Artomatic 2012 begins

This morning was the first day of site selection for Artomatic. Dale and I woke up at 7am. Dale made the coffee and the breakfast and he walked Pugsley while I drank three cups of coffee and tried to focus my eyes before showering. We arrived at the new Artomatic location in Crystal City just before our scheduled 9am orientation. The registration process took a long time, but finally we got upstairs to select our spots by 10:30 or so. Dale and I ended up choosing an office room on the 9th floor- where many other friends are also exhibiting. There are fantastic artists showing on many different floors and in many different types of spaces. I just can't wait to see it all set up. It will be amazing.

I'm having a hard time choosing which pieces to display. I've made tons and tons of work since the last Artomatic in 2009 and I haven't shown anything anywhere since then. The difficult thing is that I have so many different kinds of work- figurative, abstract, paintings, drawings, iron sculptures and video art. Some of these are about babies, some are about dreams, some are about the ocean, and some are a romantic idealistic syrupy sweet notions, while others contrast those notions with darker images and ideas. I want to show it all- but I also want my own portion of this exhibit to hang together well and have unity. I think I will need to choose two related themes and save the other work for another time and place. I need to promise myself that I will be more persistent about finding more opportunities to show my work. Submitting applications to artist calls a few times per year just isn't enough. I need to be more creative about finding a venue to show my work- and I need to develop thicker skin when these attempts don't work out. I don't make art simply to pile it under my bed but to share with the world, and I know that there must be somewhere in the world where my images fit.