Archive for Art Business
Fantasy Photos and Ethereal Portraits
I am going to be applying for several festivals next year. I’ll let you know which ones I make it in to. For the faerie festivals (Maryland and Pennsylvania) I am working out a way to set up my booth to take photos on-the-spot to then collage as a fantasy portrait. If you always wanted to be a faerie, this is a way to do it and a great way to display your otherkin side.
I also enjoy doing simple portraits that have a bit of a dreamy feel to them. This also lends itself to boudoir photography, which I will also be offering.
I would like to try to get into Unique Boutique. I don’t know if they have room and I’d still have to be juried in and I’d have to decide which medium I want to submit for – 3-d or paintings.
I also may do River Artsfest this year, which is non-juried.
Of course if Artomatic is around I will be doing Body Politics there.
Anyway, I was thinking of offering these both as a service and for some of my photos, offering them as prints and card, etc.
I am working on a webpage devoted to my photography and will list prices and scheduling availability there.
Portraits and Headshots
I have been gearing up with the studio to prepare for all sorts of fun and business. I recently had the pleasure of shooting portraits of my mentor, Tammy Vitale.
She has been a huge encouragement to me. I have found over and over that I really enjoy shooting in the studio and trying to bring out the best in somebody. To capture their essence in a way that they are proud to display. It makes me way down happy when a client is overjoyed at the images.
Studio News
The new fence is in and the gate is up. I know it seems silly but I love my new door. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of a door being fancy, it’s about getting rid of the old ugly door!
Below is the OLD door. Very 1970s in a *bad* way. Installed poorly and a badly added doggy door. The thing was a wreck. I hated the sight of it. It would unsettle my delicate visual sensibilities. But no longer!
Below is the NEW shiney door. I believe it will look smashing with a lovely sign, don’t you? And a new light fixture as well.
These small improvements to my photo studio will make the place much more weatherized and pleasant to look at too.
Fan me! And peel me some grapes too! LOL!
I got a new Facebook page. It’s a artists page so you can “fan” me, which seemed really weird to me at first, but everybody kept saying, “DO IT” so I did it. Now, you can come by and become a fan, I had three at last check – WOO HOO!
Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’
Hello beautiful people. I have been neck-deep in personal emotional trauma for most of this year and am trying hard to step away from that wreckage. I’ve got some real bumps and bruises on my soul, but I’m still kickin’ and I’m here to tell you that I am ready to roll.
Will and I have been working on getting the photo studio in ship-shape. It will yield more shooting space when we are done and better weather-proofing. The studio is a two-car detached garage, so it can get darn hot and cold in there, depending on the time of year. We are working hard to make the space functional and comfortable. After all, we want you goddesses who come by to get your photos done to feel beautiful and decadent – which is difficult to do when your tootsies are freezing.
I am also venturing into the world of headshots and portraits again. I have had a few people approach me about doing senior portraits for their kids, which I love the idea of doing. I am also going to start offering packages for my fantasy portraits as well. Come on, you know you always wanted to be a fairy! And ladies, finally I will be offering boudoir photography. It’s something I have contemplated for a long time and I think I’m ready to throw my hat into that arena. I have had some ladies tell me that they would love to do something like that. Well, I love the idea and I’m pushing ahead with it.
I expect the studio to be fully functioning by January. You can look for updates and package information here. I will let you know how my studio is changing and I will also add some video logs – which I’ve begun doing on my Weighting for You blog.
I’m very excited about all of this, if you can’t tell and I need the positive energy to push me into emotional recovery.
I’m hoping also to add some portrait galleries to this site today so you can see some of the work I’ve already done in that regard. However, you can click on galleries on the menu and see my fairy portraits.
Have a beautiful day.
I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!
Tracy and I met for “Full Afternoon Tea” at The Royal Tea Room in La Plata on Saturday. It was a lovely, long and relaxing lunch where two high-class ladies spoke of only the road conditions and the weather, as is proper.
Okay, part of that is true. We did go for tea, but we talked about ALL SORTS of stuff! Even stuff ladies aren’t supposed to talk about, especially when they are having a proper tea!
Our server was great. Also very clean and pretty. Recently, at Olive Garden (in Waldorf), I had a waitress who had a filthy shirt on – it was FILTHY – and her hands looked quite dirty as well. NOT HAPPY about that. I was distracted the whole dinner and wanted to get up and leave. If we hadn’t just waited over an hour to be seated and if I’d had anything in the old ice-box at home, we would have bolted. I was worried all evening that one of us would get sick. Also, everybody else was starving and I didn’t want to be the one who said, “WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!” I won’t be eating there again.
Anyway, as for The Royal Tea Room, it’s very neat and clean looking. The owner seemed stressed the day before on the phone, when she asked if I was sure we would be prompt. Then again in the throws of putting together an event that was to start at two, she seemed rather rushed. I guess it’s good they are getting a lot of business, I just hope that she meditates a little before each big event.
You can go there and order regular meals, such as lunch. We opted for tea, though, to get the full tea experience.
Not for vegans, that’s for sure. I gave up my dairy-ban for the day and also ate some chicken and ham for said tea experience. The chicken salad was very good and so was the tiny tuna melt. There was a lemon blueberry triangle of something sweet that I enjoyed. And of course, the little pink cake was the icing on top. I just adore pink icing!
The best thing I ate, and totally worth the dairy ban lift, was the cream of crab soup. Succulent chunks of crab in a creamy sauce of a soup that my arteries will be working on for weeks. It was a dainty cup of soup though, so I didn’t feel too bad about it!
Our lemon, honey and cream was brought out on the dainty tray. We were able to choose our tea cup from a shelving area with various sorts of tea cups and saucers on it. Tracy opted for super-dainty. I liked the teal flowers on mine.
The server (whose name I neglected to request) smiled for the camera along with Tracy.
Below is an image of Tracy – pinkie out. I insisted. We were putting on “airs.” You’d have to be a Spongebob fan to understand.
See the cute pink one on top? YUM!
Me with my pinkie out!
How Sweet It Is
What is it about pink frosting that makes sweets so appealing? This cookie, which was rather large enough to share with three of my family members, was a sample I ordered ($5.95 shipping included) from a lovely little etsy shop. It was an experiment in search of something wonderful to put on the dessert table for my grandmother’s 75th birthday soiree. I think we may end up ordering enough to give as favors instead, though in butterfly form.
To see the lovely little confections visit lorisplace on etsy. She has all kinds of baked goodies, but her favor cookies are just beautiful. They also come in varied themes. For my grandmother we plan on ordering butterflies. She has Mother’s Day gift assortments. Come Father’s Day, I’ll bet she’ll have some for that too! I like giving edible gifts to family members who have limited household space. They get a very lovely gift and they don’t have to find a place to store it!
Jade got some lovely flowers for her birthday from Ken and his family. Or maybe they were just from her beau Ken. We got her flowers to give her after a performance of Seussical the Musical, in which she was an ensemble member. She also got a nice bunch from a friend of ours too. It was a very sweet gesture. As the flowers died I would combine them into different containers. One of my favorite containers to put flowers into is an old fahsioned Ball jar. The below image includes some crazy cool stripey roses that Ken gave her. In the photo below that is what the bunch looked like as certain flowers began to die off.
The flowers we bought Jade faded the fastest. Why, you might ask yourself? Why oh why? Well, I cut their stems nice and tidy, picked the perfect vase for them and put them in the center of a freshly cleaned table. When I woke up the next morning they looked wilty. I was much dismayed that the store had obviously given me a lousy bunch of old flowers. I marched over to the table and picked the vase up and notice that I had forgotten to put water in it! The poor flowers were dying of thirst and it was ALL MY FAULT!
In keeping with the Seussical theme of the weeks surrounding Jade’s birthday, we ordered a fun little cake from Charles St. Bakery. I just said, “Gimme some stripes and polka dots in bright colors.” They did it on one day’s notice too. WOO HOO!
I stopped by the bakery this morning to meet a new pal and ran into two old pals who came in at different times during our visit. New pal Kendall asked, “Heather, do you know everybody?” And older pal Debra said that I did. I laughed. On the way home I thought of my first friend I’d made when I moved to Maryland. Sherry befriended me a few months after I moved here. I was pretty lonely and insulated with Robert gone at work all day, no car and little cash. I was homeschooling my daughters and we spent most of each day reading, doing crafts, watching shows and movies and playing games. Anyway, Sherry was doing work for a local community theatre. She was tying up loose ends on a show she was directing and she needed somebody to help paint the set. I had been poking around the internet looking for something to do and somehow we connected. I think it was the next day, she picked up my kids and me and took us to the theatre. I painted some designs on the set having no idea what the heck I was doing. She was very nice and encouraging. I’d never done set painting in my life, but I was very happy to have something creative to do besides what came in kid’s craft books. Sherry immediatly took me under her wing. She toted my little clan around town a couple of times and every place we went somebody knew her. I thought that was so cool. She is a good friend and now her daughter, who grew up alonside my oldest, is a regular fixture in our house – a sort of extended family member. And just like that, I had a friend. From that friendship the world opened a bit more. Sherry’s goddessy energy really made me feel inspired.
While at the bakery I had a lovely buttery apple poundcake slice. It was a resonable slice and my lungs have been doing quite well, so I’ve allowed myself a little bit of dairy here and there. I still am using soy milk all the time though. There are only three tables in the tiny bakery, but it’s got such a nice “small-town” feel to it.
Robert is doing a 5K walk for hospice in St. Mary’s tomorrow. I’m very proud of him. I think when I am done writing this I will go give him squishes and kisses.
Billy boy is putting on a Monty Python – maybe I ought to go spend some time with him now.
Those are sweet things in life too, don’t you think? Doing a good deed. Snuggling on the couch and watching something silly. Nibbling on pretty cookies. Making new friends. All wonderful sweet bits of life.
I am missing a party at a fabulous friend’s house tonight. I sure hope they are having fun! All the little puzzle pieces didn’t fall into place for me tonight Christiana – sorry! Have tons of fun without me and thank you *so much* for the invite. That was sweet too!
Tomorrow I hope to get the studio humming! I’ll keep ya posted! Hey, remind me to tell you about all the Alice in Wonderlandy things going on around me. And the Snow White stuff I plan on doing!
Under My Umbrella
When Jade got into the car this morning she realized she’d forgotten her umbrella. I said, “I wanted to remind you about it, but I felt I’d reached my reminder limit with you.” At 15 she doesn’t like to be reminded not to forget things. Then, she sometimes says, “Why didn’t you remind me?” This particular feature of my little angel is something that must be genetic, because her daddy is the same way. She said, “I hope Courtney didn’t spend too much time on her hair.” This perplexed me since Courtney was not in our vehicle and nor did she even ride the bus home with Jade. It turns out that Jade shares her umbrella before a certain class in which she has a trek from the school to the outside classroom. I say “outside classroom” but they are trailers. I know there probably isn’t a school in America these days that doesn’t have one. Anyway, I thought that was sweet. I imagined her holding the umbrella as she and Courtney walked together to class.
I’m slightly miserable today. Each time I cycle I think it can’t be worse the next time, but sometimes it’s worse. Heating pads and ibuprofen – the badges of a real woman. Oh, and don’t forget the chocolate. I’ve already be-headed a darling dark chocolate Dove bunny. Will also got me these adorable bug truffles. Aren’t they just the cutest?
The bugs actually had little molded faces, which was a kind of neat surprise. They also had little crispy bits inside and it made me wonder if Lindt did that on purpose for a nice light buggy crunch? HAHA!
I am playing Chocolat in the DVD player. It’s in the other room, but turned up so I can hear it. Sometimes it’s too quiet and I am not in the mood for music, but rather just voices. Chocolat has today’s bloggy themes of chocolate and gypsies, which makes it a perfect choice. When it is over, perhaps I will listen to the disks from my “Enchanted” collection I got for my birthday.
I am wishing for sunshine. It’s been raining so much here.
I often wonder about moving to Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona or California. They seem like mostly sunny places with artsy towns here and there. I wonder.
I am wishing for a big tree in the back yard where Will could build his treehouse.
And I’d cherish a pond with a koi. Or, I’d settle for goldfish.
I suppose I should find more delights in what I already have. Indulge in the sumptuousness around me, yes? Well, sometimes with the dog holes gaping at me in the back yard and the pile that needs to go to the dump on the side of the house and the evidence of my woeful gardening abilities are so glaring, they are hard to ignore. So, yes, I find my dainty pleasures where I may, but there is still much to fix and do that sometimes can be a joy suck.
Day before yesterday I lay on the hammock, my head hanging off of the side and marveled at the brilliant clear blue of the shameless sky. It made the perfect backdrop for something I had not even noticed the day before – buds on the trees. The trees beyond the rusty chain-link fence. Oh, if I could only learn to love chain-link. But in my upside down position I could hardly see the chain-link and only the peachy-yellow buds asserting themselves on the branch tips against the backdrop of that crystalline sky. Here is a photo of what I saw. I wish you could have been here – it was lovely.
Other wishes: I am wishing for a lovely gypsy tent in the yard as soon as the weather is dry and balmy for two days in a row, and since I will not soon have my dreamy vardo.
Yes, I still have vardo dreams – in fact, they have spawned a new artsy idea. Though some of my research makes the concept seem overly daunting, I can’t help but be optimistic. With some help from Willo (that is the dreamy name I will call him when I speak of art and gypsies) I think it won’t be too technically overwhelming. All of those things will have to wait though, until the Body Politics installation is, well, installed at Artomatic.
Also, the Baltimore Playwright Festival is looming. Gotta clean up Delia and get her submitted. I might submit my short diner play too. We’ll see.
Look at this band of gypsies, they need a little spot to relax, wouldn’t you say?
Press Page
Every now and then I get a little ink, so I added a “Press” page to the site.
I’ve just added this:
Below is a May 2008 article about the Body Politics project Tammy Vitale and I are working on.
You can either click on the image below and see an image uploaded on my server. Or you can go HERE to the article at Southern Maryland Online as long as it stays up there.
Arty Day
First, let me say that I am still working on getting the little gallery filled up so it can feed some images on the right side bar there. I also still have to make some color changes until I am happy with this blog!
Enough of that technical stuff let’s move on to the artsy-ness of it all.
Today I am attempting to carve a stamp. I bought some small blocks of Speedball Speedy Carve and a basic carving set. I also bought a block of linoleum, but I’m going to try that another day, for soemething totally different.
I am making a “creativity hand” or a “mystical hand” or “spiritual hand” – people call them different things. In any case, it’s one of my favorite types of iconic images. I am carving this stamp for Tammy Vitale. The stamp is intended for use in clay, but I don’t know how it will come out until it’s tested. On the other hand (hee hee) maybe I shouldn’t be giving Tammy my first stamp that could possibly suck terribly!
Sometimes I don’t work in my studio with little projects like this. Sometimes I work at the diningroom table and put on something like HGTV’s That’s Clever – formerly Crafters Coast to Coast. I enjoy that show in particular because it gives me a ba-jillion ideas and sometimes even touches on a technique I have been wondring about.
While carving my stamp today I played several episodes of That’s Clever. I laughed out loud when artist Karen Rossi was featured in the first segment of the first one I watched.
I immediatly recognized her work because a few years ago my mother purchased a work by her from a little gift shop, in North Carolina I think, while on vacation. My mother saw the little fairy-artist type ornament and wanted to give it to me. It has been hanging in my studio ever since.
One of the things I like best about That’s Clever is the chance to see inside other artist’s studios. For me, that’s half the fun. Had I seen That’s Clever years ago, I might have become an artist sooner. I had often felt like I had no place to create or not enough tools. Some of the artists carve out the smallest of spaces. I even recall one episode, some time ago, where a young woman was a nanny (I think) and she had a felting “studio” in the tinest nook of her bedroom, because she lived with the family she was employed by. It made me think, “YOU GO GIRL!”
I have lots of little inspirational things around me in my studio. I’ll post some photos later. I’m really curious what others have hanging in theirs!
An admirer from Belgium
