Fear...

Fear is what has motivated me most of my life....I just realized the other day that I have finally made a shift in my thinking when I saw these words:

Fear Regret, Not Failure.

It was actually the fear of not facing fear and making a change that pushed me to take this new risk/opportunity/challenge and that translates to fear of regret. Life had gotten a little too predictable. I want to connect with and be more a part of the community bringing my love of art and people and pet advocacy all together. I've worked with many different rescue groups over the years but really at arms length, donating artwork for fundraisers and designing posters & t-shirts for events but not being present and interacting directly at the events. I want to use this space to make art and to publicly connect and help support these groups - hosting adoption events, etc. as well as share my art process and possibly even teach kids to do their own pet portraits. 

The Adventure Continues....

I alluded to some news awhile back, here it is: On April 1st I get the keys to my new studio storefront at 2040 West Roscoe, in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago! I have been talking about making this move for quite awhile, back in January the stars aligned and I learned that the perfect spot would soon be available only 1.5 miles from our house in a lovely neighborhood surrounded by shops and restaurants and other businesses. This space has been the home of Sacred Art for almost 3 years, Sarah is moving her store to Lincoln Square so it's only fitting that we keep art in this location. It has a tree and a park bench right outside the door. I mocked up this photo I found on-line as a vision board exercise while I waited to see if my offer would be accepted, and it worked! (A tool my good friend Eva May used to seal the deal with her storefront on Ashland back in 2007).

I'll be using future blog posts to show the progress and to get your advice and feedback on things I'd like to do with the space, I hope to be open for business by mid-April. In the meantime, being the sentimental gal that I am, I did a video tour of my work space here at home (2 weeks ago) so you could see it before I took all the paintings down for my show in Cedarburg. Please excuse my 'and's and 'um's and jerky camera, it's so hard to hear my own voice but I decided to get over it and share with you.

Back up...

Well last week's computer problems reached crescendo on Friday...I lost every email written and sent Monday-Thursday and everything I did (including an art fair poster design, pet portrait sketches and photos) poof! gone. Rich was my Mac hero all weekend, he got everything back running and revamped so it sort of feels like I have a new computer. It could have been much worse so I am playing catch up.  Luckily I emailed the sketches to the clients so they were able to send them back to me and at least I have somewhere to start from. We've been taking lots of walks with all the great weather so today I just leave you with some fun photos of Alice & Izzy...who by the way is doing so well!! She even started snoring again, maybe she's going Benjamin Button on us! I hope you are having a lovely and LUCKY spring week wherever you are...

 

 

 

Welcoming 42 on Highway 43

I'm only sharing a few photos from my Birthday Trip to WI because my iphoto keeps crashing, among many other applications. I've done all the mac software updates...what's going on?! I am so dependent on this machine - it's made for a very unproductive 2 days....but enough of that...

I made my way to Cedarburg on Saturday driving through torrential rain on 43, but was greeted by the loveliest little town: shops and boutiques, a winery, and All that Pizzazz: I was able to park and load directly in from the back which made things very easy. I hung A LOT of work, filling an entire room. This shop is big and full of such fun, whimsical art. I'll be going back for my reception April 4th from 3-7pm, so please if you live in the area come and see me! If you can't make it they are open 7 days a week so go check out my works and all the other treasures in Carole's shop!

                                                                                                                                                             Erica surprised me with this beautiful birthday cake complete with butterflies, swirly candles and my favorite colors blue and green. The kicker was the cake pedestal, it rotated and had blinking lights and a woman singing Happy Birthday in an eerie nostalgic voice! It was a wonderful day and evening with good friends and great food and lots of canines and kitties. I left early on Sunday as a snowstorm was moving in and freezing rain to the south, I made it safely back driving through a crazy amount of rain and home to Rich and the pups for a cozy night at home watching movies. Happy, memorable 42!

"Ann-Erica" we joke that we are a continent, she to the north in Wisconsin and me to the south in Chicago, Milwaukee is our equator. Yes, we are a little silly.

 

Sweet Plato, Erica's brother's dog

Tulips & Traveling

I wanted to share these beautiful tulips with you...they seem to be ushering in spring, it's been in the 60's the last two days in Chicago, after 20's over the weekend! I'm preparing for a trip to WI this weekend, I'm hanging a show in Cedarburg at All That Pizzazz Gallery tomorrow and from there I'm going to spend the night at my good friend Erica's house north of Sheboygan...this is my 6th annual birthday get away ...premise: wake up or go to sleep somewhere I have not been on my birthday...always makes it memorable and an adventure. How do you like to spend your birthday?

Petite Affordable Originals....

I've been working on some new petite size original paintings to offer in my Etsy Shop. I'll be listing these two little gems and several others later this weekend. Hope you have a great weekend...I've got some big news to share with you all very soon...(No, I'm not having a baby!)

Chicken Girl Give-Away

The wonderfully talented illustrator Jannie Ho is having a BLog Giveway that involves free business cards and a free print of your artwork...check it out!

Artists of Chicago

Fellow artist, Jason Messinger, author of the Artists of Chicago Blog recently posted a lovely review of my work, you can read it here. Jason is a man of many talents, among them ceramic sculpture and writing he also curates shows here in the Chicago area.