Art day

What distinguishes the artist from the dilettante? Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante looks only for pleasure in art.
-Odilon Redon

I participated in Art in the Avenue this weekend, thanks to my friend Kerilyn who signed us up!

What a day! Walking in with our stuff in the morning, searching for our spot, I had the feeling that I wanted to give it up and not even do it anymore. Intimidating feeling it was…walking past all of the people with huge installations and TONS of great stuff! With my heart beating fast and my spirit dropping, I kept walking, trying to ignore the people with more photos and better frames and crazy cool installations and beautiful paintings. I noticed it all and then put all of my energy into setting up our table and getting ready for the crowds of people who would be passing by that day.

Well, it went better than I had ever expected! It was so great to see that people really were enjoying my work and wanted to own it. Wow! Very cool feeling. I sold my frames and had someone ask me if I did commission work. “Uh….(pause). Yeah. Sure I do!” I replied, doing a humungous dance in my mind. I needed this affirmation of my work more than I even realized. It motivated me to do more and made me realize, finally, that maybe my stuff isn’t as crappy as I sometimes tend to think.

There were lots of ups and downs to the day and in some ways lots of weirdness associated with it but I am just happy to have done it and to have been able to see people admiring things that I made and I can’t wait to do it again!

Of course, with the ups come the downs, and now I just feel drained and exhausted and sad. Immense tiredness and coming off of the wave lead to crankiness and moody words. Excitement ended up in guilt. It sucks that this wonderful thing had to end like this for me but I’m going to just hang on to those words “Do you do commission-based work?” and the love and encouragement I've received and smile.

Huge big great thanks to Kerilyn for getting the table and for inviting me to share this day and thanks to Dave for the help with various tasks and the support and love and the other people who’ve helped and inspired and pushed!

Check out this site I came across. I love it! It all gives me this weird uncomfortable feeling which is usually a good thing as long as it's not some emotional relationship thing....

http://www.photomontage.com/#