Got my list checked off....now it's time to play!

Hey Beautiful People!

I know I've been a remiss bloger lately - it isn't often that I don't post for over a week! But you'll be glad to hear that the huge list of things I had to do this month. Let's see....what was it again? RACC grant application. Check. Show proposal submitted to one more venue? Check. Visits with my dad, Christian's dad and sister, and his mom and other sister, and my mom? Check, check, check, check. Installed show in Corvallis? Check. Took a class to brush up on my Dreamweaver skills, and then worked countless hours on the website for my new business, although it's still got a wee bit of fine tuning before it's an official check off this list. Gotta give kudos to Christian here for his enormous help to me, from the design to html coding, to figuring out how to get the durn shopping cart to work. And last but not least, I did a speaking engagement for the Portland Female Executives group at the Museum of Contemporary Craft? Well, that's a big old check!

I have done many public speaking engagements, and really love getting those opportunities because I really deal with the public so little. The cards you see in the above image are the notes I made for myself to remind me of what to say, but thankfully I didn't need to refer to them much. I think public talks are so much better when you're not reading, but I like this colored card format because it outlines my talking points and makes it easier for me to memorize.Last week's talk was really fun - I have been supporting myself from my artwork for 18 years and definitely believe that art and business are great bedfellows. I had no idea how this was going to go over, since my usual subjects are wide-eyed artist types. Who knows how it would go over with a bunch of REAL businesswomen?

Well, they seemed to really have fun - even got into my hands-on activity where I asked all 60 of these business professionals to get up out of their seats and grab some kiddie scissors and make their assigned body parts so we could assemble some exquisite corpse bodies. It's my way of showing how to be spontaneous and creative and it was a real blast. I had to run off at the end to have one final sup with Christian's family before they left, but I did make contact with so many nice women while I was there, which may lead me to two more speaking engagements in the future.

Before the engagement I ran into TJ Norris downstairs who was there checking in on his M_US_EUM installation there, which is part of the collaborations exhibition for Art in the Pearl this weekend. I was really glad to get to see it since I'm off to Chicago for the holiday weekend. Wheeeee - I can't wait! It was a great show with pieces by many of my friends. I really loved TJ's collaboration with Scott Wayne Indiana - quite a contrast from the rest of the mostly object-oriented works. I wish I had a picture to show you of the sweet collaboration between my friends Deb Stoner and Fred Soelzer called B-52. If you're in the Portland area, Art in the Pearl is happening this weekend in the north Park Blocks and this collaborations show is upstairs in the museum.

I do have this image of a trumpet made by Dave Monette and my friend Tami Dean - they have been collaborating for years on these amazing instruments that have been commissioned by the likes of Wynton Marsalis. There was an interesting article in the Oregonian last week about a recent project they did together that will be sent down to the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. You can read the article by clicking here. Monette does the manufacturing of the horn and Dean makes it beautiful with her pieced elements and set stones. They are incredibly gorgeous. I ran a lecture series when I was a student at Oregon College of Art and Craft and got them to come speak - would love to go visit his studio some day.

Okay - I'm finishing up this blog entry as I sit at Gate D9, where in a matter of minutes, Christian and I will board a plane for Chicago. Can't wait to have a great holiday weekend that will surely be packed with art activities worthy of some blog entries for you, dear reader. I'm especially excited to see a show of Niki de Saint Phalle's work, which I have been a big fan of for years. I'll leave you with this word of wisdom from Twyla Tharp about multitasking. I haven't done it myself, but I told the Portland Female Executives that I plan to put it on my big list of things to do someday. HoSounds pretty good right now.