Tying Up All The Loose Ends

Yesterday was Hannah’s last day in an office cube and today starts our new life together, for those of you out there who want to know what she does here at Art By Nemo here’s an interview I did with her. I finished painting the sides of the Art-O-Mat blocks and Hannah wrapped them and got them ready to ship on Monday. Here is last year's and here is this years:

We should have all commissions and stuff we need to ship shipped. Most of our magazine subscriptions have ended. We have knocked out as many bills as we can. Most of our stuff is all packed and we have started cleaning. Its getting really exciting around here.

So with out skipping a beat we are hard at work this weekend getting ready for the OKC show on the 4th, 5th and 6th making as many smaller pieces as we can, Hannah is drawing the drawings and filling in whatever she can and then I put in all the circles, it’s a good system we have (maybe one day I will make a video showing how we make a piece of art). We have 4 more days to be here in CO before hitting the road. But we have shows booked till March and April. We go from CO to TX to NM and AZ then over to CA and showing work are way up till we are in CO again in May for Downtown Denver Art Fair.

Since everything is going to be crazy till we get to TX, I might not blog again till after the OKC show and hopefully it’s a good one and a good blog. Well till then keep an eye open for when I’m in your town and come on out and say hi.

One Week To Go

Here we are at our last week in Denver and I wanted to say a few things about our stay here. I can't believe its been a whole year and about 3 months. Its feels like just yesterday I was spending my first weekend drawing chalk art on the streets in Denver’s LoDo area. A lot has happened since making those connections that day. Denver has been really great to me and my art. I did about everything I wanted to do here. The only thing I didn’t do (only cuz I was so busy with everything else) was to find a gallery to represent my work while I’m on the road. I’m really pushing this last week to find something, but I’m not sure I have enough time. Oh well, we will be back in May with a brand new body of work and at that time I should have the pick of the galleries.

So we sold off everything we could bike, bed, even our Element, which means one of the last things we do in Denver is ride the bus. We reserved a moving van and booked hotels along the way to Texas to pick up our Tour Van (which we are naming “Nautilus”). We have a show in Oklahoma City on September 4th, 5th and 6th at OCCC so come see me if you're in OKC. I wanted to have a Tweetup there and meet with some gallery owners and do some studio visits but since we don’t have our Nautilus yet we will just head out to Texas after the show.

We went to see the dentist one last time to make sure we were all good before hitting the road (keeping our teeth is an important thing to us) and we ate dinner one last time near 16th Street Mall. We are pretty much packed and ready to go, just need some cleaning done. We are also doing a “Bye Bye Nemo” Tweetup this Saturday at Max Gill and Grill from 5 to 8, so if you're in Denver and want to come see us off, come on out.

I feel like I’m going to miss Denver a lot more than I missed leaving San Antonio, guess cuz I was there 33 years and only in Denver 1, or it could be the ratio of 1 to 5 cute yoga booties, whatever it is I am going to miss this "one (big, scary, blue) horse" town!

Success Part III

What makes me successful?

When I first heard about “Artists” I must have been around 20 and well on my way to becoming an architect. All I knew about artists were that they had tons of money and were crazy. The “eccentric artist” as it was, they all might have come from money or something, but at the time I thought they were making money doing art. They had beautiful homes, knew everyone and always seem to just be getting back from a great sounding vacation or just about to leave on a great sounding trip. For some strange reason (before I really met any other artists) my vision of an artist was living in a penthouse in New York and also having one in Paris, driving around in cool fast expensive sports cars, going to all the cool parties and dating hot model after hot model. So in my head that’s what an artist did and was.

Now fast forward about 10 years and I see art can be that way for a few lucky ones who just found themselves at the right place at the right time. I still hear about paintings going for 100’s of thousands of dollars with a few breaking millions, and yes people, these are from living artists (the economy has slowed things down a bit but that’s only temporary, it will be back and we all have to be willing to be here when it does). But at the same time I have meet many, many, many, many more who put themselves on this “starving artist” boat and pushed themselves into the water to wait for death. I have met a few artists out there that are living the dream, they make art all day long and make a few dollars here and there online and at shows. I am proud to have met so many artists who are doing it.

Though in the back of my mind I still think about my penthouse, fast car and hot model. I feel as successful as ever being able to sit here blogging away to you, staring at 3 commissions I need to ship, art-o-mats I need to finish and a ton of ideas I need to produce for our up and coming art tour all over the USA. I feel that I work hard at what I do and have a recognizable style and a personally that is a bit off the wall and hard to predict and I’m willing to try and do stuff that most people would be to scared to even think about. I am never prepared to make such leaps of faith but yet something always shows up for me to land on. I have been making art for about 8 years now and nothing I have done has been “by the books” so to say. It has been all cuz I felt it needed to be done. It works for me cuz I make it work. I don’t sit back and wonder why or how I should do something, if I’m going to make a mistake I’m going to make it full speed.

What makes you successful?

Success Part II

The definition of success in art isn’t really written down like it is in any other profession or business. What equals success to one artist may be “selling one's soul” to another artist. What’s really important to one artist, another artist might not even care about. And the sad painful truth, what works for one artist can put another artist in the poor house.

Some artists just want to make art and don’t care if anyone buys it or much less even sees it. Other artists may want to teach or get their art in a textbook or magazine. Others (and the group I happen to fall under) want to make a nice living for themselves and be known as an artist by everyone. There are still many other goals and plans that are out there and we can do or be what ever we want to do or be. Art is just art and everyone can be an artist and anything can be art.

The great part (or sad part) about art is there are no rules, no boundaries or paths or anything to tell you how or why to do something. Sure there are a ton of people who will try to tell you there is, but they are all wrong. I only say that cuz I’m in a position to hear many more times about how or why I should do something and how or why I’m doing something wrong, most of the time its no help to me or any of you, my valued readers. Also there is no competition, one artist can never say they are better than another artist for any reason at all. I make more money than you or I can draw a better face than you has no place in art. Its not like sports where you can clearly measure who jumps higher or runs faster.

I know artists who suffer everyday for their art and live in depression and I know artists who are so happy and love life so much its sickening. But they and I wouldn’t have it any other way and no way is more right than the other.

Some artists show in galleries, some hate galleries. Some artists sell online, some don’t even own a computer and others hide their art away. Some love to make art and yet there are artists out there who hate anything that has to do with art. We artists are as varied and different as snow flakes. There is no one way to be an artist and no artist has any idea what can work for anyone other than themselves, so go forth and make art and do what you want to do and don’t worry what anyone has to say about it. They are just jealous cuz they have no idea what they are doing. You're only successful if you think you’re a success.

Success Part I

I was reading this article about how if you heard the names of some big time sellers in the 1800’s you wouldn’t even know any of the them but we all know Vincent Van Gogh and he only sold like 1 or 2 paintings when he was alive. It went on to talk about how some artists make art that’s sellable and other artists look down on them and how some artists follow their hearts but never sell anything and are proud to have people not want or understand their work.

Its got me thinking about my art and about what I’m doing. I feel like I’m following my heart. I feel like drawing a circle is my calling - I was put on this earth to draw circles. That part is a gimme, everyone who looks at my art can tell pretty fast that I was given a gift and I’m putting it to good use. Also I draw many of the subjects cuz of the beauty of them or the plain and simple truth that I like them.

I draw flowers and bugs, plants and birds cuz my mom loves to work in her garden. My most fondest memories of me being little was coming home after a nice early morning skate to find my mom working in the garden and I would sit there and she would tell me about all the stuff she had growing. Her eyes would light up and you could tell she really cared about what she was doing. Even today she has the most beautiful roses I have ever seen and cuz of her I pay attention to all things that grow, even if I don’t know much about them.

The other things I tend to draw are animals, women and day of the dead stuff Everything I draw, I truly and whole heartily love them all. I feel some artists out there look down on what I draw cuz its sellable and I sell quite a bit of it too. Its not my fault I have good taste is it? Is it my fault that I enjoy such simple and beautiful things?

One of my most favorite things to draw, which happens to be my biggest sellers, are high heel shoes. But I don’t draw them cuz they sell well, I don’t draw them cuz I have bills to pay and I really don’t draw them cuz every women that comes to see me loves them. Nope. I draw them cuz I love to look at them. When I’m walking downtown, at events, malls, everywhere, I am checking out the girls in the heels. I even go as far to tell the young ladies I’m an artist and would love to take a picture of them to use in my art. A little freaky? Yup. Should they be scared? Nah. I usually hand them a business card to show them my work and they become ok with the idea that I want to photograph their feet.

Does it make me a bad artist to draw such things that not only make me happy but make the world happy as well? I say do what you love and do it well and maybe you’ll get lucky………

The Latest and Greatest on Etsy

I have tried to do a lot of different stuff with my Etsy account but since we are touring and might be away from the computer and the internet for a few days at a time (lets hope not that long, but you know) and since we plan to sell everything we make as soon as we show it we can’t have a lot of art up online all the time. It’s a full time job to keep up with Etsy, so to make it easier on you, and of course us, we decided to only post one piece at a time. Yup, the latest greatest piece and its only available till the next newest piece is done. Then we will put it into our show rotation or ship it off to a gallery.

I know that most people will disagree on this being a good idea but I do a lot of things that people don’t agree with and it works fine for us. Plus I don’t really think anyone on Etsy is looking for fine art since its more of a crafty place, so I have to drive most of my own traffic and I can do just about anything I want to do, right?

I will try this out for a few months to see how it goes then I might go back to eBay or try to sell raffle tickets or something cool. I have no idea what would be the best way to handle my online sales. But I do know this, every time I have made an online sale it has always been someone who has met me at a show or seen my work at a gallery or some place. I know a lot of people out there would tell me differently and that all I need is SEO’s or the “right” tag words. But money talks and…. Well you know the rest.

On Vacation? Now What?

As some of you good folks might know, I’m on vacation. This ain’t no regular vacation though, this is an Artist Vacation! Which only means I’m not having any shows but I am working hard to prepare for all the shows we have coming up starting in September. I have a long list of stuff I need to make for shows and I need to keep all my galleries fed. Which, like I tell all artists who ask me about getting into a gallery, getting in isn’t the hard part, keeping them in nice sellable art IS.

We are about 3 weeks away from hitting the road and we are packing and getting rid of everything we don’t need. At heart, Hannah and I are total minimalists and have always gotten rid of more stuff then we bring into our home. But as we go thought the ritual of our last pack and move (well for at least 5 years) we find we really don’t need much to do what we do.

So we are fitting our whole lives in eight 18”x18”x24” bins. Our small studio is beginning to seem more empty and more empty as the days press on. I am now writing my blog on my lap (oh, that’s why they call it a laptop!) and working on a clip board to draw my drawings (the way I draw at my shows if you came out to see me at Cherry Creek). Finding out how little one needs to live with is really fun. I’m thinking “How low can you go, how low can you go?”

Is there an opposite to being a hoarder? What few things do you need to live on or with? What’s the one thing you have that you know you’ll need as soon as you get rid of it? Do you have anything you collect?

Commission Work

I met this couple up in Boulder a few weeks back and they purchased 2 of my pieces and wanted to know if I took commissions. Well the next day, while still at the show, that couple e-mailed and wanted to know if I could draw their son's dogs. Later that day back at the hotel Hannah e-mailed thenm and set up everything. They sent us a check and pictures of the dogs. This is the portrait that transpired.

As always, when I feel like it should be an easy drawing and not take much time, I always go with the hardest circles I can draw. And since making a lot of little circles in a drawing takes even longer, guess what. Yup put both of the hardest things I could do into this one drawing and it ended up taking me about a whole 5 to 6 days. Oh well, I really love how it came out and so do they, what do you guys think?

BIG BIG BIG NEWS

Ok so we just got word that our van has made it to Sportsmobile and they sent us pictures and we wanted to share them with you. Like I said in my last blog its just like we are having our 1st child and so these pictures would be like our sonograms.

Awwww...

now thats cute!

So pretty!

and what's going in here you ask?

heres the floor plan hannah drew up: