My good name is being sullied

Way back when, we used to laugh at people who used their own names for domain names. Then it became the expected thing for artists. By then, [insert my name here].com had been taken up by a Chinese software company selling math related tools. (You'll see why I'm not using my name for the reference shortly.)

But after a few years, they went away and the website [insert my name here].com just had ads. So I carefully marked the domain expiration date on my calendar, and as the day approached, checked and double checked whois to see if they renewed.

Well, they didn't. So the fateful day arrived. I checked as midnight approached. Nope, not renewed. So immediately after midnight, I checked again, and aaaargh, it had been renewed. Bots!

So I didn't look there for a long time. And today, I looked. And oh, I really shouldn't have.

[Insert my name here].com had turned into a very naughty place. Although there are no photos, the links all supposedly point you to some rather 'interesting' places. (But all in Chinese.) Although, I certainly wouldn't click on any of them, no matter how interesting they sounded. I was reading the links off to The Good Prince, and he was going "whoa, too much information!"

Certainly if I were on a PC, clicking on any of those links would probably be an extremely bad idea. And on a mac, still not good.

So there you have it, do NOT go to [insert my name here].com. (But of course you will.)

I'm still around

I seem to have fallen down on the job of blogging. I have been working hard on a variety of art related work, but not much studio time in the last couple of weeks. Portland Open Studios ended last weekend, but being on the board, that means we're now planning for next year. We've already had out first meeting tonight, not only wrapping up for this year, but starting to think about next year.

The first weekend this year was very slow for many people. The good weather, Wordstock, both had an impact. The second weekend—Saturday was just the craziest weather we've seen in a long time, and Sunday afternoon, it seemed like everyone was finally out doing Portland Open Studios.

On Saturday, when I was doing my first Gocco demo of the day, I got to the part about flashing the screen. I pushed down on the Gocco (with the lamp unit in there, but with old bulbs) and said "...and at this point, the lamps would flash."

And KABOOM! LIghtning and thunder went off, just as I pushed down.

Now that's Gocco Power!

Portland Open Studios, week 2

The second week is always so much easier to do than the first week. I didn't have a whole lot to do—made a few changes from last week, dug out some old photographs from my photography days, prepared a new demo, and got the giant huge pizza to last us through the week. Yes, we survive on pizza during Portland Open Studios.

The old photographs from the late 80s and early 90s were fun to see. Portland has changed a lot since those days and a lot of the things I photographed are not there anymore. I'm putting out a few of the silver gelatin prints and a few of the RC prints and see if there's any interest.

[Oct 18: and the answer was no.]

Taking it easy for this week

This is in between the two Portland Open Studios weekends, and I'm determined to take it a little easy this week. I got caught up on making various appts that I need to make, finished writing a profile on Susan Gallacher-Turner for the Portland Open Studios blog, and tomorrow, I'm off to see a few exhibits! Yay!

I've also been working on a mock-up for updating my website. Not sure how far I'll get with that. I was originally thinking that I'd finish that before the end of October and then I can focus on my senior's book for November and December, but that was before I was asked to serve on a grant panel, which was just too good and educational an opportunity to pass up. So maybe I won't get my website updated before the end of the year after all.

Here's a photo of the 7x7 panels installed in the front entry. I'm pretty sure that I damaged my camera last year when I dropped it on the driveway. I don't think I've taken a photo that's in focus since. I guess I'll have to take it in.

I've joined Etsy

OK, I resisted and resisted, but I can't believe that I couldn't sell a single bat print during Portland Open Studios! I figured that little baby would just fly out the door like those Austin bats at dusk. So I've listed 2 prints on etsy. We'll see how they do there. Here's the etsy page.

2009 Portland Open Studios, day 1

How does one get by on 4 1/2 hours of sleep? With lots of leftover pizza and coffee I guess.

I was up until 3:30am this morning getting ready for Portland Open Studios, and was up again at 8am. It was a pretty slow day though, probably the slowest day I've seen yet. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

What was funny—I had set out Superfoodland!, the board game I did for For the Love of Food earlier this year. Part way through the afternoon, I mentioned to some neighbors who had stopped by that I was surprised that no one seemed impressed by the blueberries. There was a short pause, and he said, "they're not real blueberries?" The Good Prince thinks everyone just thinks I've put out a goblet of blueberries on the table and they're not sure why.

Now it's time for me to catch up on my beauty sleep.

All's not quiet in the studio

Well, ok, so I was gone for a few days celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival out on the Alvord Desert (see a few photos on my facebook, even if you're not on facebook, I think you can see them), but outside of that, I have been working hard.

I'm still finishing the paintings (airbrushing the gouache pieces with the GAC500 mixture), painting the edges of the panels, and having my 3rd solarplate intensive with Barbara Mason. We did relief prints in the 3rd session, and I have some nifty prints to scan and show, I just haven't had the opportunity yet. At this point, it will have to wait until Portland Open Studios is over. Speaking of which, I was up until 3am this morning finishing up this profile on Jason Kappus, a very young and very talented artist.

The new 8th

Slightly better than the old 8th. Maybe.

There's very little difference, actually. I thought the old 8th was just a bit too dingy, and so I added a bit more spectrum red and ultra marine to the edges. Although I have to say that now it looks less desert like, which was what I sort of had in mind before, the desert colors. I'm also wondering if it's a bit too red-white-blue-ish. I guess I'll sleep on it some more.

I actually got to this point last night/this morning around 2am or so. Spent most of today doing Portland Open Studios stuff (preparing to ship some tour guides, meeting minutes), and also getting ready for my 3rd session of the solarplate intensive with Barbara Mason tomorrow. I have some etchings from our 2nd session that I haven't scanned in yet. I'll do that sometime. Tomorrow, I want to do some relief prints.

8th

Am I done? I'm not sure yet. I'll sleep on it.

For those of you who don't facebook—I figure this means that the gods think I'm flossing and brushing right. And for Shu-mei, who can't believe that I noticed this—I just spat out my toothpaste, I had my face in the sink, I was staring right at it, how could I NOT notice?

Unfortunately, the last couple of days have not been productive in the studio. For some reason, I had bouts of stomachaches all day yesterday. On and off, and through the night. Thank heavens it didn't continue today. And today was mostly a Portland Open Studios day. Shipping out tour guides, picking up tour guides, incremental updates on the website. I still haven't finished Kate's profile.

Tonight was the China Council's annual membership meeting/dinner, so that took up almost 5 hours! For a meal! Well, ok, there was a talk too, and this year, by the Portland Art Museum director, about the new exhibit China Design Now. I'm sure it was an interesting talk, but unfortunately, I did not have a very good seat—the last table, close to the rest of the restaurant which had diners not involved with the event, and the other Chinese patrons at my table kept on talking to me through the talk. Yes, this is always a problem—while the speaker is talking up there, half the Chinese people in the audience are having their own conversations. I can't exactly just ignore them when they say something to me, and if I respond, it just keeps the conversation going. What do you do?!