials, our set up, our reference, etc. BEFORE it rears it's ugly head?

In other news while I want to continue to paint friends and interesting persons I've tentatively started to think about the possibility of a deeper body of work. While my friends and family portraits will concentrate more on color, design, pattern, technical ability and story telling I plan to work on a more personal project related to the major changes I have gone through within the past 6 months. It's difficult to look at yourself as an artist and say the only thing really grabbing my attention right now is myself and then try to explain that to people without sounding completely narcissistic.

I plan to make these paintings large scale at least 5' tall I only have one concept for the first but I'm hoping as I ask myself more questions, watch more Art 21's and talk to more artist friends that will help get the ideas going.

art auction

Tonight at the Buffalo & Erie County History Museum this little guy is going to get auctioned off. Half the proceeds go to the Historical Society. Artists were asked to submit samples and chosen to participate. The artwork had to be themed around Buffalo, NY. To me Buffalo is a unique city in that it was razed around the blue collar worker. As a transplant from the much larger more urban city of Boston this was an extremely intrigueing quality that I wanted to explore. My painting is of a car man, actually my coworker's dad (thanks Mike & Amy!) he works on the railroads in the area. I'm sharing the honor with about 50 other artists so if you come down to the History Museum for 70 bucks you get food catered by Oliver's and a live auction experience.

impact artist gallery women's national exhibit

Hey there sports fans. I entered a show recently as you might be able to tell from the title of this post and joy of all joys I got in! Not only that but I received Second Place out of 60 submissions, so eat that whomever told me I was not good at painting. A small contingency of women in Buffalo think quite the contrary. I won a nice little amount of money and an added line for my resume, hooray!

I am submitting another painting for a show at 464 gallery on Delaware called "I to I". I'm working on some more portraits on skateboards and will be moving to a new location that will kick start me working on my grad portfolio.

Lola, my cat, has been very vocal about all these things because she can't seem to contain her meow's. Either that or it's almost feedin' time...feedin' time.

japanamania

I have a ton of travels planned, well, not a ton but the one I do have planned is a doozy. I'm going to Japan and in order to help foot the bill for this little caper I'm applying for a few grants. Sure, I'll have to like, do 'work' while I'm there then organize a whole exhibition of said work but it would be almost free! Here's some work that I sent in with my application for a grant with our neighbor to the north, good old Canadaland.

Other than that, I hope you had a happy valentine's day.

show time

I submitted work to a local art gallery for their Impact Artists' Gallery 2009 Women's National Show and it got in so I will be showing the above painting sometime in the spring.

I am now going to make a lemon tart.

363 more days

No resolutions will be made here, maybe just a few attainable goals. I like this girl's ideas about resolutions. The holidays are over and I feel like I've run a marathon when really I have just been stuffing my face and sitting around reading Twilight, again (!).

Chris and I hosted a New Year's Eve party that was so much fun. Quiet with some good friends and nice conversation. A lot of people didn't make it out because of the weather so I feel like we need a redo.

This weekend I have plans to attack my paintings and try to loosen up a little more, so check back for reworked work. I'm also going to be entering a show for the spring at Impact gallery so I'll be gathering some older work together for that since it's got to be postmarked by the 17th. It would be nice to have at least one show on my resume!

-S.

a fork in the road

Not to sound all melodramatic but the time has come: I'm scrambling to apply to grad school before the January deadline...take bets I don't know how this is going to work.

Check for frantic paintings I'm going to put in my portfolio that I'm sure won't even be dry by the time they get photographed.

Just in case, there is always next next fall.

Update: I just got pwned by my AIB professors all of which told me to wait a year and get my shit together basically. Thanks Amy Sudarsky for putting things in perspective, but I'm still interested in skateboards!