After OST: I can relax for an hour or two

Or maybe a day or two. Not long though. There are always more art shows to enter, art to create, and endless art marketing to plan and execute. This is the high season, so stopping to breathe means you will miss the next show deadline. I'll go into the intricacies of how the Open Studio Tour was in the next blog entry.

Right now, I have my sister-in-law in town and she have been in town since the end of October, so I can finally take a couple days off to do more activities with her than just make dinner and chat afterwards....so nothing major in the blog until next week. My sister-in-law understands I have to work and she can entertain herself-- luckily!  I still have to work in the print lab tomorrow, make some some cyanotypes in the next few days, work on new images for Esoterica II: the Apocalypse, buy supplies, and of course plan the next art series. The work has to be done!

Being an artist means working 40 or more hours a week on your craft...just like regular people go to work during the week. Only like most entrepreneurs, we can't take days off. We don't get "vacation pay".  Sometimes that's difficult to convey to friends and relatives that being an artist is a job like any other; if I don't put in the hours, it doesn't get done. Being an artist is like any other job only more so: more hours, more work, more "getting it out there" with little in return (for most artists) and often no benefits. If you do art festivals, studio tours, out of town shows, etc., there is a lot of planning and implementation for an unknown payout in the end. Sometimes putting a hell of a lot in can mean big returns but not always. But surprises can happen and being optimistic can make all the difference.

You get out what you put in; so give it your all constantly.
~Reb

Fig. 17 The Dark Twin, Yellow Nautilus. 8x10", Monoprint with solarplate etching.