serious recapping

What a week! I need to do some serious recapping. Here goes:

1. A week ago, I hung my solo show at Curtis Memorial Library. First of all, I want to send out major thanks to Patricia Boissevain for stopping by for a bit and helping me with layout/hanging decisions! The Morrell Meeting Room is beautiful. It's also huge and intimidating. When I first walked in, I thought, "What have I gotten myself into?" Three hours and fifteen minutes later, the show was completely hung and things were looking good. I had to go home to work on the title/price list (no tags for this show) and then type up numbers to hang next to each piece. I was surprised to discover that I had 56 pieces on display! It's a good thing I paint every day!

2. Saturday, January 5th was the opening reception for my solo show, and I am relieved to say that it was great! I was worried that people wouldn't show up, but thankfully that wasn't the case. I posted the event on the Five Rivers Arts Alliance Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/FiveRiversArtsAlliance?fref=ts) and the Times Record in Brunswick had it listed in the "events calendar" (www.timesrecord.com); several people stopped by as a direct result of those posts. Family, friends, and art lovers of all kinds were in attendance, and the feedback I received was overwhelmingly positive: the music from Cumberland Crossing was a hit (https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Cumberland-Crossing/103708278373?fref=ts), the food was a hit, and the art was a hit, too. I met some really nice people and got to see others who I hadn't seen in quite a while. I sold four pieces during the opening, and I got a phone call from someone a few days later saying they wanted to bring the running total to 5! The evening flew by, and after the show was over, we went to El Camino to celebrate. Yay!

3. On Monday, January 7th, I hung a two-woman show with Hati Modr at the Brunswick Town Council Chambers. Hati is lovely and so is her work, so it's a real treat to be sharing this space with her. Our work looks good together, too. We both love color, but we both have very different, distinct styles. It will be interesting to hear what people have to say about this show. Anyway, I'm glad I live so close to town, because I had to run home twice to get more paintings and to type up additional tags! I'm also glad I brought my "bag of tricks" with me, because there were no picture hangers on hand for us to use. All of the paintings on display are food-themed, except for one: I hung my "Forget-Me-Nots'' painting because we had a space that needed to be filled and it was the right size...that's one of the ones I ran home for. I think it works, even if it's not a food painting. To be fair, I didn't have too many spare paintings lying around to choose from since I've got work in four different places right now!

4. Last night was the first Brunswick Art Collaborative meeting of 2013, and I'm glad I was able to make it. I was able to make progress on a couple of different pieces, and at the end of the evening, Joanne (one of the members) took out a bunch of boxes that were the same size and shape (they had previously been used for Christmas ornaments). She passed one out to each of us and said she thought it would be interesting to see what we would come up with. I'm excited about this little project/challenge, and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else does!

5. This morning, Hati and I met with Blake Hendrickson at the Town Council Chambers. He took some photos and some footage of us with our paintings for a video to be aired on TV3 as promotion for our show. Things seemed to go well, in spite of the fact that at one point while I was speaking on camera, my cell phone started ringing. Whoops. I don't think I'll make that mistake again!

Okay, I think I'm officially caught up now...and now I'm tired. Good night!