The plan

When I left my job I gave a long notice of four months. I decided that in that time I wanted to be fully prepared for the promotion of my artwork. Today is the last day of this four month notice, my last day at Forum Gallery. In those four months this is what I have prepared: I have twelve fully stocked portfolios (each containing 15 full-page color images, 15 slides, a four-page illustrated statement, a bio, a cover letter, and a SASE), I have business cards, I have a website (crateartist.com), I have slides, photography, just about everything I need for promotion. So, I am on schedule. I have a few places I intend to send portfolios, but the portfolios were just finished yesterday so none have been sent out yet. I also intend to send out a mass email to everyone I know to tell them to visit the website, but again, the website was just finished two or three days ago and I have not had the opportunity to get my mailing list together.

As for the "paying rent" portion of my blog, it seems that things are working out and that the problem of finding work is not a problem at all. I sent out a lot of resumes for freelance art installation, and I have had a huge response. It has become an issue of making sure I do not work too much instead of trying to make sure I work enough to pay the bills. Any other young artists out there trying to find employment in an art gallery, let me give you a tip: go to myfax.com and order myfax. Write a resume and a cover letter. Get a Gallery Guide from any gallery. Go through the gallery guide and pick 200 galleries you would not mind working at and fax your resume to them. The fax number is in the Gallery Guide and myfax give you 100 faxes for free and then charges you $.10 a page thereafter. Total cost for sending out 200 resumes = $30. Total time invested = about 3 hours + the amount of time it takes to make the resume. This works well and I promise you will get a response.

My ambition is to work about three-four days a week, and have three full days a week to be in my studio or to be sending out promotional material.

The studio is the third part of this lifestyle, and the most exciting part. My studio is about half a mile from my home, and it is a nice one-room studio with large windows. I have not been there in a couple of days, due to all the portfolios I have been making. At my studio there are two new Crateart pieces in the works. The first one is a piece I have been working on since I finished the Moonshine piece. It is a portrait of my friend Noel Heberling. This piece, which I have titled "Portrait of Noel Heberling as the Zeus of Manhattan and the Poseidon of Brooklyn", is an 8' x 2' crate piece that will be two sided, one vertical and one horizontal. The piece will be able to move from one side to the other easily, and when it is done it will have a swiveling fish, stone lions, duck heads, the largest Crayole pieces I have ever done, and a forged steel barbarian's sword (or axe, I have not yet decided).

The second piece has not been given a title yet. It is the jacket of a suit that has a lot of history with me, a suit I stole on my first night out with other artists in New York City. I have stretched the back of the suit and I have gessoed the suit and the primed the gesso with white Crayola. The painting dimensions are about 12 x 7 inches. I have a beautiful guilded frame to place over it when it is finished. The Suit Piece will be a flower still life painting on suit. The suit will have a big puffy hanger and will be hung on a hook in the wall. I already have the hook, it is a chrome gecko hook with green gem eyes. The suit can be worn with the painting on it. I will take my camera next time I am at the studio and be sure to post pictures of these two works on some future blog post.

Enough blogging for today. I have to begin my last day at Forum Gallery in 2 hours. Tonight I have another gallery installation and then a big party to attend. It’s a busy day.