2016 Happy New Year!

So…looks like I’m a once-a-year blogger…Happy 2016. I had a great year; lots of art and some fun shows. Obviously, I was not blogging. I suppose that I should do it more because this is the place for indulging in nerdy art talk. If you’re here, then you’ve chosen to read this; it’s not like I’m just blowing up your Facebook feed. If you’re interested in more regular photos of what I’m doing, I’d suggest finding me on instagram @artdamaged. I’m much more active there than anywhere else.

Do you follow astrology/horoscope? I have some knowledge of that sort of thing but it’s not like I read my horoscope often. I do know that Jan 5 – 25 was Mercury Retrograde. I called it out, too. On Jan 5, I experienced a wave of super stereotypical and cliche Merc. Retro. events. I decided to look it up and retrograde had started that day. Now, once again, I’m not saying that the planets rule our lives, but I’m thankful that I realized what was going on in the sky because it reminds me to be flexible in my plans, to roll with the punches. That’s good advice always, but its easy to be stubborn and expect to get our way.

I have an art show opening soon. My schedule had been cleared for a full month of studio production. Here’s the way things went for the first few days:

-I bought vinyl mask and transfer tape and dropped a 18″ wide roll of transfer tape in a deep puddle on the way to my car.
-I updated my OS on my laptop and now many drivers are not supported
-I had some software issues because of this as well
-The cold weather and new carpeted location of my plotter/vinyl cutter was charged with static electricity which kept zapping the motherboard and freezing up. That took a lot of trouble shooting and wasted vinyl to figure out.
-I had to relocate my setup and boil water to humidify the room
-this batch of vinyl was pretty sticky and hard to peel
-I seemed to have a lot of text and email communication issues
-I built panels that are bigger than the vinyl I’m able to cut, so I had to apply stencils in sections.

I made it work. I tried new things. I drew some new images and worked with way more stencil layers than I have before. I used 16 layers of stencil on one piece! (usually, it’s been one or two). I enjoyed the larger size too! I got to paint a lot more detail. I also painted a large samurai which was super fun to paint and I was able to cut details that I just couldn’t do with the smaller sizes.

The show looks great and I’m proud that I stayed focused, applied my best trouble shooting skills and solved the problems. I hung the show at The Jupiter Hotel, here in Portland and it will be up thru March. If you are in the area, please check it out. If you go see a show at The Doug Fir Lounge, stop into the gallery because they are open 24/7. I’ll post more about the show soon!

So, Mercury is no longer Retrograde. If you’ve had difficulties with your New Year projects, maybe things will go more smoothly now.