Man of Action

I am blessed to be loved by and married to a man who knows me well and doesn't lose faith in me in spite of my many faults. A combination of my most crippling faults has succeeded in preventing me from doing something I have been "meaning" to do for weeks now which is to contact local galleries about hanging my work.

Perhaps my most debilitating fault is that I procrastinate, and despite concerted efforts on my part, I cannot be reformed. Next is my propensity to be easily distracted. The never-ending minutae of life (i.e. laundry and other household drudgery, paying bills, PTA duties, soccer practice) consistently undermines my attempts to organize myself and formulate a plan about how to approach galleries. And finally there is a lack of self-confidence...what if the gallery owners hate my work and consider me unpolished, unschooled and unworthy of being represented by them?

Yesterday, my sweet Ben, having become as frustrated and exasperated by my inaction as he could stand (and being quite a man of action himself), grabbed 3 of his favorite paintings and visited 2 galleries on my behalf. Lucky for me, Ben is a fan of my work and a charming, talented and tenacious salesman to boot. The second gallery he visited really loved my paintings and expressed interest in hanging all 3 -- in fact, they wouldn't let Ben take the paintings with him! I am hoping that I will hear from the gallery owner today about hanging those 3 paintings and possibly more. The best part is that this gallery has a great reputation, a long and solid history, a loyal clientele and well, it is just plain cool...

Norcoss Art Fest

Tonight I am resting up from my second-ever art festival.  The Norcross Art Fest was such a blast to be a part of and so worth all the hard work leading up to it.  I contacted the festival director 2 weeks ago on a whim to see if just maybe there were cancellations and she would accept my application.  The gods must have been conspiring in my favor because I got in and my acceptance set me on a course to prepare for it that would cause me to neglect all my motherly-wifely-volunteerly duties for the last 2 weeks -- and I mean ALL!  Luckily, my family supports me and they understood (quite lovingly) when dinner was often born of the freezer, laundry was breeding itself into mountains, and dust bunnies were growing into dust tumbleweeds.

I met tons of nice art-lovers, was visited by many dear friends, made some gallery connections and sold enough work to cover my booth fee and them some!  The weather was lovely all weekend except for maybe 10 huge raindrops that fell Sunday afternoon. 

Best of all was that I was surrounded by so many talented artists!  Here are some of my faves...

Nancy Cann - beautiful fused glass designs      http://cellarart.com/index.html

Allison Strine - her Lady Birds make me smile!  http://allisonstrine.com/

Malena Bisanti-Wall - I wanted 50 of her delicate pottery pieces! 
http://www.mbwclayartist.com/gallery.html

Showing my work in the midst of such talented artists legitimized what I am doing and it was such a thrill!