The "off" season....

When one's life choices come to rest, making art one's sole source of income for 25+ years is a risky business, and a rewarding one. For the last 6 years I have enjoyed primarily representing myself, an independent artist past mid career, selling my own work through a juried group, S.F.Society of Artists, who show weekends through the "season" in downtown Santa Fe. My partnership in a cooperative gallery, Artistas de Santa Fe, also a beneficial experience, ended at the beginning of 2009.
These new venues for a former "gallery artist" have been a wonderful experience. I have met interested potential customers (they don't stop before my work unless interested) and learned to talk about and sell my own work, as well as others. I have gotten to know diverse artists with divergent goals at various levels in their careers. I have learned to accept my outcome, either positive or negative- setting up at 6am on Saturday and sitting for two days, often with unknown results, breaking down on Sunday at 5:30. I have collected many addresses, snail and e-mail, handed out many postcards and business cards, and grown enormously in the area of "marketing." I have contributed to my organizations with work, worry and wisdom (I am old, after all!)

Today I was rewarded with a visual record of that effort and growth, and a documentation of where it has all landed - weekends now spent talking to interested persons about painting and sculpture, interacting with my colleagues, young and old, and working on clays and waxes, a perfect and absorbing activity for those weekends. A fellow artist, Doug Earp, a wonderful traditional black and white photographer who works in the darkroom to produce his images, took pictures during the almost last show of the season. I wanted to share them with you and also his work. I googled him to find his website, and discovered he is listed on LinkedIn, but has no web address, so I can't share his work (sorry). Get busy, Doug, it's winter, and we all have work to do!