Finally, Denali! and hello 2016

Well, it's 2016, and this year I pledge to post at least weekly on my blog (ha, ha, good one!)
But seriously, I need to at least catch up on my so called life, and announce that I have finally conquered "The Great One". Yes—Denali has finally capitulated to my ten year blitz of applications to their artist-in-residence program and decided it was easier to just accept me and get it over with.

So sometime this summer I'll be heading Back to Alaska II, this time to the interior and land of big mountains, grizzlies, and wolves. I will have a cabin with no electricity, but long, long days. No running water, but braided rivers. No wifi, but, but . . . I think I can handle it, a detox will be cleansing.

 

It's especially exciting to be going in the National Park Service Centennial Year and the year the true name of the mountain is acknowledged. More about that when I hear more. So far, I just have this letter to assure me I'm not imagining it.

• • • 

February 1 is the first anniversary of being sprung from my day-job in the newspaper business into the wide open landscape of unemployment. One of my greatest fantasies was having one year, just one year, without the day job. So how did I spend the year of my dreams? Well, mostly trying to figure out how to make some money. To that end, I brushed up on my web design skills and started a web design business (need a website?), took an advance wordpress class, drank the social media kool-aid and set up a few workshops (more about that as I'm trolling for students). I also applied for 2 real jobs, one I wanted, one I didn't. Interesting to go on my first interviews in over 20 years. I didn't get offered either, but nice to know I'm no longer the nervous wreck I used to be when in the hot seat.

My main 2015 accomplishment was two exhibits of work from my residencies in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. How I could have hung those shows if I was still doing the 9-5 I don't know, it was a panicky scramble at the end as it was, but I think it came out pretty well!

I exhibited in group shows at Gallery X, the Newport Art Museum, Save the Bay and am excited to be represented by a new gallery, the Charlestown Gallery in South County. I hope to deliver more work (with the perk of side trips to the beach) this summer.

So, I kind of fulfilled one New Year's resolution, which was to re-start my blog on January 1. My second resolution was to stop procrastinating. Like I said, kind of.

Hope you all have a great, happy, healthy, adventurous and peaceful 2016, and the same goes for the other 7.3 billion people in the world who don't follow this blog.

War is over. If you want it.
Peace.

Calendar angst and pre-show jitters

The calendar is nagging me. Insisting it's been over 7 months since I last blogged. Threatening me that it's exactly 1 month till I have to deliver a show's worth of paintings to the Bert Gallery. And a few days later, another show's worth to DeBlois Gallery. And that I'm late, late, late designing invitations, getting out PR and related paperwork. And that it's been over a year since I dipped my kayak paddle into the turquoise waters of Alaskan Fiords.

Well I'm blogging now, so shut up calendar.  And the show will come together. After all, I have a month!

And, although I probably have lost any folks who have been kind enough to follow this blog, those who stumble upon it can see more about my exhibits here
https://www.facebook.com/KathyHodgeStudio
and suffer silly tweets here
https://twitter.com/KathyHodgeArt

Day Job — the Apocalypse

Where I make (made) money

Where I am happy

At the end of this month, my day job will come to an end. After over 30 years in the newspaper business, surviving wave after wave of layoffs, I've finally ended up in the crosshairs and my job will be outsourced in February, to "ad centers" in the U.S. and India.

So, no more day job! I can spend all my time in the studio!

**SNAP OUT OF IT!!**  Turns out I'm not close enough to retirement to not make money anymore, and not far enough away (age discrimination being alive and well) to find a job easily in my field, which is all things web.

And then there's healthcare. Thank goodness my state (yea RI!) has set up a health exchange with many options (yea Obamacare!) so I should be able to get coverage, but no health care program is cheap these days.

So, I must make more money than painting sales can provide.

And...

I'm too old to stand for a job that bores me to death.

So here's my plan.

1. Treat my painting more like a business.
The trade off to having no time was the luxury of not worrying too much about selling. Sure, selling was great, but if it didn't pay the rent, that was what the day job was for. Now I will have to make more of an effort to market my work.

2. Become an expert in Social Media Marketing and Analytics. 
Businesses are constantly being told they have to get "out there" but do not have the knowledge or desire to Tweet, Facebook, Link In, Instagram, etc, etc, etc. So I will offer to do it for them, beginning with myself. This will have the dual purpose of helping me promote my work, and giving me a marketable skill to offer small businesses. So if you see me suddenly getting extremely social, it's all in a day's work.

So....
Follow me on Twitter! @KathyHodgeArt
Friend me on Facebook!  http://www.facebook.com/KathyHodgeStudio

Pin me on https://www.pinterest.com/hodgepainting/

3. Design web site for artists
Because they have so much money to spend on web design!

4. Teach small classes. 

5. Apply for grants.

6. Last but not least —Collect unemployment!

Well, according to the social media tips I've been reading, this is longer than the optimal blog length for reader engagement, so I'll en—

Hello? Anyone there?

Escaping the web

I've taken a break from website building long enough to get back in the studio for at least a few nights. Working on a painting that combines icebergs in Prince William Sound, with a Collard Lizard from the Petrified Forest, and hands from a Grunewald painting. Thus the clay appendages on my easel. Will it work? Perhaps not, but I'll probably post it anyway.

I'm in the process of migrating Kathyhodge.com over to a new web host, which may mean it's down for a few days. Hopefully I can do it without losing my email for more than a day. If by any chance you want to get in touch with me and it's not working, you can always leave a message on my facebook page, or in the comments.

Nothing much else to say, except I'm glad that the National Parks and Forests are back open. Hopefully it means my application to Denali National Park is back on the agenda. After all, the seventh attempt is the charm!

BETA, META, FETA - say cheese!

Ok, here's my excuse for lack of posts, I've been working obsessively (which is the only way you can work in HTML and CSS) on my new website design.  It's finally ready to go public, but still a work in progress. I'm not brave enough yet to migrate my .com address over, so I've created this new one on www.kathyhodge.net. Eventually I will use the same design on www.kathyhodge.com and switch it to a faster (and cheaper) web host.

Hopefully this design will stay useful for a few years, since it's designed to work on desktop, tablet and smartphone. I refuse to design a version for google glass, or Apple watch, or the microchip that will be embedded in our brains in the next upgrade. Call me a luddite, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Let me know if you see anything wacky going on, unless you are using IE v6.0 or under, In that case I don't want to hear it. My hatred of IE is only tempered by the versions 8.0 and above, the point at which IE has grown up and started to behave. Sorry, that's just my cranky web designer persona talking.

Since this is wrapping up, I hope to get back to my Artist in Residence wordpress group site. Because what else am I going to do with my "free" time, paint?

Two little Canyon Paintings

I've been working non-stop on my website redesign, but am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, it's a strange rectangular blue glow. Or is that just the light from my laptop?

Oh well, it WILL launch soon, and I can wean myself off lattes and coffee shops, and get back to the studio. I'll post a BETA version soon for all my loyal blog followers. In the meantime, here's a few more little paintings from the canyon.

Off to the Grand Canyon!

On Tuesday I'm off to the Grand Canyon for my 11th artist residency and 3 weeks in a little cabin on the north rim. I can't wait to get on that big red plane and head west, but for a few more days, life will continue in its hectic, scattered east coast way.  I've already shipped off a box of art supplies, but it's still challenging to decide what to bring for 3-weeks far from art supply and grocery stores.

And it will be HOT. Usually temperatures on the North Rim are in the 70s, but they've been reaching the 90s lately, and I don't even want to TALK about how hot it is at the bottom of the canyon.

OK, I do want to talk about it.

How's 115 sound to you? I really would love to hike to the bottom, which would probably not be too bad if we started early. But even after a night at Phantom Ranch to recoup, the hike up would be daunting at those temperatures. No water, no shade, 1 mile up and 14 miles long. Gee I hope I get to do it....

As happy as I am to get away from my day job for 3 weeks, it does have a little perk. While designing web sites for the newspaper, I can't help but learn a whole bunch of html, css, js, photoshop, etc.  Which may not be such a perk as it makes me feel the need to redesign my own site to keep up with all you crazy ipad, iphone, droid, and who-knows-what viewers. But my site was overdue for a redesign anyway, and god help me I do find it kind of interesting, so I've been spending way too much time after work at my computer... My last redesign only made it halfway through my site but I'm going to streamline this one, estimated launch date - August!

 I'm also designing a Wordpress blog which will hopefully serve as a forum for the community of Artists in Residence. It's so much fun to find other AIR's journals and blogs to read before applying or arriving, so I'd like to create a place for us all to post links and interact. But a community Wordpress is surprisingly tough to set up, so that may also have to wait till August to launch. If you've been an AIR, you may receive an email from me inviting you to join, or just check back, I'll be posting it's debut for sure!

 

I am planning to blog daily from the Grand Canyon, but internet connections can be iffy, and my resolutions tend to be iffy as well. But I will try, so if  you want to come along, check back!

Insulating myself

 

You can only insulate yourself so much against the slings and arrows of this life, but I've spent the last few weeks insulating my studio against the cold weather, which, though it's been strangely warm for November, will arrive one of these days.  This year, in addition to mounting insulation panels on the garage door I'm going to try dividing my studio in half using this sheet of heavy plastic. My theory is that it will hold the warm air on the painting-side of my studio. 

If so, I just might be able to paint all winter. 

In theory, anyway. 

Family has taken a lot of my energy lately, both good and sad. So as little time as I thought I had to paint before....well, it's less now. But hopefully things will settle into a new routine and I'll get back to my selfish self-centered life soon - can't wait!

I have managed to get some painting in though, both on my animal series and Alaska paintings. I was also asked to take on a high-school intern who wants to learn oil painting. At first I thought great! She can help me get some things done in the studio. Then I realized that any oil-painting-type-tasks I needed to do were those I wanted to do myself.  I have more blank canvases than I can fill right now, so stretching canvas is out, as is grinding paints and painting in backgrounds and angels, traditional duties of studio assistants. What I could really use is someone to help me with promoting my work, but that's not what she wants to learn. (Anyone who knows of any agent-types, I'm all ears).

She came by last week though, and I think it's going to be fun. She's talented, hardworking and smart and makes me think about how I began as a painter myself, since she's about the same age as I was when I first worked in oils (17). I'm going to teach her how to set up her palette and begin a painting, and give her some pigment samples to research. It's nice to see that there are young artists who want to learn some of the timeless techniques like oils, without approaching it "ironically".  I just might end up liking this teaching thing...

Posterized

 

This is the poster I designed for this month's Gallery Night Providence. I've got nothing to show in that fair city right now but I am showing 3 paintings in Warren at Imago Gallery, and one in Newport at the Newport Art Museum.

Painting in prime time

 

Finally, that show about fascinating paintings is going to premiere this week with its pilot episode featuring, in "Kate's" office (Jeri Ryan), several paintings by me! I think there's some secondary plot about a medical examiner-something-something, but let's hope they don't stand in front of the paintings too often.  Alas, by the time the pilot was picked up for the series, my paintings were recast so it's a mystery as to what will grace the office walls for subsequent episodes. That's why you can't miss the premiere on Tuesday, March 29, 10pm Eastern, 9pm Central on ABC unless you have a good excuse, like me, who still doesn't have a TV! 

But I expect it will be available somewhere like Hulu, so if I find it, I'll publish the link in a gesture of shameless self promotion.

PS - For you Rhode Islanders, there are also bound to be lots of inaccurate arrangements of familiar places, or in other words, a view of "Philadelphia" that looks eerily familiar. 

PPS - How'd I get my paintings on TV? Like this. 

HERE'S MY PROMISED SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION: The link to see the pilot

How to make an artist sweat, just say {{Ektachrome}}

Remember slides?  Calm down, they're gone...

I've just been going through mine, packing them away in fact. I think the days of sending in laboriously labeled slides in plastic sheets may be over, thank goodness. When I think of the boxes of slides I threw away because they came out too reddish, or bluish, or yellow. And I DON'T want to think about all the money I spent.

Here's what I hated about taking slides:

THE PROCESS

• Finish your work at least a week before the deadline

If taking in natural light....

• Buy special ektachrome daylight film ($$)
• Plan the perfect day -  sunny with shade, not too cold. (If in the winter, wait till the weekend since it's dark when you leave for work and return home)
• Prop the painting somewhere in shade
• Break off blades of grass that are sticking up in front of the picture
• Pick it up when the wind blows it over

If taking slides indoors...

• Buy special ektachrome tungsten film ($$)
• Find a neutral wall
• Set up lights and stands
• Check special color balanced bulbs ($$)
• Go to store to replace bulb that's burned out. Buy two so they match ($$)
• Angle lights to eliminate glare (ha!)

Then...

• Set up 35 mm camera on tripod
• Adjust camera so picture is perfectly square
• Notice glare on picture
• Put on polarizing lens
• Adjust aperture
• Take several exposures of each image
• Repeat

The next day...

• Leave early to take film to 1-day ektachrome lab ($$) before work
• Fight rush hour traffic to pick up slides after work
• Look at them on their light table
• Throw away the box (too-blue, too-yellow, too-dark, too light, too-skewed, too-glarey)
• Start over

Finally...

• Decide a slide is acceptable
• Mask out background with special silver tape ($$)
• Take the one perfect slide in to lab to be duped
• Estimate how many you'll need ($$)
• Wait 3 days then pick up dups
• Find out exactly how venue wants you to label slides
• Print tiny little labels good only for that venue
• Arrange in slidesheet
• Put them in a 9x12 envelope with a return postage 9x12 envelope inside
• Go to the post office to get it weighed
• Mail 3-4 days before deadline

Things I love about sending jpgs...

• Finish work up to 1 hour before deadline
• If it's small enough—scan it. Or...
• Prop up painting indoors or out (too blue? too yellow? No worries, Photoshop to the rescue! Glare? Take photo on angle, de-skew in Photoshop)
• Take photo with little digital camera
• Check it on your computer
• Adjust as necessary
• Bring into Photoshop
• De-skew it, color correct, crop
• Save original
• Resize version for venue
• Name it
• Attach to application and hit send

I had a whole filing system for my hundreds of slides, sorted by master copies, dups, titles and quality. Endless hours of organizing...but I suppose many of those packets I mailed out did return some great opportunities, so those little square calling cards had their day.

Anyone still using them? Anyone miss them?

Accepting rejection

It's somehow reassuringly old fashioned to receive a rejection letter by mail instead of eletronically. Still sucks, but in a retro kind of way. For about the 16th time my application for the RI State Council on the Arts didn't get awarded a grant, or even runner up status. Oh well. The money ($5,000) would have been nice, but what I was kind of hoping for was the little uptick in status that grant recipients get. Not that I should care about status, but it also seems to get you invited to show.

A few days later the Maccoll Johnson Fellowship saw fit to reject my application. That money would have been more than nice, $25,000 is nothing to sneeze at. Not that I had a chance to decide to sneeze or not. That was one of those cutting-edge email rejections...damn.

Oh well, I bitched and moaned already about rejection in a previous post so will wipe the dust from my feet and think about spiders.

Painting myself into a corner

OK, here's my excuse for not posting. I've been painting up a storm. Last night I started right after work and was up till 1am, brush in hand.

And I have to say, my walls look wonderful.

My studio, on the other hand, is dark and cold.

I know, my work is more important than my walls, but what's a painter to do when her house starts falling apart around her? I've been meaning to paint my interior walls since I moved in 10 years ago, and now they have started cracking and crazing and it's not a matter of cosmetics anymore. Since I'm the fix-up partner in my relationship (my husband is the brains of the operation) and with a lower tolerance of disrepair I decided that the few weeks before our big holiday family get-togethers is the perfect time to tear the house apart. Which explains the 1am.

Of course it would be sensible just to hire a house painter to do it, if sensible didn't cost so much money. I AM compromising and hiring a professional to do my kitchen, with its walls shedding flakes as thick as tortilla chips, so money will be spent, just no so much. And who needs a kitchen two weeks  before Christmas anyway? It's not like I have 10 people coming over Christmas Eve and 30 or so Christmas Day and a traditional English Christmas cake to make. Oh wait—it's EXACTLY like that.

But I have a tendency to create chaos on my way to order, which can lead to fascinating journeys in my studio, so I know that's where I should be spending my energy. The other morning, sitting at my kitchen table, flakes of paint flinging themselves off the walls, I saw an art magazine opened to a page with this quote circled. "Art is not what you do when everything else is done, everything else gets done after your art".  I won't say who circled it but it wasn't me. Because I don't know how you can put off everything till your art is done. Art is never done. And sometimes all those little life tasks join all their voices together and nag so annoyingly that it seems worth it just to lock up your studio and shut them up. And look forward to January.

Technical difficulties

 
Still working on getting my blog feed to behave. I think I've succeeded in getting the date stamp to update from "1 year ago"  to "4 months ago", so I'm making progress. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for the lag, I know I'm not the most prolific blogger out there, but do update more often than my blog feed gives me credit for.

It seems to be a known issue with blogger, but last time I can find any promise to fix it was in 2009. If you're not seeing my updates, let me know. I'll figure it out somehow!

Battling Blogger

I'm fooling around with my blog template, as you can see. If you notice anything weird, or slow, or annoying, let me know. About the template I mean, not my posts.

When the chickens come home to roost

Lots of shuffling around of artwork is going in the next few weeks, which, if nothing else, justifies my driving a pickup instead of a Mini Cooper which I would LOVE.

Today I dropped off the above painting which just barely fit in the bed of the truck for the Art League of RI show at the RISD Museum. The show is not going to be in the big new gallery after all, (I thought that was too good to be true) but instead it will be in the OLD new gallery (the Farago wing), which is still pretty cool and a nice big space.

So I headed up Benefit St., and you know how it is when you are trying to get down really narrow street and cars are parked on the other side so you can barely get by if a car is coming the other way as it is, and then someone makes it even worse by just PARKING on the wrong side so you have to wait till traffic clears and then squeak by them. Well that was me. Not the one squeaking by. The obnoxious jerk who parked. But my painting was big, and a gusty thunderstorm was threatening, so...tough!

And it's now official. I have a painting in the RISD Museum.

Most of my other paintings will be coming home to my studio though. Monday I'll be taking down 5 church paintings from my art window . It sure will be easier to take down than to put up.  A lot of the installation is made up of branches, shells and thorns and can go right into a composting bag, the canvas curtains can get wrinkled, and only the paintings need to be saved from demolition.

My show at RWU library comes down on the 22nd, which means I'm really going to run out of room in my storage racks. This will be a good time to reorganized and clean my entire studio, try to beat back the clutter sprawl and find space for all these damn paintings.

Luckily it's off to Colorado and the Great Sand Dunes for the painting I'm working on now. Now I just have to find good homes for the others...

It's a wrap

These are the paintings, post shooting, that graced the office walls of a character on the TV pilot "Body of Evidence".   I was surprised that they chose some of my older work, but glad that my paintings escaped the storage rack and got a little moment under the big lights.

It was a fun experience, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I can spot them in the pilot, whenever it comes out.  That is, after I get a TV.

Casting Call

I haven't watched TV in years (Hulu doesn't count, does it?).  I do own a TV, but it's in the cellar, a big monstrosity that we bought with wedding money 20 years ago.  I did get the HD converter box, but never got around to hooking it up, so it no longer gets any of the 3 channels it used to.

But I don't miss TV,  have no time for TV,  most stuff on TV is not worth watching —— and what? You want to use my paintings for a TV show? How EXCITING!

A few days ago I got a phone call from a set designer for a pilot called "Body of Evidence" being filmed in Providence. The show is about a medical examiner who solves crimes, (cadavers and crime, prime time requirements). Anyway, they need pictures to put on the faux office walls, and the designer was referred to my website. So my work is now standing by on the set.

Since the building they're using is just a block from where I work, I was able to get a tour.  I had no idea that they were filming when we walked through the chaotic, equipment filled rooms, but somehow my guide innately knew when to give me the signal to freeze every few minutes when she knew they were rolling.  After standing like a statue for about 5 minutes we heard someone yell "break for lunch", everyone relaxed, and I got a peek at the autopsy room, lab and offices while the designer and art director discussed which of the just-purchased pillows worked best for the office couch. 

A few people came off the set including a woman in purple scrubs.  It slowly dawned on me that it was the star of the show, Dana Delany. I only recognized her since she had a show back when I used to watch TV, China Beach, I have no idea who the other people are in the show, but my work will be in "Kate's" office.  So watch for it...hopefully it won't be blocked by those camera hungry actors.

From Providence Art Windows to Old Furnace

This is a shot of my "Providence Art Window" halfway through installation on Tuesday. Truth is, I was too beat to worry about photographing it when it was done, and too anxious to escape the claustrophobic confines of a 15'x3' glass window box and plunge into the woods of Old Furnace State Park.

The hike was the perfect respite after hours of unrolling yards of canvas, maneuvering a ladder almost as wide as the window and climbing up and down with the aim of avoiding losing my balance and plunging through the plate glass.


The installation also involved importing thorny branches, thistles and burrs into the floor of a city window. They scratched and drew blood in protest as they tried to wrestle from my hands. In the woods, the understory let me pass unscathed, the sharp edges softened by days of rain and the emergence of spring.

The opening of Providence Art Windows is tonight at Providence City Hall atrium from 5 to 8. My window is right across the street on Fulton Street, right next to the windows displaying the Big Nazo Puppets. It's also gallery night, so there's a lot of art going on in the city tonight. Oh, and I've heard something about some basketball game...you might want to take advantage of the Gallery Night parking.

I'll post some photos soon of the completed window for those who can't make it downtown. It will be up till June 11.

OIL PAINTERS - FREE BRUSH

Just for taking a W&N short survey about brushes. Just sayin.