todays the day! my first ever meet and greet for my first ever showing of my art in a public place. pretty exciting stuff. it's been a long, nerve wracking 10 months to get to this place; making sure the paintings were presentable, doing touch ups, varnishing and wiring them to hang, creating new paintings along the way. I put a lot of pressure on myself to create at least one worthy painting each month, from march until september, to supplement the paintings I already had on hand. then I could choose only the best to show. we set up 5 days ago.
pups overlook the guest book and business cards as you walk in
in all I have 19 paintings up on the walls, and 22 mini paintings plus one slightly larger one in a display case. all the paintings in the display case are for sale, the minis for $15 a piece, and the larger one is about double that. of the 19 paintings on the wall, I have 9 that are for sale at a huge discount, and have already sold one painting and 8 minis. hopefully this is a good sign that this month long showing will be a hit with people. even if they don't purchase an original, they could order fun things from my store.
my minis on display with The Seeker watching over them
the room as you walk in
mark and i checked in on Saturday as we had more painting bios/price list copies to put out, and I saw that I already had a sweet comment in my guestbook. what a nice surprise!
they sure look good displayed in such a way!
sweetie was awesome, as usual
so proud and excited
I'm not too anxious right now. I suppose it doesn't seem real, after all the build up, that the day is actually here. or maybe I don't believe that many people I don't know will show up. I'm trusting right now that I will be surrounded with loving friends and family who support my artwork fully and only wish the best for me. and a few curious folk who will soon learn to love me and my work.
on to this evenings event!!!
I clean up good when I have to
I dressed up neat and pretty, had styling gel in my hair, earrings in my ears, and looked "with it". it was a nice turn out even though I heard that while the library had given the information to the local newspaper it hadn't been published before the event. bummer that I don't have that clipping to save, but I'm not sure I would have done too well with more people milling around. mark guessed there were around 20 people total during that hour, including my momma, aunt and son. that was plenty people-y for me!
before things got underway,
the Artist, hiding in the corner
since I am the photographer of the family, I didn't get many photos of people milling around either, sorry. it's hard to socialize, be the person in the spotlight, and be behind the camera. oh well. mark was doing a FABULOUS job talking my art up to everyone, handing out our print outs that explain each painting, and being the butterfly that he is. he's such a wonderful support to me and my work! we'll just have to find someone to hang around and take photos next time.
still in a corner, but being social
the food spread was wonderful, thanks to my momma. since we didn't know how many would turn out, she made an overabundance, but it was a hit as well.
many artist folk came by and chatted it up with me, and that was nice and helped me get out of my anxious brain and into my art brain. there were lots of smiles and complements. at the end was my favorite part, when someone who works at the library (so bad with names normally, but too many were thrown at me yesterday) started chatting to me about my Frida painting, "still she smiled". she asked me if I painted Frida from one of her paintings or a photo of her. great question, and verified to me that my Frida was well recognizable. and the answer to her question; I painted with a photo as the reference. she also asked if I paint the backgrounds with the subject in mind or if the subject comes after. and the answer to that is; both. I'm pretty sure that my Frida background was painted especially for her, and I was so scared to start painting her portrait on the background, since I loved the energy of it and wasn't sure I could do it justice.
all in all it was a nice event, everyone was great to me, there were no critics in the room, I only put my foot in my mouth once, and was highly uncomfortable the whole time.
my son jeroth came to the house for a little while after the event, and my other son from California called to say congrats and chat a little while. I donned my pj's and took my meds and crashed! the stress landed hard, starting at the end of the night while helping to clean. the headache started, the body started cramping up, the belly started to roll, and the brain had to digest it all, pick over everything I said and did to make sure I didn't make too many mistakes. the night was spent on the couch with kitty, knowing I needed the sound of tv to counter my brain, and I could toss and turn without disturbing my sweet man.
I'm glad I did it.
I'm glad it's over.
I may decide to do it again.
until later,
Jenny
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