The Red Queen Gallery


I forgot to mention this really great news. My art is now being featured at the Red Queen Gallery in Onancock, Virginia (you heard me) on the other side of the country! How fun.

The gallery is right next door to the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society. The pictures are gorgeous, it looks to be a lovely little beachy town. I've always wanted to see the East Coast. Onancock (yep) was founded in 1680! Wow! Sidenote, nearby Jamestown is celebrating it's 400th birthday this year. Of course, as you can imagine, this is quite a humongous deal.

I'm honored to be a part of such a great opportunity! I wish I was able to see the gallery and Onancock myself, but I'm thrilled either way. :oD

Coming up next week: On October 5th, the Red Queen Gallery is open until 8pm for the First Friday event, which seems to be a type of street fair/art walk. If you're in the area, please check it out and let me know what it's like! My art is there, complete with a UV flashlight to view the Light Reactive effects in person!

Good luck and congratulations to Mary Ann Connelly!

The Arcade Fire + other stuff

Hollywood, CA -- Infamous serial blogger Kevin Toth watches on as Colin and Shayla Maddox of Orange County, California experience The Arcade Fire in person for the first time. It was the 6th time for Mr. Toth.


Nothing like an amazing concert to pull one out of a weeks-long creative lull. Perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration. Out my freaking head, anyway.

The Arcade Fire concert was AWESOME! SO AWESOME! (That link is to a video of their final song during the encore at the Hollywood Bowl. I get chills every time I watch it.)

Things I learned while there:

1. There is good music and there is not so good music. The Arcade Fire is fantastic. Every time I hear it, it gets better.

2. You gotta have soul. Creativity takes emotion. One of the best parts of their music is the intensity in which they perform. It wasn't just that they were all dripping sweat by the end of the set, but more that they clearly enjoyed what they were doing. It almost seemed like they were grateful to be there, to be musicians. Each song seems so personal.

3. Teamwork. I have never witnessed a more collaborative group of people. Especially in the band sense. Each member appeared excited and proud of all the others. They are obviously each multi-talented, but what I noticed most was the effort put forth by each person. They kept switching instruments for the entire concert! Even the lead singer took somewhat of a backseat at times, to let others show off their own talents. It was clear that they were each contributing something significant to the group as a whole. It couldn't be done if it was just one person running the show. They were a team. So refreshing for a band. I was greatly impressed.



Anyway, this got me thinking about a few things. First of all, getting lost inside your own head can be a tad lonely. And boring. I hate to go all flowery (or trite) on you with this, but it's important to collaborate with others to make things truly interesting. It's never one person doing everything, and if someone thinks they're "the star" then they likely think higher of themselves and their art than most everyone else does. Everyone benefits from feedback. Otherwise your art can degrade into utter mediocrity and you won't even know it.

So I've had this creative lull lately, or at least that's what I've been calling it. It's not really an accurate description, because I've actually been doing some cool painting stuff and coming up with new ideas that I'm really excited about. I've just been so mellow-yellow about it. I guess I mean me more than my art. But, as you creatives know, it's all very connected.

Right now, I have Foggy Brain. Sleepy, muted colors. Low light. Grey... skies. Oh right, that's probably just the dramatic season change that abruptly occurred in the last week. And yes, I mean for California. (We suck.)

The funny thing is, all the paintings I'm working on right now are very bright. Yellows, pinks, reds, purples, turquoise.

Hmm.

Colin says that everyone who blogs always writes about the Blogger Guilt of not blogging enough. So I won't. But just know this: I almost did. Ptthh.

Blargh



I'm having to back track on my current big painting, which means it won't be done in remotely the same time frame as I was planning on. I hate that. There's part of me that wants to move forward and just finish it, but it's REALLY not working out the way I expected. There's two opposite lessons I have learned from my paintings when this happens. Sometimes, it's right to just move forward and finish it, if I realize that there's nothing left I can do that would improve it greatly. Other times, like now, it's better for me to admit my mistakes and let go of my "schedule" and a lot of the work I've completed so far. It's frustrating, because I feel like days and weeks have just been lost as I redo much of what took me so long to complete. This generally happens when I strike out and try something different, using techniques (or colors or whatever) that I'm not as comfortable with. I have to learn how to make the painting as I'm making it.

The good news is, this process has always resulted in paintings that were ultimately superior than some of my other work. It's like you can tell just by looking at it that I spent an insane amount of extra time doing it.

So... at least there's that.

Dangit.

Sweet!



Awesome! I'm so excited! Thanks to Elizabeth for sending me pictures. They have great style and I'm honored to be on their wall! :o) Check out that old radio!

*

I'm going through some creative changes. I'm always interested in forward motion and progression in my life. Authenticity is important to me. What can you be, if not authentic? Even negative authenticity is good, because it's real. Passion, emotion, and upset are all part of the makings of good art. One might say it's the very root of creativity. Apathy does not make art. Apathy has no color.

Even darkness has a color.

Sometimes I think I hold back "myself" in my art. So what if this weird color streak takes away from the rest of the painting? If I felt like making that streak, it's more truly me than if I had kept it inside. (Even if I change it.)

I like taking risks when I start something new. I need to in order to keep it interesting. I try harder when it's interesting.

I just started a red painting and a purple painting. It's exciting to look at them. I have no idea what I'm going to do.