coming attractions

I just received a letter from an Australian friend I drank a lot of wine with this time last year. As I reread her letter I have a Siamese cat in my lap who is less curious about what I am doing than why I am not feeding her. Mr. Beloved is snoring by my side and I've yet to enjoy my morning coffee.

My other Aussie friend, S and I zing emails back and forth once and while. We both have blogs so its a bit easier to catch up on what's up with each other if we have the time to do so. I completely understand my friend's sense of doubt and frustration with the limitations of exhibiting one's work. It's great when we are new on the scene and there is a lot of interest in what we are doing! After that, well its a whole other story, another strategy, etc. There are congrats when we get our shows on the calendar but somehow it seems to be anticlimatic.

Mr. Beloved and I are plugging away at our work... things are happening for us both, though slowly. His book will be published this year and he's been commissioned to write a play about the friendship between an eccentric writer and scientist.

I'll be participating in a performance/video piece at a branch of the Whitney Museum in NY this spring. Its a whole different kind of work I've recently become interested in... part of it is the nature of the project and part of it is the result of recent journeys. There is also a new series of works on linen created during the time I was in France in August. THAT was a very, very strange residency. I feel guilty going away so much but there really isn't a much for my career here these days. NYC is another story. Another effort, another direction. I feel closer to Paris as far as my painting goes.

Part of it is the stigma of being a mid-career artist. There seems to be less of a stigma in Paris. (I'm sure there are other stigmas but at least AGE doesn't seem to be one of them)

Here collectors think that if you aren't famous by the time you are in your 40's then they want to know why not... so if the collectors ask those questions the gallerists follow suite. Its really such a boring question. I just want to work but there is the matter of heat and morgage to consider...

Otherwise its been a very quiet week for me. I arrived home a week ago with the CRUD. I read my posts from last year and it seems to be something I get every winter. I think I need to sleep with a humidifier since I seem to be getting sick every winter. It proved to be a good opportunity to lay low and work on this video piece but now I am ready to get back in the studio.

Valentines was pretty low key this year. Mr. Beloved and I went to his favorite pub around the corner and I told him all about waiting in line at the Musee Picasso with my Aussie friend and the ghost of Dora Maar. There are other people I met at the Cite that I'd love to hear from... Ben, the Australian playwrite for one. Mitra and her beautiful family... I worry that Bush will get his way and there will be American troops in Iran. What will become of them? I hear from Fab and Jane once in awhile. We SMSed when I was in Paris in Aug. but he was out of the country. He said they'd been in Tasmania in a recent email. I would have loved to have been there for those long nights of drinking and laughter.

Its hard to remember but we are all painters... artists, writers. The rest of it is just a distraction - the career shit just gets in the way... even when its good it can get in the way.