Starving Artist's Brief Love Affair With Freelance Writing

We all know the money just isn't there when it comes to art collectors in our current economy.  We also know I have been fruitless in my search for gallery representation, even though I have a stellar contemporary art resume and several series of work ready to install - including small collector pieces.  So, what to do????

Over the last few months I was becoming so frustrated with this issue that I decided to try my hand at Freelance Writing.  What a hoot the last 10 days has been . . . yes, I have been writing, but it is for a mere pittance.  I guess I can say that I made more than I spent on art supplies this week, but I'm not really sure that is true!

So, I might be making the same salary the above beauty made on her then hot technology . . . I plan on refining what I work on and, hopefully, increasing my pay as I continue.  I am just not that intrigued by creating resumes and scripts for instructional videos . . . I have been requested for jobs which puts me on a bit higher pay scale, but it is definately not something I can make a living on.  

In the meantime, if any of you know of opportunities that could use my sharp tongue, witty humor or artistic flair, send them my way!

"AM WILLING TO WORK FOR ART SUPPLIES" - that should be my next piece of work - sharpie marked onto a straggly piece of cardboard!

 

I Just Can't Get With The Program

It has been 8 years since a friend (after having received another mass email story from me) suggested I start my own blog.

Blah . . . I have used Typepad, Wordpress, and now Squarespace, via my own 'website'.  I still don't get it.  I still can't do what I want to do.  How difficult can it be to just add a (NOTE: THERE SHOULD BE A PINTEREST BUTTON HERE!!!)

I'm just really aggravated at this point . . . I feel like I pay, and I pay, and I pay to have professionals do things for me and I still don't get what I want.

How about you?  As an artist, writer, self-employed 'whatever' - do you feel as taken advantage of as I do? 

Been A Long Time Gone

The last few months have been emotionally unstable for me . . . preparing for my first-born's high school graduation, along with the the entire 'visiting colleges', vacations, and children's end-of-year activities, I feel like there is no me left.

I have managed to squeeze in a few art related activities - finishing 5 new art works for an application for an exhibition in London (which I didn't get into, but which was a great motivator).

Choosing to continue with the CONSTRAINT series, I created:

Post-Partum, 2011. Created from Hospital Receiving Blankets

 Love, Honor, & Obey(?), 2011; Altered Wedding Dresses

Rat Trap, 2011; Bridal Veil, Wooden Rat Trap 

Initially, first reactions seem to be shock, and then, either horror or hilarity. 

I mean them to be visual jesters which have an underlying message about role models and institutions.  As a bride, I refused to say "obey" and as bride and groom, my husband and I attempted to have a garden wedding with a non-denominational vow exchange.  Unfortunately, after the family friend (minister) had agreed in July to the vows we had chosen, he decided the NIGHT BEFORE OUR WEDDING to announce to us that he would be using his King James/Fundamental Baptist wording.  We were NOT happy to say the least.  We felt TRAPPED by the trickery . . . yet we had 75 invites out, the Civil War era home we had rented was decorated . . . what to do? We got married anyway and I cried through the entire ceremony because it was not what we wanted.  Comments which were relayed to me after the wedding caused me to not speak to certain family members for 3 months.  It was awful.  I shudder at the memories of my own wedding.

Regarding "Post-Partum", I was thinking about the shock of bringing home a newborn and the emotional upheaval, not to mention the hormonal, changes.  It is difficult even if you are not dealing with depression, gestational diabetes, breast-feeding, etc.  This work also correlates with the "A PAXIL A DAY" and "COPING SKILLS" series, in that I had issues with pregnancy difficulties and depression.  On a broader scale, it simply visualizes the constraints parenthood puts on the family and couplehood dynamics.

One concern I have with marriage, as seen in "Rat Trap", is that once married, the couple tends to lose their 'romance' and 'infatuations' with one another.  Having been divorced, I was terrified that our marriage might END our love.  I am happy to say, 20 years later, that, for us, that was not the case.

What are the reactions you have to these works?  I would love to hear YOUR impressions and thoughts on marriage and parenthood!

Ladies First Exhibition Was Fabulous!

After many weeks of working on YOU MADE YOUR BED I & II, the unveiling occurred last Friday night at The Customs House Museum.

The installation on Tuesday, March 1st, had gone fabulously.  I was lucky enough to be available during press photo shoots and interviews.  Stacy Leiser, of The Leaf Chronicle, gave a fantastic interview and even included some of my quotes in her gorgeous article, Cebrate Women's Creativity.  The article, along with images by their photographer, Greg, really boosted the opening's attendance.

Here is a basic excerpt from Stacy Leiser's article, in case the link expires:

The artists included were asked to create a self portrait symbolizing how they see themselves as female artists at this moment in time. Sher Fick's piece for the show, "You Made Your Bed," features a grid of doll beds next to a quilt stitched irregularly from scraps of Hollie Hobby fabric and other patterns Fick associates with childhood. In two of the doll beds are tiny dolls, one a self-portrait of Fick, the other a portrait of her sister.

"I'm a little sentimental. I've never thought of myself totally as a feminist, but I make art about what I know," Fick said. "I'm a woman. I'm a mother. I was a little girl."

Fick is a former art teacher and mother of three children who now makes art in her home studio with the enthusiastic support of her husband.

"Doing art is therapeutic for me," she said. "If I don't do art I'm unhappy and grumpy."

Fick had a mysterious altar piece featured in "Modern Girls" at Customs House Museum last year, and like her new piece, it uses repetition for effect. Dozens of prescription medication bottles were used in both artworks, each pill bottle encased in a patchwork of fabric scraps.

"Basically, I feel like I put broken things back together," Fick said. "That's why I'm drawn to remnants, found objects, things most people throw away."

Among the artists featured in Ladies First are Camille Engel, named by Fine Art Connoisseur magazine as one of our nation's top three artists to watch, Alison Oakes, Sandra Paynter Washburn, Edie Maney, Mitzi Cross, Ludie Amos and Tammy Dohner.

I can't tell you how wonderful it felt to have so many women approach me and not only say that they "loved" my art, but that it "MEANT A LOT" to them that I did it, that I was "brave" for standing up for all the women who have been vilified for taking medications in order to maintain well-being.  (I always refer to Brooke Shields and her public denigration via Tom Cruise when she chose medication to treat her post-partum depression, which, literally, infuritated me).

I truly felt that I had fulfilled my purpose in creating the art.  I can't ask for more than that from my life . . . that I am moving towards my purpose, while at the same time growing children, strengthening my marriage, and developing some of the strongest friendships I have ever had.

I am truly blessed, and fortunate to have been given the opportunities to grow and thrive in my life and my art.

The One-Sentence Artist Statement

Having had a particularly difficult day today, emotionally, speaking - I want to turn the page back to last week when I had some fantastic epiphanies.

Since December and the Miami-Pool Art Fair trip, I have been trying to answer a question I received during my flight wait to Miami.  I was approached by a retired Military officer and asked "Where am I going? And "What do I do?"  One would think that I have a snap answer to that question, but I never have.  Maybe because I really work at breaking down my motivations and analyze my own psyche, I tend to answer in paragraphs or essays, NOT one sentence wonders.

So, I decided I needed to have that one-sentence answer ready the next time I am asked.

If you know me at all, and some of you do, I don't keep anything hidden, I am what I am, for better for worse . . . you know I am NOT a morning person!  I think better at night, I work better at night, and the mornings (i.e., anything prior to NOON) are not me at my best.  Last week, after realizing we would have ANOTHER SNOWDAY and that I could TURN OFF THE ALARM (woot!), I was given the great opportunity to slowly wake up and tiptoe through that twilight of sleep/dream and awake/reality.  What I realized, was that, in one sentence,:

I am the most broken item I have ever put back together.  It is a daily process, just like today, when I was literally ripped apart in a public forum for speaking my own truth about my rape.  I am stitching myself back together - I am a one-armed Raggedy Ann, restitching my dismembered arm back to myself.

The 2nd epiphany I experienced last week was the solution to an installation problem with "YOU MADE YOUR BED", a new series I will be installing in March at the "Ladies First", Top 10 Women Artists of Tennessee Exhibition at The Customs House Museum (in honor of women's history month).  Literally, laying 'abed' I visualized the installation solution and got it planned in my brain before I stepped onto the floor.  Here is 1/2 of the installation:

So, what I have learned this month?

1)  I realized what I do is, metaphorically and, literally, "I Put Back Together Broken Things", and

2)  Just as I am responsible for what my truth is, so are others, and there are deep and lasting crevices that are created from speaking one's truth.