Holiday Cheer

I came to the realization recently that since I was self-employed, there would be no company Christmas/ holiday party for me to attend. Granted, I hadn't attended the last couple of parties my former employers had thrown, but I liked knowing that I had the option if I felt like attending one.  So this year, I decided that we needed to throw a holiday party at the Art Explosion, the studio warehouse that I currently paint at. There are about 80 artists here, most of which I had not met, so I figured what better way to meet everyone than to throw a party? Since I am a full-time artist, isn't my studio my place of employment? Wouldn't this be the place to throw a "company party"? So I set about trying to rally the troops and party date was set.

Last night was the first holiday party at Art Explosion and it was a lot of fun. I met a lot of fantastic artists whose names I had heard of, but never met in person due to different work schedules. It was great to be able to talk art with so many people and have that as a common thread. Most of the time I am at parties where there are a few artists and a bunch of "regular", non-artists. This time almost everyone was an artist (spouses were invited also so there were a few non-artists there). No longer was I the rare person who had a creative job and had to explain what I do, along with how/ where do I show my work. I wasn't asked questions like "What is encaustics?", "You actually do this for a living?", or "Do people actually buy your art? Where?". Those questions can get annoying after awhile, I am sorry to say. It was nice to be amongst my artist peers and enjoy each other's company while admiring our art.

Image by Ciara Bedingfield
taken on my crappy iPhone camera. The image
is a lot nicer than what I was able to capture here.

Since we are all artists, I also thought that it would be fun to have an art exchange, rather than the traditional gift exchange, with each other. Twenty-one artists participated in this, me being one of them. I received a lovely altered-portrait/ photograph mounted on aluminum by Ciara Bedingfield that will be a nice addition to my art collection. Beth Mullins, a great assemblage artist who received my painting, was very happy to have a piece of my work since she had been eyeing my paintings for awhile (her words, not mine). Everyone seemed happy with what they received and holiday cheer was everywhere.






On a side note...here is the latest painting that I have been working on. I figured after painting so many women lately, I was due to paint some men. This painting is about 20% done.