Tag: STUDIO NOTES

• Studio Notes: 05.06.2026 – 05.15.2026

  Completed Projects:
  1. Sarah’s Baby Blanket

  Ongoing Projects for Now-June:
  1. NEW “Taco ‘Bout a Baby” – Due Date: Tonight, before bed
  2. Mom’s Belated Mother’s Day Gift – Due Date: Sunday, before bed
  3. NEW Composition Studies (all nine) – Due Date: 06.02.2026
  4. Hailey’s Baby Blanket – Due Date: 06.05.2026
  5. NEW Color Studies (2 studies) – Due Date: 06.07.2026
  6. Week One: What does the careful study of art have to offer? – Due Date: 06.12.2026
  7. Filet Crochet Series (two “regular”) – Due Date: 06.12.2026
  8. Color Studies (2 studies) – Due Date: 06.14.2026
  9. Week Two: Why should we study art? – Due Date: 06.19.2026
  10. Filet Crochet Series (two “All Saints”) – Due Date: 06.19.2026
  11. Lily of the Valley: Book Two, Part One – Due Date: 06.21.2026
  12. Filet Crochet Series (two “Christmas”) – Due Date: 06.26.2026
  13. Damaged Good: Developed Sketches (3 not-so-small-scale drawings of flowers) – Due Date: 06.26.2026
  14. Color Studies (2 studies) – Due Date: 06.28.2026

  If I can get this done, at the end of June, I will have:
  
  Fine Art
  1. 9 “Composition Studies”
  2. 6 “Color Studies”
  3. 3 Developed Sketches for Damaged Good
  
  Fiber Art
  1. 2 “Regular” Products
  2. 2 “All Saints” Products
  3. 2 “Christmas” Products
  
  Writing
  1. Week One
  2. Week Two
  3. 1/4 of Lily of the Valley
  
  Personal Projects
  1. Baby Shower for Hailey (banner and blanket)
  2. Mother’s Day Gift for my Mom
  
  Notes on Intentions for each item(s):
  
  PERSONAL PROJECTS
  These are somewhat self-explanatory, I feel.
  
  WRITING
  The “Art Appreciation” Series will go live on this blog. (Stay tuned!) Lily of the Valley will not go live, but I will try to find a portion of this book to bring to Open Mic Night on June 3, 2026. I think that will be a nice two-birds-one-stone situation.
  
  FIBER ART
  None of this will “go live” until October 1, 2026. I am undecided on whether or not this should be something that I publish on Instagram… I think I will just so there is some sort of context come October… I feel like a complete surprise doesn’t market well… But, I am so new to all of this… I am sure there will be a million things that I need to learn.
  
  I would like to try to work with Matt to sell these at his record store starting in August.
  
  FINE ART
  In a perfect world, I think that both my Composition Studies and my Color Studies would sell well at the Art Center. I am undecided if I should get prints made of them/try to sell them online. For now, I think trying to get into a more “traditional” brick-and-mortar is the way to go…
  
  If they don’t sell, or even prior to putting them in the Art Center, I think I would like to try to submit them as a show somewhere. If I am able to get them into a show, this might impact the pricing of the items.

  Personal Notes:
  
  I am trying to see deadlines as an accountability tool (Flowers for Spring? How groundbreaking?) rather than a punishment. The truth is simple: If I don’t do it, it won’t get done. As I try/want to become self-employed, I have to really recognize that my output is what determines my income. Weirdly, the pressure of “needing something to finish” hasn’t felt so heavy lately. “Needing something to be finished” has been the right kind of motivation I need to see things through… I would like to keep this momentum. I have a feeling this is all going to snowball very quickly.
  
  I have also decided that my social media use (for now) will be pretty minimalistic in terms of creation. I think the trick is just developing the habit of posting on social media… I can figure out better “marketing” at a later time. The biggest conflict I feel, related to social media, is the following: Do I just post everything? Or do I limit it to one thing? Specifically, do I omit “fiber art” in an effort to establish a “different brand” for that? Time will tell, I suppose.
  
  I cannot freak out, I just need to keep working.

  2026.05.15

• Re: Starting From Scratch

  TL;DR: Starting over means starting over. You cannot run into freedom while looking to the past (trying to do so will turn you into a Pillar of Salt).

  04/23/2026

  Last Thursday, I met with one of my art-friends at a local coffee shop. The purpose of this meeting was to feel out my current project. It’s hard to say that I was disappointed by the conversation (since I am able to recognize that it might have been unfair of me to have any expectations in the first place). Nonetheless, I think that the conversation was, in a word, disappointing.

  I didn’t expect a pat-on-the-back. I didn’t want a pat-on-the-back. I didn’t get a pat-on-the-back. And, that’s good. “Atta girls” only go so far when you’ve hit a roadblock. But the conversation was difficult… I didn’t really get any unique or new feedback… There wasn’t anything that was said that was particularly interesting or challenging… In many ways, I felt like I was trying to vouch for an unfinished product. And -in many ways- that’s all I was really doing.

  04/24/2026

  The following day, on Friday, I had spent some time in the studio. My objective for the evening was two-fold: I needed to make progress (of any variety) on my project, and I needed to make sense of the lackluster conversation that took place the day prior.

  I figured that I needed to do some composition/material studies… So I created an egg-tempera-acrylic-hybrid paint and painted a series of pink squares on 140 paper. (On a very unrelated note: I actually love the paint formulation that I was working with. I think the fact that I painted on paper eliminated 90% of the issues I was having with just egg tempera on the Corelle, and it made the process monumentally easier. I still have to figure out how to get this to translate to the plates, but that is a battle for next week.) While working on these little composition studies, the following ideas were floating through my head. These are listed in no particular order:
  1. Why was that conversation so difficult?
  2. What is the dollar amount that my plates are worth? (If $40.00, then why do I care so much about the quality of the idea they are carrying. If the idea is worth more than $40.00, then what is the idea worth? Is that a weird way to think of ideas?)
  3. These plates aren’t as good as I want them to be. Is that because of my skill set (maybe, but unlikely)? Or is that because I am trying to do one thing, and say another?
  4. Why is my previous experience failing me in this moment?
  5. What am I trying to do, or accomplish? I am taking steps toward that? Or are my goals misaligned with my actions?

  Needless to say, my time in the studio was incredibly frustrating.

  So, I took a moment and asked myself the following question: If I wasn’t me, if I was someone else, what advice would I give myself? What honest advice did I want from my friend that I did not get?

  Then… I had a beer, and I went to bed.
  

  04.25.2026

  “What advice would I give myself?”

  That question really stuck in my mind and ruined my morning. I was supposed to go to a bookstore opening with a friend (in part to support the local business, and in part to encourage my friend to be more vocal about the book she has written). I cancelled. Instead, I stayed home and crocheted.

  “What advice did I want? What is the thing I need to hear, but that I didn’t hear? Why was that conversation so disappointing? Why do I always have to vouch for my ideas?”

  “Why do I always have to vouch for my ideas?”

  There it is.

  That’s the root of the problem.

  I realized, as I was sitting at home, trying my best to chip away at 1 of 2 baby blankets I am making for my friends, that my problem isn’t my ideas… It’s the quality of their execution.

  See, I haven’t ever commercially engaged with the arts. In the past, I haven’t been able to. I have always run into the same obstacle: I feel like to “get” what I am trying to do, you have to know me. My work cannot speak for itself.

  The fact that strangers cannot engage with my work in a deep and meaningful way, at least without me present, speaks directly to the quality of work that I produce. My work “needing” my voice is not a good thing. It is the very thing that is holding me back. My work sucks!

  So, no wonder this conversation I had on Thursday was awful… I was trying to reason around problems that aren’t the actual issue. I was doing the very typical and expected thing that I always do: overintellectualizing. The truth is so much simpler than that. The truth is that I have a very good idea, a very valuable idea. I just need to make work that convinces others of its quality without needing additional context or conversation. It needs to be self-contained and self-evidently important. If not, why would any reasonable person care about it?

  I walked down to my studio and looked at the terrible plates that I have been working on. They are on their third iteration. Every time I have restarted this project, I have tried to redo the same thing… with better materials. Every time the project has felt like an increasing failure…

  I like this concept. I think this body of work (if I am ever able to see it through) will contribute good things to the world. I am hopeful of that.

  It will never do that as it exists.

  I have to start over.

  Damn.

  04.30.2026

  I am trying to find freedom in the very little I have. This past week, I have really deconstructed my studio practice. I’ve taken all of my artwork off of my website. I have deleted all of my Instagram posts. My primary fear, now, is replicating the past. If I am going to start over, I need to truly start over. I cannot look back.

  On Tangent: I’ve never been able to wear my hair curly. In all of this, I have decided that I need to learn how to wear my curls. I want to be the kind of person who takes morning showers. I have never been that kind of person. If I can figure out how to wear my hair curly, I might be able to become someone who takes morning showers.

  Here’s to washing dishes and morning showers. Cheers!

  2026.04.30