Paintings Returned to the Studio

Lonely Cloud
30 x 18 Watercolor on artists canvas
$1350

 For those of you which have followed this developing drama of the lost painting I am happy to report it has been found. And the mystery solved. Just before the shut down last year a visitor had called about buying this painting. Evidently at that time the facilities manager then (there was a whole series of temporary ones) had taken it down and put in a safe place for her to come back and buy it. Covid-19 interrupted a lot of things.

Window to the Past
20 x 19 Mixed Media on artists canvas
$720

And normal routines were no longer normal. I had photographic giclee prints on canvas locked away at two businesses which were shut down, paintings at the library which was also closed, and at the airport which wasn't. But I was one of those told to stay home and stay safe. I ventured out only to get groceries or to pick up mail. I lost track of what art was where.

Home on the Fat Grass
20 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas
$1500

And with our governor deciding art was non-essential I had doubts about moving forward with the studio and arts at all. So did it matter if the inventory was up to date or correct.

Over the Edge
20 x 30 Watercolor on canvas
$975

On the Edge
30 x 18 Watercolor on Artists Canvas
$1350

For a few years I had been called back to my on the edge series of impending doom. Premonition of the pandemic? Or just my dark side coming out?

Purple Sage
19 x 36 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1600

 Who knows but for some reason it was those paintings which were missed on my airport records. Those which I thought were boxed up in storage in the box room until I went there to search for Lonely Cloud and found all the boxes empty. Now they are all home and hung on the walls of the studio or my living room or designated to be hung in the new VRBO guest house.

Sometimes the Message is Mixed

Big Blue

 I donated the above small painting to the Shuter Library fund raiser. And it sold big. I am thrilled and a bit overwhelmed. Just before our state was totally shut down I had the opportunity to hang a lot of my paintings at the library. It is a wonderful venue in a town which no longer has art galleries. We once had three. Then suddenly the places my art and photography could be seen closed. Even my studio was closed. Only the county airport was open.

The library is now open again. I need to go there to fill the space where Big Blue was hung. And I have to go tomorrow to the Airport and remove my paintings there. They are remodeling the terminal where art hung. Win one, lose one. I have forgotten what paintings are hanging there. Have not a clue what I am going to do with them. Some I can hang in the AirBnB. Most will be boxed and stored. 

Night Run
18 x 24 Mixed media on canvas
$1050

I forget what is there. This one for sure. I love this one. Something else will have to come down in the studio so it can go up. 

Homage and Portal
Both watercolor on canvas 14 x 46
$1200 each

I lost the individual photos of the above two works of watercolor hanging at the Airport. That was the great computer debacle of 2010. And I have lost the painting below Lonely Cloud. I thought it was at the airport. Someone saw it there and wanted to buy it. Didn't. My inventory says it is at my studio. Cannot find it. That is the trouble on hanging your art in every available spot.

I have the sketch and I have the photograph. I could try it again. But I am not good at copying and it will no doubt be different. There is always the hope it would be better.

Other Side of Tomorrow
20 x 16 watercolor on canvas
$720

And per my inventory that is all I have to pick up tomorrow. Just four paintings. Clearly my inventory needs some work. And my photo files of my work. In the last transfer to a new computer Carbonite deleted some of the titles.

I Will Always Paint - A creative Process Blog

Painting is for me a journey which began in my preschool days with watercolors on Mother's Italian Linen table cloth. She was not always that thrilled with my early artistic expressions but did contribute to an endless supply of coloring books, paper, and crayons. It kept me away from the walls and the tablecloths.

I will always paint and draw and fill sketch books and canvas.

I did not begin photography until seven when my father gave me his old Kodak Brownie camera and slipped me extra in my allowance to develop the pictures I took. When, because of living conditions I could not paint, I took pictures. And when I had studio space and could paint I took pictures as a basis for paintings.

Currently my photography seems to be in ascendancy. That could be due to the economy. Or that I showcase it better on this blog and my Facebook studio page. Obviously it easier to come up with a post per day in photography than a post per week even in paintings. And I view my photography as just another artistic medium like watercolor or oil sticks or Mother's table cloth. Photography is just a digital painting with light and pixels. When printed on canvas people even think they are paintings.

Sold another digital painting last week. And was also offered the opportunity to hang my photographs in another venue in a town with no art galleries.  The economy has not been kind to art galleries. And I have not done a weekly review of my photographs on this venue for a month though I continue to post a daily photograph on my studio page.

I am going through a reassessment of art and my life as 2018 winds down.

I will always paint. I will always have to get my hands (and clothes) covered with paint. But photography currently pays for my painting supplies when once my paintings used to pay for my photography equipment.

I will continue to blog on this platform but I am giving myself more freedom on the subject and the timing. Sidetracked Charley, my more freestyle blog, has a greater readership than this one. But this one still functions as my web page for paintings and photography.Hopefully you have looked at the other pages behind this blog.

I will continue to blog. Just giving myself freedom to blog about what is moving me at this moment in my artistic journey.

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Christmas

Ceremony - SOLD

Art sales started to pick up. First it was just photography which I added to my studio primarily to have lower price point items to sell. Then it was the smaller paintings I had used as what the retail business calls loss leaders but which I initially painted to again have low price items to get people into my studio. But now it seems bigger pieces are beginning to be sold.

Spirit Ladder - SOLD

Yes, I have not painted as much as I did before quitting art fairs but I have painted bigger pieces, especially since I have been offered the one woman show in Trinidad this summer. And because the walls in the studio are full (primarily because of the photographs) some of my more unique and higher priced paintings have moved upstairs so I can enjoy them.

But they all get posted here and/or on Facebook. And have sold from there. I am ecstatic. It means I can paint some more. I have two recently finished and two more on the drawing board as it were.

Coming Home
22 x 22 Mixed Media
$950

Rio Grande del Norte
24 x 30 mixed media
$1450

Stay tuned for not merely more great photographs here but great new paintings.

Some Other Person

artwork by Joseph Lorusso

It had to be

Some other person

And yet she knew

standing there before the painting

it was her.

A life ago

a wild and crazy woman

who drunk too much

and too easily said yes

that was her.

Back then

she ran with a wild crowd

lived with her painter

him standing in the receiving line

would he know her?

Social elite

dressed to the nines

on the arm of her powerful husband

would either see her

in the painting on the wall?

J. Binford-Bell

February 2013

Visual prompt provided by The Mag.

On a personal note I am thrilled I lived most of my wild and crazy years before the smart phone or the video camera but there could be a painter or two in my past who from memory or a Polaroid snap may have recorded a moment that slipped my mind.

The Creative Process - Setting up Static Pages

As an artist these days it is not enough to be creative with your art form, and to be up on all the latest mediums and products out there. You also have to be a great marketer.

Even if you are lucky enough to be in a gallery t hat is still afloat chances are they have cut their advertising budget to the bone. And they expect the artists they represent to market themselves to an increasing degree. It is all about interfacing your marketing with their marketing. Websites are seen as less flexible and less friendly so more an more customers are looking for the friendly interaction available on social media. You have to Tweet, Blog, Facebook and Google +.  Note that I did not say OR but AND.

And then there are the rack cards, QR codes, hot links, business cards, etc that all have to key into your net of social media.

As a former free lance writer I jumped on the blog bandwagon in a big way. I have three blogs and was considering two others when someone mentioned putting Static pages on my main blog - Creative Journey. What, pray tell, are static pages? They are pages that are not dated like your main blog page. They remain static at the date you created and/or edited them. They are great for contact information, catalogs of your work, bios and artist statements. They are really website pages linked to your blog. And if you blog weekly or more like I do the readers are invited to your main page with the list of pages right there in front of them.

Today, while avoiding the broken washing machine I watched a YouTube video on how to set up static pages. Really simple. And then dove in. Remember you can easily go back and edit any page at any time. Way more friendly than my website. So I set up four pages: Binford-Bell Studio and Gallery, Paintings, Creative Photography, and Back Country Photography. I can have 10 pages so I can also set a page up for my sister's photography since my gallery represents her work.

And Google allows you to immediately link every page update to Google +, FaceBook, and Twitter as well as e-mail customers to come and check it out. So much easier and less risky than e-mailing images to customers. So I am considering a page that is frequently updated with requests or special exhibits. Need to come up with a catchy name for that. Though even the name of the page is easy to edit.

And viewers that want to contact you about any items featured on a page can leave a comment, and you can comment back. Start a conversation.

I am very pleased. Thank you Google.