A Thankless Job...
filling in the blacks, that is. One of the down sides of not teaching is that I cannot hire a poor but meticulous student to help me fill in the blacks. I am off to Washington soon to do some research for my next painting (the National Gallery has quite a few Assumption of Mary paintings on permanent display), look at some galleries, etc. During my 5 hour Amtrak ride, I will be honing the master mailing list for the big mailing. I think I'm quite organized, especially compared to most of the artists I know, but one of my biggest challenges is having back-to-back trips. If I go to an art fair, and come back with a shopping bag full of business cards, magazines, and postcards that contain contact names and addresses, but I have another trip coming up within a few days, the shopping bag may sit for 6 months before I get around to adding the names to my mailing list. Usually there are a few that I want to send packets to right away, and I pull them out and do them after the second trip, but the rest sit around and wait. So tonight, I have sorted through the business cards with little notes on them ("fiber" or "painting", some with stars because the work is really cool, some say "NOW" in caps) that I had in my Art Basel bag.... that's beginning of December 2005. Today got about 3-4 hours of embroidery done before I had to start running errands and packing. Full-time artist my @#!.
I have found this to share with you... Fine Art Adoption Network is a website connecting artists with collectors... someone "adopts" your work. From the first page:

"Welcome to the Fine Art Adoption Network (FAAN). FAAN functions as an online posting board for artwork and as a network for artists and potential collectors. Feel free to browse these pages to view contemporary art. All of the artwork on view is available for adoption.

The goals of FAAN are to place artworks by committed artists into homes and institutions and to engage people who may never have thought of themselves as art collectors. By putting more art into more homes, we hope to increase and diversify the population of art owners, re-imagining the ways in which art can be experienced and shared.

As a website catalyzing the exchange of art for trust, FAAN is based on a gift economy between an artist, who generously gives their artwork, and an individual who commits to own and care for the artwork."

Better than having things take up space in your studio where no one will see them. Love the idea of art as gift and artist as gift giver. Could the artist put a stipulation that the work must be prominantly displayed and the "caretakers" must have at least 10 dinner parties a year? If the right collector asked, I am sure there are many artists who would give them a gift to be in their collection. But does this undercut the value of our work?

Must sleep... must be up in 3.5 hours to catch my train. Will blog from the road.