working through it

In all the sadness of last week, I forgot to tell you about these. Beacon Open Studios is doing a fundraiser called The Big Draw.They asked artists to submit up to 3 works on paper that are 6x8 inches. All are being sold for $50 with half the money going to open studios and half to the artists. I really love selling art for a reasonable price. I want what I make to be appreciated out in the world instead of sitting in a corner,collecting dust and I believe everyone should be able to afford art. This kind of show makes me really happy. Now, here's the thing: I've come to realize that I can really only work with a deadline so this was good! What was bad was the process of figuring out what to make. There was some nasty stuff said about myself. I made  the dog and bird ( after some other false starts), got really frustrated and stopped working. When my husband woke up and I told him about how "I can't make anything, and what's the point!" I showed him what I had done. He response was" what's wrong with those?"I looked again and realized that I actually liked them. I slumped off and made the rabbit. Which leads me to the second part of my " here's the thing" thing: I'm so used to thinking that I can't do it that it clouds my ability to see what's right in front of my eyes. These bad habits are so hard to break! 

I made these before I heard the news about Jan Groover so it's understandable that I wasn't ready to show the world these when I was feeling so sad and lost. I went to work this week, which was really good for stepping out of my head a bit. I came home friday night to an email about how all of my pieces had sold before the show even opened. crazy. wonderful. scary. Here's me making myself( and Jan) proud.