As you may have heard, I was recently promoted at my day job. I have officially been an Underwriting Assistant for about 2 months now. And might I say, I'm pretty flipping good at my job. It just makes sense to me and I genuinely enjoy doing it. I've become an insurance nerd.
Little did I know, that in the promotion there would be an added bonus I could not have foreseen: I would develop a friendship with one of the coolest people I have ever met, the enigmatic Kyle H. Seriously, he is one of the coolest dudes I've ever met. Together, with the lovely Jennifer Rose, we have formed our little unit of awesomeness. We are the Teen Royalty of Markel. How fetch.
One of the many things I really admire and like about Kyle is that he tries to find the good and the interesting in everyone. And its not like he tries to be-friend strange people out of the novelty of it, he really genuinely cares and knows all about these people. He takes a personal interest in their lives and he impacts everyone he knows in a very positive way, myself included.
The point of bringing him up - aside from the fact that I love to brag about my awesome friends because I think it makes me cooler by association - actually has to do with art and my plan to deal with my feelings of desperation in regards to inspiration.
It all started with this painting:
Weighing the Gold, Watching You Sink 2010
Kyle moonlighted as my “Titler” on this piece. This is a job that is normally held by my brother Ellis, but for this particular piece it was Kyle.
Now Kyle has AWESOME taste in music and has made me some kick-ass mixed CDs. One of them contained the song “Fools Gold” by The Stone Roses. I this I was subconsciously influenced by this song. I never paint with gold, EVER. Yet one day I felt I HAD to. So I did. The entire time I felt drawn to this song and eventually wanted to name the song “Fools Gold”. That seemed too obvious though, so I instead took lyrics from the song, naming it “Weighing the Gold, Watching You Sink”. The next day at work, I emailed Kyle informing him and sending him a picture of the painting.
Kyle loved it and loved his role as my official painting Titler. He proceeded to forward the picture to a painter friend of his down and eventually told me to said an email to this individual, one Jared Gaines. I had seen his name pop up in bind requests being routed to the Casualty inbox and was immediately intrigued. Kyle informed me that not only did Jared paint, but he liked zombies too. I was sold. I checked out his artwork (which is awesome and can be seen HERE – my favorite is the wolf on the porch) and emailed him.
After a couple weeks of emailing back and forth – me recommending he read the Walking Dead comics, him recommending the TV show Adventure Time - Jared made a couple comments about how some of his friends go about their art. He said they just accumulate pieces all year and then do one big show at the end with all of their pieces.
So simple, yet it never occurred to me. I was too wrapped up in the idea that if I wasn’t getting out there I was wasting exposure opportunities. I cannot think of a better approach then that. No more playing games, I'm getting down to business in a totally de-stressed way. I don’t need to worry about having one show one month, selling several of the pieces and then having nothing for the next month's show. That is exactly what happened and made me kind of crazed. Selling a lot of my pieces in March really messed me up.
Plus, I know my friends and family support and love me, but who honestly wants to be going to an art show every other month, looking at the same pieces? It’s my work and I don’t even want to be doing that.
So I’ve decided for the time being, I’m just going to take it slow. Summer is about partying and I am going to paint when I want to and not stress myself out that I don’t have enough pieces for an upcoming show. I’ll just wait and accumulate another 20 or so pieces and then have a huge show, where people want to attend because it is new art to look at and it isn’t the same event over and over and over again.
And I already know where I want to stock up on art and display – Asbury Lanes. The ambiance is perfect and totally my laid back style. I’m feeling better about all this already. I’m almost done with my Charlie Kelly “Wildcard BITCHES!” painting and bought about 24 new canvases. I’m ready to roll and have a blast this summer partying and relaxing and creating.
Also, totally unrelated to painting, I learned how to open a beer bottle off a ceiling:
