Well, it was bound to happen that we’d have to turn to SALES.  It’s true and all in good fun.  I’ll be participating as a volunteer to the Art League’s Annual Patrons’ Show by selling raffle tickets on the first night of scheduled sales, Thursday, February 4th from 5:30 – 9 pm – so come on out and share some laughs and fun as we prepare for an excellent 2010 year.  Below is today’s press release on this highly-attended and much-anticipated event. 

1.   I will embrace all the natural curiosities in the world, particularly botanical art and seashore art with a distinct goal of incorporating more natural materials in my home, life, thoughts, and personal artworks.  As artists, we must stay in tune with the natural world around us and influencing our daily lives – especially if we live in the city.  Partially met – started out the year with a big bang, but lost my steam for this project come summer.  

2.  I will do the ONE thing I have been postponing for 5 years and which I swore I would never allow myself to do – fall into the trap.  I WILL, no, i MUST reposition myself personally.  I will try to understand how I could have let this certain circumstance continue for as long as I have,  how I could have dealt with the distinctly negative influences and unhappiness it has caused, and I will challenge myself to re-create a new reality.  As artists, we all fall into ruts and we must be willing and able to re-examine our choices.  Did NOT meet, but Lord willing 2010.  

3.  I will continue my abandonment of Starbucks Coffee and Coca Cola (successful on the later since 11/21/08 – I broke down on the former this morning and has my “last” peppermint mocha) and I will “think” about food origins, food source, food quality, food intake, food sustainability,and food in my life.  I will support local farms and farmers markets.  As artists, we must care for and love ourselves and our bodies – our intellectual and artistic lives have a way of morphing the physical.  Beware!  No drop of Coca Cola has passed my lips.  As for Starbucks, I’m still working on it.  

4.  I will try to attend at least two new and major art shows in different realms this year, one being the Ephemera Society’s show in March and the other a new major coastal show.  I will examine the Vegas art market in late April.  As artists, we need new influences, new social groups, and new contacts.  Your success may very well depend on the NEXT new person you meet or direction you take.  Didn’t do Ephemera or Miami Basel, but did have a blast in Vegas!  

5.  I will give the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Walters Museum of Art the attention they deserve and I will participate in the National Portrait Gallery’s wonderful media/educational opportunities.  Artists tend toward isolation, introspection, and immediate surroundings.  History and the art community at large can immensely help us expand our vision.  I will use these experiences in developing the commercial and residential art programs our advisory supports.   Nope.

6.  Not only will I show more of my own work, even though I am (fearfully and with trepidation) exploring very new and different realms, but our advisory will function as a community catalyst for artists, particularly those who are in the Eisenhower Valley of Alexandria, VA or those who or otherwise overlooked in the greater DC market.  As artists, we must have an eye to the arts community – and we can start right where we are!   We must also feel the fear and do it anyway – it takes courage to put yourself out there, but you and I can believe in ourselves.  Yup!  Good job!!

7.  I will expand my Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York art connections to be of more value to gallerists and museum curators.  As artists, we must understand that regionalism does play a role in the greater art market and we must look to centers of art commerce even if we’d rather … not.  Yup – and embraced Facebook too!  

8.  I will write less about upcoming shows & exhibitions, unless they are of real and immediate value to the DC art scene.  I will unsubscribe to every email list that is of no value and only eats up my limited time and I will dedicate this saved time to my own artistic vision and encouraging the vision of others.  Technology can overcome the artist.  I recently went to a wonderful book making/ printers organization only to find two students diligently surfing the net.  YOUR art is not on the Internet.  So make it already.   I did it – I could stand to do a little less interneting and a bit more artmaking.

9.  I will continue to develop instructional art classes and workshops and our own Lange Art Gallery, thus carving a niche market within the metropolitan DC arts area and showing works which might not otherwise have a venue.  I’ve been very inspired this year by a local gallery who’s made a personal commitment to art they love, and the magical thing is they’re responding to a whole new customer base.  Art is like cars, everyone has their favorite model – this year, let mine be the SMART (car).  Lange Gallery still in works, but art classes & creativity workshops (and artist consulting) ready to begin in Jan 10.  

10.  In 2008, I’m happy to report that I paid a LOT of attention to our own personal studio, organization, tools, techniques, equipment, files, and supplies.  I made many changes in this area which really have catipulted my ability to work.  I read much about other creatives studios – what works for them and what does not and I would like to try to keep an eye on this corner of our art advisory – the studio development, organization, and utility.  Form follows function, don’t you know?  Ha.  Even got my studio shown in a national magazine.  Since we just relocated again last month, I’m proud to say the studio is ready and functional in a very short time.  

11.  I will co-source, co-create, and collaborate with the DC art power brokers to gain a deeper understanding of how, why, where, and when our arts advisory can help the underground arts market – DC resurgent color school.  And, if time allows, without feeling overwhelmed, I will think about writing an arts  book this year.  As artists, there’s NEVER enough time.  So slow down, do it right the first time, and think and live and love and breathe and DO what’s going to be of value.  Book rescheduled to 2010, power brokers – power schmokers.  

12.  Lastly, I will continue to keep and eye and ear to the ground especially as it relates to artists relocation programs – many of us are having to make new choices in where and how we live and these very valuable programs bolster the artist, the community, and our world at large.  Paducah, KY has much to be proud of.  Done!  If any artists are seriously considering relocation, they should consider consulting with us first.  

Shauna Lee Lange’s Creativity will participate in VSA arts international postcard art project which documents interpretations of disability.  Lange will be taking a creative approach to her experiences in balancing belief and disbelief, knowledge and ignorance, and the temporal world with the concept of an ever-after.  The theme is intended to communicate how sitting on a precipice of religious and spiritual indecision has been a debilitating force in the artist’s life. 

The Disability Project is a collaborative project with a  submission deadline of 02/05/10.  VSA arts will curate an exhibition, both online and in Washington DC to represent the submissions as part of the 2010 International VSA arts Festival held June 6-12, 2010. 

Lange’s self-taught, late-emergent original voice through art submissions will be the second in a series of postcard submissions to national galleries.  Her “Going Postal” postcard submissions in black, red and white intricate and complex circles to Alexandria Virginia’s Target Gallery in December 2009 were extremely well received. 

Image Credit here. 

Women’s e-News has very timely posted this fantastic article on Britain’s campaign for a new labeling system for altered/photoshopped magazine articles of super-thin models and actresses, at which Demi Moore and “W” Magazine are currently front and center. A must read!    

We Are The Wave has a very cool collage they’ve created to show women the five top-most hurtful advertisements to women’s self esteem.  Do we know what we are looking at when we see:

1.  Canting;

2.  Eating Disorders:

3.  Objectification;

4.  Victimization; and

5.  Dismemberment?

Take a look for yourself and THINK about how marketing targets you!  The marketers posted here are a small sample of a very large group of companies operating on your psyche.  They should be taken in the spirit of examples only.  In other words, I don’t want any letters.  :) 

Ann Thompson Nemcosky’s blog Blue Bird Hill has a great and simple idea for tracking days you spend working on art in the studio.  Her 2009 left her with 207 days of dedicated focus.  This article talks about how she’s moving through her ideas in recording what she does artistically!  Great ideas!

I stumbled upon World Pulse just a few months ago and have been since impressed with their efforts to create a Internet-centric global network of women.  They host articles, events, arts happenings, and regional journalists who are encouraged to raise their voices on issues of most concern.  I once had a college professor who warned us all (and quite rightly so) to follow the money when dealing with social organizations, so here’s info on just who World Pulse is.  The content, layout, and photography on this site is often stunning.  You may wish to participate, join, contribute, or just monitor as you go. 

I went on a short Google tour of women & creativity today and here are ten highlights of new sites found along the journey. 

Exploring Women’s Creativity – primarily a site for quilting and quilt advocates, the homepage offers and excellent overview of the highs and lows of living your creative dream (and finding out what it is if you don’t already know!)

The Creativity Center – a more educational site about theories on creativity – good for researchers. 

Creativity Links - links to even more interesting creativity sites. 

The Woman’s Book of Creativity – a 5-star Amazon rated resource written by C. Diane Ely.   

Creative Juices Arts – an example of how one creative women’s group is creating a circle of indomitable women. 

Venuszine – leading source of information on women in culture – interviews with legendary women. 

Famous Creative Women – a quote & biography source of over 800 fabulistas. 

Women & Talent – features a video “Who Does She Think She Is” 

Creative Soul Works – Emily Hanlon’s creativity consulting business and what you can expect from a creativity coach. 

The Celtic Muse – Maggie Butler’s creativity consulting business for comparison purposes – show’s the range of creativity exercises and approaches.

The graphics folks at Art Bistro have a very cool article on how the people of Detroit are turning abandoned houses into really fun art – read here.  You may remember a few months ago, Detroit houses were in the news during the housing boom because many were available for less than $10,000.  Vandals were going through houses and stealing all the copper (a deep recession and a history of institutional poverty based in racism and crime will cause one to do such things) while others across the nation less affected by financial crisis were scooping up property no one else wanted. 

This creative transformation of houses to art stems back a couple of decades and is being reinvigorated through the very determined Heidelberg Project.  The project is a powerful transformation of abandoned and decrepit neighborhoods into artistic environments credited to Tyree Guyton.  We’d love to see it really take root in New Orleans. 

Most interestingly, Guyton says the inspiration wasn’t his.   “I had a vision, a greater power talked to me,” says Guyton, 51. “I stepped out of that house, across the street on Heidelberg, and heard God calling to me. I thought I’d lost it. But I saw the project unfolding before my eyes.”

Herman James of the Climate Gallery wrote to say: Well, a cold wind blew and it rained like mad all day and then it was snowing by reception time! Many of the New York based artists in the show did not appear at the opening though it seemed well attended anyway. Big coats all around. Many artists came from parts farther afield, such as Tampa and Colorado, Michigan, California and elsewhere.

Thanks to all, the quality of the show was very, very high. One artist was heard to say, and in vino veritas, that this show, Should be reviewed! Of course, we agree and we are working on it.