Drip drip.

So, now a I have a new leak...only this time the water is kinda hot and from an exposed pipe. Ironically, this happened right after chatting with one of my landlords and being told we (at sliced bread studios) were their favorite tenants because I didn't freak out when I called them to fix things. A t this point I think I should freak out, cause this leak was "fixed" last month after it destroyed my poly litho plates. But when I called, I just couldn't yell at them or be rude. I guess it's better to be sweet about it anyway. Let's see how many times this leak it 'fixed' before it's fixed.

Closet: Before and After

We say a sad farewell to Chris, our sculptor in Sliced Bread Studios, and hello to a huge closet now free of boxes. What does one do with a deep closet that has its own light fixture and electrical socket? You turn it into a kitchenette, of course! After an inexplicable communication error between Painter and Printmaker left us with a table wholly unsuited to the space provided, I decided to build a shelf for our fringe and microwave on my own. This was a thoroughly rewarding venture as I took responsibility for the process from beginning to end.
The hurdles worth noting are thus:
I was completely unfamiliar with the new table saw and couldn’t find the manual. Can I stress enough how important it is to have the giant circular bladed mystery machine Unplugged when tugging at random switches on it? No, no I cannot. After cutting most of the boards with an electric handsaw I finally discovered the secrets of lifting the dumb things arm and used it to make the table legs from 2x4s.Also, the hand tools on batteries ran out of juice rather quickly. Lucky for me, Greg has a circular hand saw, a hand jig saw and a table saw, so I managed to jump between them all in the process, giving which ever one needed it the time to charge. Lastly, I have no car. I do, however, have piles and piles of leftover 2x4s, scrap pine and MDF scavenged for the most part from Greg’s various jobs.
Working the math out exactly took more time than anything else, but really, the phase “measure twice, cut once’’ can’t be stressed enough.
In the end, I had designed and built a counter (with a tiny flaw here and there) that left me feeling like Conan the Conqueror.

I Miss Her Already....*sniff sniff*

Becuase I have the most wonderful Greg as an informant, I was able to sneak a monoprint called "Surma in Morning Light" into a Fundraiser auction at Leahman College Gallery at the very last minute. Greg, working as an Art Handler, calls me up at 4 pm and askes if I'd like to sell some art and if so I need to have the peice framed, curated and ready to go for early the next motning. I'm thinking, 'yay, more exposure...if only I were getting paid!" when he says, oh, yeah, and they'll split the purchase price with you as well. That night a bundled up two works, my smallest collagraph and one of my surma girl Doll Heads. Greg took both. My collagraph was sent back to me due to space constraints, but when I attended the opening night I discaovered they had listed my Monoprint Surma girl as my Collagraph. I freaked out for a half second, sure no one would buy it because it was so obviously misslabled. The fact that the spelled my name correctly and served great punch made everything OK. Then, as the night winds down I finnally see my peice hung next to Greg's miniature painting and I'm chatting away at how great the show is when greg finally points out the red dot sticker next to my print. I shrug and say, 'Yeah...so?"
"so, someone really liked it, cause they bought it"
Que me jumping up and down giggling like a shameless bunny on speed.
So , two down, 126 to go and counting.

Another piece sold

This year I submitted another piece to the Neuberger museum’s Paper Jam Auction and it sold. Not as much hoop-la over this piece, sadly. It’s a quiet collagraph that “I’m quite in love with. It was commented that she was “very simple” and I think people are more interested in Name recognition and color at the moment. I hope not, but what can you do?
Answer, add just enough colour without abandoning your original aesthetic. I'll be touching my monotonal collagraphs with some burnt reds and see how it looks.
I priced this peice higher than I would have on my own after getting some strong feed back, and as always this filled me with terror that people would laugh at me for asking so much. I wonder when that feeling of being under valued will fade away completely, or at all...

A Clean Studio is a Happy Studio

Hello. My name is Jessika and I’m a mess-o-holic. I can’t go 2 days without emptying my closet across at least two rooms and if my life depended on it, I prob’ly still wouldn’t throw away the piles of expired catalogs I’ve accumulated. I leave cabinet doors hanging wide open and forget about my three cups of water scattered through out the house and pour myself a fourth one. I admit whole heartedly that I have a problem. But put that in the context of my art studio, it’s not a problem, it’s a disaster. So, here are the very tiny tricks I use to save myself from stumbling over a pile of paints, falling into a pile of boxes, rolling off them into a pile of very expensive paper and tipping over all my brushes and pencils that bend and snap as I try to struggle back to my feet.
1 Clear plastic everything! I have so many materials to sort through, I find is best to be able to glance at a wall of see-through drawers than to bother labeling boxes left over and unpacked from my various moves. I love the heck outta’ cardboard, but these plastic drawers are just as portable with a roll of tape in hand and far less mysterious.
2 Can you put wheels on it? I love putting wheels on stuff, I slapped wheels on a large plank of wood and now store half my 30x22 reams of paper on it so I don’t need to cut it down or roll it up. Instead, I just roll it under the work table. PS The wheels lift everything off the ground in case of flooding, which never hurts, even in attic studios.
3 Keep it Green. I like clear plastic, but I love recycled glass. Every jam and salsa jar I empty makes some kind of great container. I line them up flush to the wall single file, keeping it easy to reference what is where, no shuffling through this or that. These jars also make great solvent containers (painters, you know what I’m talkin’ about). I also use the cardboard cores from wrapping paper and toilet paper as cord caddies. I have a lot of extension cords to trip on, so in a moment of rare brilliance I grabbed a roll of card board and wrapped it with 30 feet of extraneous electrical cord.
Why do I have a 30 foot extension cord in my snug little studio? Well, lawn mowers in Bremerhaven were electric in the 80s. Why do I know that? Stop stalling and go clean your studio!
In Summery:
Clear containers are great for ‘at a glance’ storage use and even better if it’s clear repurposed/recycled containers and even betterer if you can stick wheels on them.

Tania Bregura's Art Installation

Being the Art
Feb 11 2010

Tania Bregura is an installation artist whose work comments heavily on socio-political actions both historic and on going. This lucky woman had the great fortune to be placed in extracurricular art school/programs since the age of 9 and is now monopolizing the majority of the Nuebergur Museum with a series of her Instillations named after cities and nations. Half these sites are manned by performance artists committed to varying repetitive tasks. In the Havana room, nude performers brush at their bare skin to create a haunting sound effect combined with the pungent raw cane on the floor. This brings to mind the threshing of cane fields and on further thought I think of the threshing of humans, because while the cane lay in shredded heaps at my feet, the sound is the friction of human skin on skin.
In an adjacent room is Kassel, as in Kassel, Germany. As people enter the large room, painted like a black box theater, blinding lights spring to life just above average head height. From the corners of the darkness booms the steady sound of booted feet and the violent cocking of guns. Many think they are alone in the room with a recording, but after a moment most realize that I am stomping a half story above them swathed in black and swinging a .35 caliber automatic pistol. Still fewer visitors realize there is a second performer on the ground floor hammering the lever of a rifle back and forth.
I have always had trouble with performance art, considering it to be more inclined to sensationalism than to sensual reaction. By participating in Kassel as a performance actor, it’s brought me a bit closer to excepting the impact such a genera provides, but it has also made me dislike docents. Tours come in and docents coach people on what to look at, tell them what is about to happen and why. If that is standard practice, why walk into the room at all? Why not read about it in the New York Times and save the trip?
I stomp back and forth hour after hour, regretting my 6 day a week commitment while cherishing the introspection it provides into how the art world is experienced. I contemplate the encumbrance of guides on artistic expression and cringe when parents drag children through a room with guns and flashing lights and try not to freak out when my fellow performers show up in miniskirts and play on their phones to help the time pass in the jarring timelessness that is Kassel.
In summation: Performance art is not for the faint of heart or skeptical of nature, whether you are walking through it or marching in it. Also, experience it first, then go through with a guide so they can ruin the after glow and keep your brain from working on its own power.

Prices Prices Crisis

Being a new artist is terrifying for so very many reasons. The giant dollar signs floating around and the running total of cash you plunk down for materials and what not is a constant companion. For the last three or four months, as my work generates interest but no income, I have a shoulder angel/devil who goes off like a car alarm every time I buy another frame or paper ream, “You’re hemorrhaging money, you’re hemorrhaging money!”
I patiently respond (in my head…mostly) “this is an investment; I am spending money to make money.” Then I spend 20 minutes calculating how many hours I will have to work at my part time day job to make back the money I’m spending. This never ends well.
On top of this, I have to price the art pieces I am sending out like 2d ambassadors into the world of art commerce. The basic formula for pricing your work has been given to me many ways;
Hours of labor + cost of material + overhead (studio/utility bills) = Price of work
Or,
(All of the Above) + Travel and publicity + commission = Price of work
And my favorite (by which I mean most frustrating) recommendation,
How much do you feel it’s worth = Price of work

Each equation raises questions. What is my hourly rate? How do I divide overhead amongst each piece of work? And so on. I feel I have settled on a hybrid of all the above and the Chimera equation results in what follows:
$12 per hr of labor + cost of material + (overhead = to the amount of days from labor) + 20% of total proceeding = total price + an additional percentage added dependant on my perceived ability to reproduce the image.

Yeah, math is scary. Despite the length of the problem, the total is always disturbingly low. I wonder how other artists puzzle this pickle out.