Studio show and sale 2011

This has been one crazy year-- and the last few months, kind of the icing on the crazy cake.  With unbelieveably mixed feelings, we had to close our wonderful tea house in early October.  The details and "fall-out" of that process continue to unfold with no great clarity....  on the heels of the closure of the shop, my husband began a long stint of working out of town which has him in Baltimore for two week stretches back for a quick weekend, and then off again!  To say that these things have been difficult on us would be a great understatement.....

With Dan out of town, i wondered if i would be able to pull off my - what is now annual- studio show and sale.  This would be the 4th year, and i hated the idea of not doing it.   It seemed like a tragedy to skip it-- it is, after all, really gaining some momentum now.... and my guest list is fairly long-- i didn't want to disappoint!  So, unsure of whether or not i really had enough work to even justify it, and not sure how exactly i would pull it all together, i went kind of nuts getting ready.  My children probably suffered the most for it....  but they are such very good sports... and actually really helped me a lot with cleaning up the house and preparing.

Somehow, it all came together.  As it turns out, it was my best show yet, and i had more than enough work to keep it looking bountiful and well stocked!  I sold lots of work-- many paintings included!  -- and this is really the most wonderful part to me-- the paintings.  because that is what i love the most!!  In the next couple of days, i will start to inventory what is left and begin packing things away.  I have a few "appointments" set up for folks who want to do a bit of last minute shopping, and then i will move forward with putting our house back together and beginning to work on creating more work!  My goal this year is to try to stay ahead of the busiest show seasons.... the key element here is to stay/ get busy working again right now and adding to the existing inventory that i have and just to keep churning it out and stocking it away.  I would really like to avoid the pitfall that seems to trap me every year; where the winter months seem to pass by without my doing a great amount of work and not getting down to business in the studio (in a serious way) until sometime in the spring.  This year i will strive to keep up with production all along, thereby (hopefully) avoiding the summer stress-out that i usually end up in.   we'll see how it goes :o)

Here are a couple of photos from the show before i take it down.  To see more, check out the album that i posted on my facebook business page: chARiTy elise studio show 2011

the last photo shows a couple of the paintings that sold.  so excited to get back to some painting!

getting back to work

The holiday season, family obligations and the business and "busy-ness" of the tea house have kept me from being in the studio very much, and from being able to list new things on etsy.... all great reasons, but still a little frustrating....  largely because i have so many pieces ready to go that are just waiting to be photographed, or worse yet- have ALREADY been photographed and are just sitting and twiddling their thumbs waiting to be shared with the world!  not that there are too many people waiting with bated breath to see what's coming out of the studio....  but anyway....

so today, after a phenomenal business meeting with my partner and a woman with whom we may work in some capacity (more cannot be divulged at this point...  but it is exciting stuff), i picked up my littlest one, played on the playground a bit and then took her out to lunch.  That was a rare treat as we don't get too much one on one quality time any more, and she was delighted by the opportunity to be with mama for a little while before she went to her grandparents for the day.  i was delighted too!  upon my return home and after certain domestic chores involving dogs and taking out garbage etc...  i finally got out to the garage to work on some mugs for an order that i got a few weeks back.  I threw a few pieces but then had to take a break because my clay is not as nice and soft as i like it to be for throwing, and i wasn't coming out with forms that i loved...  so here i am; thought it would be a nice chance to check in with this blah-blah-blog and say hello.  maybe i'll mist the clay and wrap it up for tomorrow.  I have a couple of paintings in the works that i could spend some time on instead.

here are the first few strokes on a canvas that i worked on throughout my show last month

 color number two introduces itself... a nice warm ochre...

mmhmm... let's get some red in there...

bringing in the green...

okay- this is starting to get fun!

a detail of what is starting to happen....

now we're getting somewhere.

almost finished....

detail of almost finished painting

 

 

all done!

this and other paintings will be on display at tahCha tea house in an upcoming show...  i'll keep you posted with details of the event and the opening reception.

this painting measures 2 ft by 4 ft and is painted in a combination of acrylics and oils.