My Candy Colored World...

Inspired by Kathy Frey's blog: "Taming the Tangle", I recently revamped my categories. She has one called "Personal Glimpse" I edited mine to "My Candy Colored World" it's just more of a focused peek at the everyday here. I also thought that made for a good name for my blog since I've always said my hues are candy colored, and as you can see here in these photos, so is my life!

In honor of the everyday..things that happened around here last week:

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• Home Improvement...we had the wonderful guys from Samanco working here this week, the jobs not huge, but closing the walls and ceiling back up made for a 4 day event. We now have insulation in our laundry room (the pipes froze last winter) and we have fabulous pendants hanging over the kitchen island....this will add so much ambiance to our dinner hour...not too mention dramatic lighting for our high stakes Scrabble games! Also replaced the very froofy brass fixtures that were hanging in the living rooms that join the kitchen. They are very simple schoolroom style period fixtures that echo the age of this old house. I love them...!! And a plug for Angie's List, this is how I found Samanco, they also did our bathroom rehab in our old house on Oakley....sadly that bathroom no longer exists as the house was torn down.

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• I hung my fun Birthday gifts from my dear pal Erica by my desk..shrinky dinks! She did a portrait of me and one of each of our hands...they are precious little talismans. She also presented me with this sweet hand sewn birthday cake! Perfect...I can take it with me on my annual sojourn.

• I went to the Art Girls Pot Luck for the first time since December! We met at printmaker, Judy Zeddie's house. My big tip for the night was to get the business book "The E Myth Revisited". I went with the unabridged audio version...I have too many books stacked on my bedside table and I want to get right into this one...I can listen while I paint!

• We hosted an easter brunch here for some of Rich's family, it was a fun day...my nephew Dexter made this great drawing of me and him:

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• My next assignment: Create a Blog Banner with art on it....I should have done that first!

Artist Statement.....I finally wrote one.

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I only accomplish these important things when I really don't have time. I should be packing as I'm heading out of town in the morning for my 4th annual Birthday Adventure...Premise: Go to sleep or wake up someplace you have never been on your birthday! This year I will go to sleep near Lake Wenatchee in the Cascade Moutains of Seattle at my brother's new cabin!

So back to the statement, the deadline for Chicago's Public Art Portrait Project is Monday, I just couldn't pass it by. The Proposal required a Design,Concept Statement, Resume, Slides and...sigh, an Artist Statement. I have been putting this off for too long...instead using a weird bio/statementee thing. So tonight I did it...please note this project does not involve my animal imagery so I did not include anything relating to the animal art or mission. That will be an altogether separate piece. When I have more time I will created a combination statement that ties it all together. Enough talk, here it is:

When I paint, I feel like I am on an adventure, the blank canvas or board is like the open road. It’s easiest to take a route I know well but most satisfying when I have the courage to go down a path I have not traveled before – that’s when my most interesting compositions emerge.

Based on my adventure theory, I guess it’s not surprising that many of my paintings include roads and narrative landscapes. These painted stories include a visual vocabulary of beloved shapes and patterns that make up my contemporary folk and urban pop art style. I have a constant source of imagery influenced by my dreams, daily sketchbooks and my precious adopted dogs.

Raised in a small Wisconsin town, I always dreamed of living in the big city. The energy and vistas of Chicago’s more industrial, urban views constantly inspire me. My style was surely influenced by a childhood of endless Sunday mornings sitting in a Catholic church staring at the stained glass windows.  My color sense further developed every Christmas as my Mother allowed my Brother and I to mix our own frosting colors for holiday cutout cookies. Those colors still make up my palette.

Making art and seeing the joy it brings to other people inspires me, and keeps me moving forward in life, always excited to create something new.

-Anne Leuck Feldhaus

I would love your feedback. If you are looking for tips on how to write your artist statement I highly recommend visiting the very helpful sites of Alyson Stanfield, Molly Gordon and Arianne Goodwin. And most definitely check out the Smartist Telesummit for statements and so much more.

Art Fairs...How do we get there?

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I've already submitted several applications for the 2008 shows and whisked off a few more for a January 31 deadline yesterday. Most people have know idea the lengthy process artists go through to get into the art fairs. In addition to paying to rent our spaces, months in advance we spend time filling out applications, labeling slides, writing checks for jury fees, booth fees, SASEs (stamp self-addressed envelopes) including 100 character (yes character not word) descriptions, and in some cases resumes ..(this is the prompt I have every year to update mine).  We are all competing with other artists based on 4 slides (3 for some shows) and a booth shot and also paying a jury fee for them to look at our slides. Picking those slides becomes very important, I learned some tips from a workshop taught by Bruce Baker. I visited his website and saw that he now has a cd available on the topic: Your Slides and the Jury. Since my images are now digital I use iprintfromhome.com to have my slides made, you can upload digital files and they ship the same day. 

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There is a great new on-line art fair application process which streamlines the whole system dramatically, it's called Zapplication (Zapplication.org). We upload our images to the site and can apply and manage our applications on-line to the shows that subscribe to the service. The downside is it's simplified the application process so much that hundreds more are applying to each show and competition is higher than ever before. I recently received a rejection letter from the Brookside Show in Kansas City: they received 1,300 applications for 170 spots! and painting is generally the largest category so with odds like that you do the happy dance if you get in! If they like your work and it's a tie, it often comes down to your booth shot, which I have not had professionally taken outdoors...one of these days. Below are the images I am using for the 2008 show submissions. So anyways...if you are still reading...thanks! and I hope this was somewhat informative if you are interested in jumping into the art fair circuit.

Art Biz Coach...Alyson Stanfield

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Alyson is based in the Denver area and I've worked with her off and on for several years via phone and email. She is a great art business coach: ArtBizCoach.com. Her blog: ArtBizBlog.com and Newsletters are a constant help and resource for me and thousands of other artists.I finally had the pleasure of meeting her in person over the weekend at the Art Marketing Workshop she held in Lake Forest for the Deer Path Art League. I helped with sales of her new book : "I'd Rather Be In The Studio" (hot off the presses last week) and her other educational art marketing cd's. It was great to see her in action, she is a wonderful presenter. I then had the added bonus of having  her visit my home & studio and take me to dinner on Sunday...she even got to meet Izzy &  crazy Alice. Thanks Alyson!

#10 is my Nemesis...

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I get lots of emails from other artists looking for tips and help. I have collected a great referral list of sites and other inspring artists to check out among them is Keri Smith...she posted the list above on her Wish Jar Journal and I had to laugh when I read it because I happen to be having a miserable artist's week: Numbers 1,3,5,9,10...especially 10. I'm not supposed to feel this way in January, this should be free and easy catch up time but instead I feel like I'm never going to get caught up.

On a positive note here are some very helpful resources to check out:

www.artbizcoach.com

www.artbizblog.com

www.another.girlatplay.com

www.kerismith.com

www.smartist-telesummit.com

www.cherylphelps.com/workshops.html

www.artmarketing.com/books

www.karenrossi.com/faqs-licensing.htm

www.maryengelbreit.com/ForArtists/GettingStarted.aspx

www.porterfieldsfineart.com/howtolicenseyourart.htm

www.surtex.com

licensingshow.com

As Seen on The ispot...

I did it! I am now represented on the ispot Illustration Portfolio Website. Of course I do not know if I chose the right images but I can change and edit them at any time. I'm still on the fence regarding getting a rep (this is one of the reasons I was holding off on putting my work up, I didn't want to do it without getting a rep first). Almost every illustrator I spoke with said, you can do it on your own...I reply that I have a hard time asking for $ and worry about contractual issues. Guess I'll have to wing it...!

Art Girls...

Last night I hosted our monthly Art Girls get together...it was "Pot Leuck" I made my Mother's great Seafood Lasagna.  As usual..I forgot to get out the camera until everyone was on their way out. We had a great time and shared lots of good information. It's inspiring to trade leads and resources and hear eachother's news, big commissions & sales, new venues etc. On resource we'll all be checking out soon from  Kathy Frey is the Women's Business Development Center, they offer seminars with business counseling included in the fee. I also shared about my favorite art/client/exhibit database management software Eartist - from Artscope.net. As usual the food contributed by all made for an amazing meal from the appetizer to the desserts....and yes there is still plenty of talk about doing our own cookbook! Girls in the photos Match, Kathy, Mimi, Kate & Eva sporting their flower child candy bracelet head bands! And Sharon & Match...

New Postcards...

There are benefits of doing your own graphic design but the curse is that you spend way too much time tweaking and changing and deliberating on the final piece. And of course as usual, I left this task to 3 days before leaving for my 8 day artist residency at the Fields Project and a road trip the following week to Colorado for a family reunion at the YMCA of the Rockies. Rich chose the final design, we went with the upper left one. I placed my order late last night so they get printed and mailed before the July 13-15 Magnificent Mile Art Fair. I use GotPrint.com for my printing and my mailing. Their prices are great and the quality superb. Other companies I use are PSPrint.com (for bookmarks and stickers) and ClubFlyers.com (for high quantity - minimum order is 5000 cards but for the incredible price of $150). Phew...okay, now on to the next 25 things on my to do (in the next 48 hours) list!