Art Plunge

Just sold a very important piece in my reportoire- "Between Dreams"- which had once gotten me all the way to NYC. It had been chosen for a group show called "LANDSCAPE:A SENSE OF PLACE" by Annette Rose-Shapiro (managing editor of ARTnews magazine). (Annette Rose-Shapiro and me at SITE: BROOKLYN) I had only a few days to submit to the competition and didn't think I would finish this painting in time. I was swamped working to pay the bills but I kept thinking- do it-do it-do it...you never know if you don't do it. So I would drag myself into the studio after work and paint. I remember getting the acceptance letter-what a feeling! "Between Dreams" what a fitting title for a piece that shows the boundaries between fantastical and reality- and just which location are you heading to? Which one are you leaving behind? This one's been hanging in my house a few years now, it's been shown a few times. It reminds me that I did it once- which...

"The Path of Diligence" 48" x 36" acrylic/krylon on canvas It's finished!  I only worked a zillion hours on it. It's funny to think back on all the hours in the studio and how many hundreds of songs I listened to while this was being produced. I can't wait to get it shot by a professional so you can really see the lichen which was a breakthrough for me in this work. This one was appropriately named "The Path of Diligence" because that is what it takes to make it in this world. Diligence. Like a busy bee always on task to make the honey. Like a crane patiently fishing to feed itself. And all the fruits hung like little gifts if your eyes are open and you are diligent about getting them. There is an abundance of good in the world if you are diligent. As for the lichen, I've always loved the stuff. On researching it for the painting I discovered that it's a way to tell if a place is polluted or not. Lots of lichen means HEALTHY ...

"The Path of Fruitfulness" 24" x 24" acrylic/krylon on gallery wrapped canvas I finally finished this piece I've been slaving away on! It is based on a Gankyil (Wheel of Joy:The Base, The Path, The Fruit) and I took a few detail photos :

"Go Go" acrylic on vinyl record (collection of Patrick Foisy) Sometimes the best things come from unlikely places. Yesterday I got an email from a Canadian TV show asking if I would give consent to having my art on TV. They were referring to my vinyl record "GO GO" which a fellow by the name of Patrick Foisy purchased from me last summer. I thought this an interesting little story to tell, especially for artists...on how you never know what little thing will set a domino effect into motion. Let's rewind to last summer......I was BROKE. Luckily my friends at the Fallout Lounge had agreed to let me have a one person art show there showcasing all new vinyl works. The theme "Girls of Summer". I got to work on all my retro girls and popsicles and bikinis. I worked tirelessly, I wanted at least 20 slices of new vinyl. I needed money. At $45 a pop and 20 pieces I could pay my rent and bills. I hustled. On a whim I decided since my work was retro 60...

What do Bjork and I have in common besides being tiny? (she's 5' 4") We're both all magazine worthy thats what! I'm sure anyone that reads this blog is on my facebook page so I won't get all Miss USA on ya. But the big news yesterday was that I AM IN! In the Origin Magazines September issue that is...and not ME but my ART which is super exciting to an artist...to have your work seen outside of your city? It's a great feeling! Origin Magazine is a national Art+Conscious Lifestyle magazine that is sold at Whole Foods all over the nation.  The World of Traceable Ghosts This is the piece that won us into the magazine! I'm super psyched to see it PRINTED in beautiful color! The official announcement goes out today but I was notified yesterday and wanted to share the good news. I could not have done it without EVERY single one of you that voted, shared,campaigned and supported me. I felt like I was annoying every one and I probably was (sorr...

firecracker firecracker boom boom boom First I want to say that for the first time in about a year I slept through the WHOLE night without waking up at 3:30am then 4:30 am and not being to sleep and getting up at 5:30 am. I'm going to thank the tiny melatonin pill I took last night for letting me get some much needed restorative sleep. I feel energized today. Supercharged and Best Quality. Like a flashlight cracker! Which brings me to the second thing I wanted to say...I love firecracker art. I've always been a fan. I had ideas to paint firecracker art on my wooden boxes, wouldn't that be cool? Maybe even the records. But where is the time? I think they would look awesome.Maybe after I plow through all the work I have to do I can play around with that....but I digress....the graphic design I'm working on for the next issue of Mercado Bilingue is going to be firecracker themed in honor of 4th of July. To give it a spin we're looking at MEXICAN FIREWORKS...whic...

Shoot for the Stars! Latest painted record featuring Han Solo AVAILABLE ($50) Theres a beautiful rain falling this Friday morning, it's a quiet steady and soft rain. The complete opposite of how it started....loud thunder cracking, waking me up from sleepyland and making my computers blink. Now it's just a little drip drip and quietude. Rain makes primering a no go since I primer outside. I am looking for the perfect large box to spray in, this will ease a lot of trouble with tree detritus landing on a barely sprayed record and wreaking havoc. My house was busy yesterday with order drop off and order pickup and then a graphic design job I was waiting to hear about popped up so I'm officially BUSY for the next two weeks at  least. Wrapping up record orders and the graphic work and I'm happy to be busy and working from home. This record featured above is up for grabs until someone grabs it. I won't have time for new vinyl for awhile so get it while it's t...

"Agua Fresca" at El Fenix I woke up this morning to a titillating little piece of cheese in the ol' mousetrap. Yes I said titillating....7 year old! There's a competition of sorts to get your work printed in a National Magazine called Origins. I have been fortunate enough to have a small feature in there once upon a time for the BARTERING ARTISTS group but having my art printed is a whole other ballgame. That would be nice and make my Mom proud. So I started facebooking trying to get some votes. Kinda disastrous. Perhaps I need another cup of coffee? I could not for the life of me explain to my friends how to CLICK a LINK and LIKE A COMMENT in a THREAD. I started laughing. It's my own fault. But if you happen to be reading this and would like to help me out...the piece I would like to see printed is this one: So if you like this piece and would like to see it printed let's try to get a vote in. Bear with me as I try to explain this again. :) Maybe...

my very second instagrammy photo thingamajig Yesterday I spent the day finishing up a vinyl record order, unfortunately it's a secret and  a gift so until the guy gets it I'm not allowed to blast it to the public. However a select few in my illuminati were exposed to it yesterday and it garnered another order. Ding! I feel like I'm immediately back in my groove,my freelancing groove. Primered more records for todays work, a Hans Solo record which should be fun. Also organized my paint (see above)...well, that's a real half ass way to organize paint but it's better than it was ALL tossed together in a deep basket so I had to dig and didn't know what colors I had. I found many dead paint tube carcasses up in that thing. DRIED, EMPTY TUBES!!! An unorganized paint box leads to stupid things like buying 4 tubes of Burnt Sienna. If anyone has a better solution than using the lids to baking pans to organize my colors please pass it on. I need visibility and for ...

picture of me at Cedars West Arts Festival manning the paint station for Magic Garden Program photo by Gabriela Elguea and Heather Shoulders Sometimes it's good to just pause from the busy life and TO DO LISTS and the stuff rolling around in your brain and take inventory of all that is good in our life. I am doing that right now. It dawned on me today as I turned in my blog for  I Am Bilingue   that the last cover I gave them was for a Fathers Day edition and the very first assignment they gave me was for...a Fathers Day edition. I remember very clearly meeting with Fabian Campos, my contact at the paper/website, and how it just seemed a perfect laidback fit and I hoped against hope they would like my work enough to keep me on. my first cover for Mercado Bilingue, I've been teaching myself Photoshop and Illustrator  Here I am a year later and I have 13 covers under my belt and countless blogs. A lot of the features have been memoirs of my life with my D...

disclaimer: these are NOT I repeat NOT my sexy legs so hold your marriage proposals Well! Where to start, it's been a busy weekend and I've decided to totally OBLITERATE all of last week from my brain since it was nothing but pain and stress and worry. So onward we go, the weekend! I spent Friday doing some work getting ready for the CEDARS WEST ARTS FESTIVAL. I was hired to do some CHALK SIGNAGE and then Saturday I showed up to create kids chalk stations on the street. The asphalt was kinda hard to draw on but I created some fun stuff and here's where all the trouble started. I worked for about two hours, drawing a big giant sun, an octopus (moustachiopus), flowers, recycling symbols, some bunnies, smiley clouds, anime kids, etc, etc....each drawing required me to squat down and stand up and squat down and stand  up... and do you see where this is going? It wasn't until that evening after I had kicked off my shoes and laid down for about 20 minutes that I realiz...

Welcome June! Welcome Summer! I see you tearing through my curtains with your fiery orange beams, trying to get me into my bikini and to the pool. This seemed a fairly innocent way to get people to read my blog....posting a sexy Brigitte Bardot in a bikini and entitling it " swimsuit edition" . Got you here didn't it? Tsk Tsk you naughty readers! :) photo by Alan Blanquicet (Robert Taylor and Dan Pritchett) Just wrapped up an art opening at RISING GALLERY on Friday and was so pleased to meet some new people and reconnect with some friends I hadn't seen in awhile. All the art was fantastic and it was nice to see the work in person. Every one of the Project 7 x 7 collaborations were auctioned off and went to new homes while raising money for Alley's House. I got excellent feedback on my work and newest pieces. photo by Alan Blanquicet (me with my work) I also learned that if the Flaming Lips are in town almost 90% of your friends will probably be the...

Comp Pass to AKON! It's that time again! Silly fun at the convention dedicated to Anime, Japanese live action, Monsters, etc, etc....GEEKERY! Last year I had a blast shooting photos of all the wild costumes, stuff I couldn't afford and "interesting" personalities. My friends from Monster Attack Team will be doing another panel this year- TODAY in fact! Yamahama- I thought it was gonna be tomorrow! So my day now includes getting dressed super early to catch part of the panel before I head over to Rising Gallery for the art opening. Of course everything fun happens all at the same time and I haven't learned to clone myself yet. At least I'll get to see part of the panel AND my pass is good all weekend long....Saturday I'll be back at it shooting photos to blog about for I Am Bilingue. Will I find the Godzilla shirt of my dreams today? I just might! Tonight I'll be at Rising Gallery showing off the labors of my love. This is the equivalent of me...

Thunderstorms have come to Texas again. There is something nice and romantic about these storms. I am fully enjoying being able to appreciate them from inside the coziness of my home as opposed to the days when I had to bus around in them to go to work. Don't get me wrong, I love a good soaking from the sky ceiling ...it's the rude cars splashing muddy water on me I do not miss. I have/had plans to go downtown to my gym today but will now need to see what the weather is going to do. The rain is reminding me of something important though....I need a nice dry environment to spray and primer records and some of my canvases. I'm also reminded I left my yoga mat outside and it's getting nice and clean by Mother Nature again. So I feel a little thwarted in the art productivity department, but I do have some graphic design work I need to get done anyway. Must remember- rain will halt production, utilize sunny days for priming in bulk!  My inbox had something funny and unu...

The iconic Peter Max After dropping off art at Rising Gallery yesterday I remembered hearing about Peter Max having a show in town somewhere nearby. It seemed like a good day to hunt it down....after lunch. I had my first Twisted Root experience. It was good and the way they call you a celebrity name at the counter was funny. Although I was not thrilled with my name. Everyone else when called to the counter had a funny little joke, quote or lyric with theirs. Mine was simply called out straight and really what else can you say with a name like PINK . PINK?!?!?!  Ha!  At the drink machine I saw the word root beer and filled her up. I took a drink, this was supposed to be amazing root beer. What filled my mouth was not the taste of root beer at all. I was dizzy for a second as pure sugar rushed through my blood. What was this taste....so familiar...almost like cream soda, kinda like root beer but...no...it was...BUBBLE GUM! Then I spied a little piece of paper taped ab...

Latest works in my studio I snapped a shot of these two together before I wrap em up today. They are going to go travelling to Rising Gallery and my studio is going to look like a boring old dining room again. Little tip for the artists, a nice roll of painters drop plastic goes a long way towards protecting your art for travelling! Wired up the pieces yesterday so they'll hang nice and decided that the latest piece would look much sharper with the sides painted black. I decided that after messing around with a photo of it in Photoshop and seeing how striking it was against black. This one would actually look cool framed in black if someone bought it and felt like doing that. :-) I've entered two juried competitions in the past week, one was the Hecho in Dallas put on by the Latino Cultural Center and the other was the Craighead Green New Talent show. Both were free to enter and I have found it's best to promptly forget about these things as soon as you sub...

"The World of Traceable Ghosts" acrylic, krylon on canvas 30" x 40" C'est fini! It's done! I put a lot of hours into this and excited to show it in public this Friday at Rising Gallery. I'm curious to see it hanging next to the mice. Today I just finish off the sides and install hanging fixtures to my pieces, wrap them up for travel and they are ready for the ball. I took some detail shots with my  humble camera detail  detail A lot of symbolism snuck it's way into this one subconsciously. I've also added secrets than can only be seen in person.  One thing I want to say about my work, I almost never have a set idea in my head of how it's going to be. No road map. No sketch. I let the canvas tell me what to do. I feel like I learn so much more when there isn't a connect the dots to follow. The forms, colors, figures, they appear like magic apparitions. Each thing sparking the next thing, like dominoes falling. I ha...

detail from work in progress "The World of Traceable Ghosts" There is a good chunk of time when you first start a painting that feels a lot like hacking through a thick forest with a cheap plastic picnic knife. Then after some time it feels like your plastic knife has turned into a well forged and sharp sword. Things start opening up and becoming easier. Paths begin to appear where there were none before. I finally hit that point on this painting last night. It's a good point. It's the point when you see clearly what all is left to do to the work and not the "what the hell am I going to do?" point anymore. I've posted a few photos on facebook of my progress and gotten a phenomenal response so far. YAY! I was very skeptical of the color scheme at first. I've been living in aqua, green and pool blue land for so long! I even had a fellow artist and blogger (Lizzie Fortuin) from the Netherlands ask about putting my piece on her website ...it...