Saturday, December 12, 2009

No blogging... must sleep!

The old familiar push at the end of the year. Little sleep, lots of things to keep straight, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It hasn't been a banner year for online art sales, but it has been good considering the state of the economy. I still get to this every day instead of digging ditches. Holiday sales are slower than years past, but to be making a living selling my art now? I count this blessing every day.

A slow economy spurred me to final get rolling on new projects, like my art blocks. I've long wanted to make my art in a format other than wall art. In the coming year, I'll get to branch out a bit into new venues with the blocks.

It took a long time for the blocks to really form into an idea. I had trouble sourcing blocks like I wanted, for one thing. Then one day, boom! There they were, in an unlikely place. I thought I was looking for single blocks that I could put my art on, but I saw these smaller, narrow blocks, and  I thought: Triptychs!

Course now that I have amassed the largest collection of small blocks on the east coast, and now that I have gotten used to the idea of probably looking strange purchasing blocks in that quantity (they are re-purposed, and for what they were originally intended, no one would buy more than a few), I see a lot of triptychs in my future.

Of course, now that I have more triptych block pieces than I know what to do with, I have stumbled on local sources for single art wall blocks in 6", 8", 10" and 12", as well as a variety of shapes for mini art blocks that sit on a shelf. Those are what I originally envisioned using, but could not find them (and I don't really have time to cut them myself).

So here I go, for more than a few years, thinking this is the idea I want to do. This is how I will do it. If only this one thing (finding a source) will happen. Then I can do it. Then life says: Interesting idea, but how 'bout you do it this way? You asked for a source, so you got a source. It may not be a source for what you wanted to do, but it's a source just the same.

Once I pursued the idea that life threw in my path, ways to do the ideas I had been lugging around for a while appeared.

Now I just need a way to explain to cashiers why I am buying so many blocks.