Performing for the media (First Night kick-off) and The Victorian Streetwalk

My intention is to join my visual art with telling my tales about being a performing musician, but I can't seem to find the time at this juncture. So the little cropped pic of me with the guitar will have to suffice for now as the visual part of my story.

I was asked to perform for the media by the First Night office in Saratoga Springs, NY. As part of my general performance, I was asked to sing "Starry, Starry Night" as that was the theme for this year's event. This request came in on November 10 and I responded on November 11. This meant I had about 19 days (minus time around Thanksgiving) to "work up" the song. But, I was also practicing for two holiday performances, so I felt pretty stretched as holiday material isn’t something that is part of my regular repertoire. It always takes additional practice and rehearsal.

I found "Starry, Starry Night" vocally challenging (believe it or not!). I sing lots of challenging pieces like "Ave Maria", so I knew I could do it, but I knew I’d be in trouble if I tried to tackle and memorize the accompaniment too, so I asked Jim if he could do that part. This made my task a lot easier when the event finally came and I felt confident that I did a good job. We decided that since we would show up as a duo that we should use the hammered dulcimer in the performance too since there aren’t very musicians in this area who play the instrument.

We often use the hammered dulcimer in our holiday performances. It has a nice bell-like quality which is perfectly suited to holiday music and my vocals. In these performances, I play the classical guitar in addition to my singing.

I have played in front of television cameras before and the lights were fairly blinding. This is all right when I am singing and playing a guitar, but with the addition of the hammered dulcimer, this was of concern to us since Jim has to be able to see the strings in order to play his instrument (he uses handmade little wooden hammers).

We asked the sound guy about the lights and his brusque answer was to wear a hat with a visor and some sunglasses. But he was having a little fun with us because there were no lights, not a single one. Ha!

We played the Saratoga Victorian Streetwalk two days later (the same duo). The event and our venue was packed the whole night. The streets were blocked off and smelled like horses.

Many of our CD customers asked us who the other musicians were on our CD (feeling a little unsure of the musicianship of these "other" players when they weren't hearing them as part of our live performance). We had fun explaining that the whistle guy was across the street at Celtic Treasures and the violinist was down the street about a half a block at the post office and our recording guy was another half block across the street, etc. All the customers looked a little shocked. Most don't understand that many of the musicians in this area are like one big jamming family. In fact, our band formed at one of the biggest jam sessions in the north country, The Dance Flurry Festival.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Angel Patrice of Peace

Note: the copyright watermarks do not appear in the actual art (needed for on-line display only).
I am stuffed from Thanksgiving dinner & decided I should try to list my newest piece before my music obligations completely take over my time. This is my newest design and was finished on November 19. It is a watercolor painting & measures 15” x 17 “. She is available right away in my etsy shop here as a greeting card. I will also make her available in the brick and mortar stores as time permits.

I try to make at least one angel a year around this time. The name for the angel was inspired by Patrice Jarvis-Weber of Lower Adirondack Regional Art Center.

This will be my last artwork for the year as we are in rehearsals for 4 upcoming performances. One of them includes a concert before the media (where I have been asked to sing a piece that I have never sung before).

On another note, fellow Etsy artist, Kathy of Pepper2, did a nice write-up about my art here. I am returning the favor by listing some of my favorites from her shop here:

You might have to click the picture to see the details in her work.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Holiday Art Shows

It’s been all business since last time I blogged with no time for practice or painting.

I have been working from 7:30 in the morning until midnight preparing for my holiday art shop at Lower Adirondack Regional Art Center (Glens Falls, NY). This is a photo of the set-up. The opening is this Friday eve (I think the hours are 6 – 8).

I also prepared a much more truncated version for Valley Artisans Market (Cambridge, NY).

I don’t know how I managed 6 – 10 holiday art shows in past years as the 2 have totally exhausted me (and for this reason, I am keeping it to just the 2 this year).

One of the reasons why it took so much time out of me is that at the last moment I discovered that I had sold a lot of inventory & needed to make more. This meant days & days of printing out small prints and cards. Then there was the pricing, writing inventory lists and the shop set-up all in the midst of some major house catastrophes. This is the third year in a row where house issues put a serious wrench in holiday art show preparation. And I hope it is the last!

On another note, I was featured (along with one of my designs) briefly in a blog by Michelle of "Nature Manipulated". It is in her Saturday, November 7, 2009 blog (if you can no longer scroll to it, you can still look up the date). Her blog is located here.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Etsygreetings

This is a teaser from a part of a watercolor painting I am working on.

Anyway, my main reason for posting is that I am now a part of the Etsy Greetings team. Have a look at the team's blog here. I am excited to be part of this on-line community.

I thought it would be a good idea to be part of the greetings team since I am presently mostly selling greeting cards (and other small items) in my Etsy shop. I will probably branch out at some point to sell prints, smaller originals and small pottery items too (as my time permits) in this little on-line shop.

Of course, this means that I probably won't be selling my larger more ambitious works on-line (I do prefer to show the larger work in a gallery space with flattering lights where clients can see the work and workmanship with their own eyes; i.e. not via photos, scanning and a monitor).

One of the brick and mortar shops I am in (Valley Artisans of Cambridge, NY) has two other Etsy artists, Pulpart and Katrina Marie Designs. Pulpart is also part of the Etsy Greetings team. Katrina Marie has made costumes for the Renaissance faire community. So, I have quite a bit in common with these two artists.

Martha (of Pulpart) makes hand made paper, handmade paper cards, paper sculptures and tags. What you won’t see in her Etsy shop is her whimsical “leaf people”, a collage of leaves on paper depicting figures in various poses. Martha also makes jewelry, journals and paper mache figures.

The person who really encouraged me to sell on-line through Etsy is Marina Petro. Her Etsy site is here.

I have known Marina for over 20 years.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Pawn in Autumn and A Raven in Autumn

Note: the copyright watermarks do not appear in the actual art (needed for on-line display only).

This is my newest design and was finished & scanned today. The design measures 12" x 16 1/2 ".

The reason for the two titles is that the prints will be named "Pawn in Autumn" and the greeting cards will be named "A Raven in Autumn." I thought it was best to decipher the two as I have found customers of greeting cards not understanding the reference to "pawn" outside of its context. The prints are more likely to be shown together with their kind and thus will be clearer as to what the theme means.

For those of you not in the know, the pawn relates to chess. In chess, any being that is not a king, queen, bishop, knight or rook is a pawn. This one is obviously a pet pawn because of its collar.

I probably won't have the greeting cards printed this autumn (as autumn is nearly done, at least around here), but I am hoping to have some prints of it for the upcoming holiday shows.

I may not have any new designs for awhile as I prepare for these shows. On the other hand, it is likely that I will post pieces that have never been seen or scanned before.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Practicing and learning new music, new art show and new gig

This is a new picture of Jim and me last summer. The two of us are spending the evenings practicing and learning new material. We are performing New Year’s Eve with the band. I think we are also playing a Christmas venue, though not entirely sure.

I painted/worked a new piece the entire day and rushed downtown late before everything closed and found out I will be at the holiday art show at Lower Adirondack Regional Art Center. Yippee! This year I will have greeting cards and giclee prints (and maybe an original or two). Oh, yes, and CDs.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

How Angels Communicate in the Evening and How Angels Communicate in the Evening II

Note: the copyright watermarks do not appear in the actual art (needed for on-line display only).

These are 2 new designs I finished on October 19 from graphically altering relief sculptures. The relief sculpture was done on a wall-hanging platter shape. The platter is visible on my website here. You can see that I did quite a bit of altering to make it into a graphic. I have shown the actual sculpture in a number of places, but the graphic alteration is completely new.

As I said in my previous post, I like the monochromatic effect I get with playing with and re-arranging my ceramic sculptures in this way. It gives another life to my ceramic creations and it is another art form I am just now discovering. I like working in the two mediums and this is a way for me to do that.

Right now I have the images for sale in my Etsy shop as greeting cards, but I may do more to make them into prints (& possibly other alterations down the road). Once I printed the greeting cards, they looked different from what was in my monitor, so I tried to represent them as best I could with the other two images (shown). Monitors display colors differently though, so it may be a futile exercise.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

4 Unicorns: Unicorn II in Dayglow, Unicorn V in Red, Unicorn III at Dusk, Unicorn VI at Midnight

Note: the copyright watermarks do not appear in the actual art (needed for on-line display only).

These are 4 new unicorns I made from graphically altering relief sculptures. The relief was done on wall-hanging platter shapes. The platters are visible on my website here. You can see that I did quite a bit of altering. The pottery pieces were shown at Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Center for a 5-person invitational juried exhibit called Once Again in March of this year and I also sold the greeting cards in the art center shop concurrent to the exhibit. Later, I brought them to more shops.

I like the monochromatic effect I get with these alterations, something one sees at night, at dusk and at dawn, which is why some are titled that. It’s something I never tried before, but I like the effect and it gives another life to my ceramic creations.

Right now I have them for sale in my Etsy shop as greeting cards, but I may do more to make them into prints (& possibly other alterations down the road).

Right now they are printed on linen card stock from a giclee printer with archival inks (rated to last 100 years). They are also signed, so they are a little more special than my mass produced cards which use soy based inks and have barcodes. Sometimes I test new designs out in this way, printing a small number.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Pull Me to the Sky II

The fact that this has a “II” after its title means, of course, that there is another earlier version, but I haven’t scanned in yet. I don’t know if I want to change some things about the earlier version, or just leave it, so I may not scan it until I resolve this.

These are paintings I have been working on this week. There is also another painting going too, but it is unrelated to this theme.

This is a kind of art that I have never tried before: taking a song I have written and writing it in ink on a piece of watercolor paper and painting over the top of it. I painted birds on top of the writing, but they aren’t prominent, but the birds break out of the middle to the frame of darker paint.

I think that this lyric works well as a stand-alone poem, which is why I chose it. The song is on my Goldenrod CD and a different version is on the Come to Me in Dreams CD (the former version is my favorite of the two).

I am interested in trying more versions as I’m not sure I like the window effect, though I like the fact that I chose to put birds where the writing is, however subliminally.

I don’t have it for sale anywhere yet: I am wondering whether to put it in a gallery or show or put it for sale on-line. I am leaning towards putting it on-line only because the audience for my music is widespread, out of the general area where I live and I think an audience member might appreciate it more than a gallery patron.

Anyway, I don’t feel I am done with this theme and I will post more when the time comes.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire
My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)
Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Our CD, Saratoga Romance is now up on CD Baby

Our new CD (cover design above) is finally up for sale on CD Baby. It will probably be up on Amazon, Borders, and download sites like I-Tunes shortly.

I did the artwork for the CD (while band member Jim Lestrange did the graphics). I also made this into 2 greeting card designs without the writing (one has a color shift). It has done well and I am encouraged to make more designs with Celtic knots and horses.

I am hoping to sell the CD on Etsy as well. While I have done well at CD Baby (and they do have the soundclips!), I am less pleased that they were taken over by Discmakers: more corporate & seemingly more disorganized (though to be fair, they have just started to overhaul the site and things may get better... I hope).

Anyway: here are some of the greeting card designs I made from the CD cover (note: the copyright watermark does not appear in actual product):

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Shamrock with Knotted Background II

Note: the copyright watermark does not appear in actual image.

Shamrock with Knotted Background II

This is my latest piece. I finished it on September 22 in the midst of a terrible cold. I have done a number of shamrocks in this kind of style, but this is the boldest in terms of saturation of color. More of my shamrocks are on my website here.

I don't have it listed for sale yet as it is brand new, but I will in the near future.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)
A number of alternatives for purchasing CDs

A Good Witch Encourages a Blue Jay

Note: the embedded copyrights in the online image do not appear in the actual product.

This is a greeting card design I completed a couple of weeks ago. It is now up in my Etsy shop.

Each card is signed and is on linen paper and is printed with archival inks rated to last 100 years, thus they are suitable for framing. I print this way for a limited period of time to test the design, to decipher whether I really like the colors, to get the design out to the market right away so I don’t have to wait through match prints & readjusting colors to CMYK and to see what customers reactions will be before I commit the design to a big press run with a barcode. So, they are special.

I usually charge $3.75 a card at the few galleries and shops I take these designs to (the cost of ink, paper and gallery commission justifies the higher cost), but I am selling them online for under $3 a piece (of course, there is a $1.50 shipping and handling charge, but this is still a good deal!).

As for the design: yes, the witch has pumpkin wings and she is perhaps more related to the faerie species than the witch species as she is somewhat ethereal with her wings, her dress of vines that one can see through and her love of the blue jay (nature).

 My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my new blog. This blog is being created to keep you abreast of what I am doing and creating on a more consistent level than my once-a-year blog on my website. I plan to post my newest art creations, photos and blogs from the road with the band and any other thing that comes to mind.

For those of you who are not so familiar with me or my work, I’d like to introduce myself. I am a visual artist and a musician.

I got here through many twists and turns.

I began singing and playing a classical guitar and recorder when I was 10, but I never considered music to be a good career choice for me (I had severe asthma). But I still loved to play for family and friends and for a giant contra dance band at a summer camp. I continued despite setbacks.

My other passions were art and writing. I thought these interests might be a more practical career choice for me. I learned to throw pots on the potters wheel when I was 10. I also learned weaving, drawing, painting, sewing and beading. My brother and I made a lot of our own toys which included ships and space ships and other wooden toys in our father’s wood shop in the basement. I made my own doll’s clothes and often embroidered them. I filled composition books with stories and illustrations (modeled after children’s books).

My brother and I also made a lot of our own card games and board games, drawing all of the designs and making the cards. I still have a fascination with composing aesthetically beautiful games together with a mindful and exemplary strategy.

When I went to college, I majored in studio art. I applied for an art scholarship and won it. Then I got a masters degree in art education. Around the time of getting my masters, the schools were cutting back on art teachers which meant that there were a lot of us floating around looking for jobs. Many of my colleagues found work in art galleries, teaching at art centers and substitute teaching, but I decided to be a potter. It worked for awhile (barely). I was subsidizing the pottery business with performing at local venues during weekends.

Then things shifted again: the music business became more and more lucrative and overtook the pottery business to the point where I was hardly making any pottery at all. I was performing 3 – 4 times a week. Audiences were asking for recordings. So, my time went towards tracking all kinds of music, practicing or creating new compositions. I still had an urge to make art, but even a miniscule pottery business wasn’t so compatible with a music career. Pottery takes constant vigilance as the clay is always drying. So I drew and painted instead.

The greeting card business grew very, very slowly and by surprise, starting with one card design in 1998. It started because I needed a wedding card for a friend’s wedding and I didn’t like any of the designs I found, so I made my own. I thought I might try selling the design at a small local shop (at the prodding of the bride). The shop took 50 cards of the same design and they sold out in 2 months. I have been making greeting cards ever since.

During my performances, I was throwing in Renaissance songs here and there. My audiences were asking for a recording of it. So I decided to take a 2 year break from performing and concentrate on getting a Renaissance band together (we called ourselves The Spirites Consort). We recorded “Wing’d With Hopes, New Interpretations of Renaissance Songs”. The album did very well, better than expected (and because of it, I won a grant to record my next CD), but the band’s full potential was not realized because venues in the USA were not so keen to hire a Renaissance band except concert halls that are geared towards the historical perspective like art centers and libraries. By the time we figured that out, one of our members married and moved away, joining some other bands, and it became more difficult to book a consistent tour of concerts. Some of the remaining members thought we should branch out more musically and not pigeon-hole ourselves by being exclusively Renaissance. Eventually we ended up in another band called “Saratoga Faire” (3 of us from The Spirites Consort plus violinist, Frank Orsini). We are just starting to market the band and brand new CD now.

So in bits and starts, making art became more of a focus again while the musical tides of my life were shifting. In order not to drive myself crazy with two careers, most of my present art-making is in the same genres as my music and each contributes to the other and makes for a fulfilling life.

Some other tidbits about me: I love blueberries and eat a lot of them. When I go for walks I am always looking up at the sky and at the birds in the trees. Crows seem to have the best vantage point. Hummingbirds are joy on wings. Robins are a sign that my surroundings are relatively healthy. I don’t like coffee or drink it. Popcorn is my comfort food in winter.

Thank you for reading!

Website

Music MYSPACE

My Etsy on-line store for some of my CDs and some of my art