The Business of Art | Many words today

This might take more time to read than you want to spend. You also might not find it interesting. You can skip it today—I’ll still be your friend.

In thinking about all the distractions and how long it has been since I last painted, I realized several things, the most glaring that. . .

. . . I missed several important selling opportunities here in Three Rivers this spring.

What a Slacker

(1) The Studio Tour weekend: Did it include Three Rivers this year? This event alternates areas each year. It used to be an exclusive Three Rivers event, but I stopped after it grew to involve the entire county. It eats up an entire weekend and involves many strangers coming to my home. No thanks.

(2) First Saturday —haven’t participated in that for many years because I don’t like waiting in my studio all day, jumping up every time I hear a car go past to see if they are pulling into my driveway, helping tottery people up my steps, and then being squished with strangers in my little shed of a studio. No thanks.

(3) A busy Easter weekend in the local shops. Oops, didn’t have anything new to take.

(4) I’m skipping the Redbud Festival too. Lots of work to set up, poor attendance in the last handful of years I’ve been there, standing around on numb feet (because when a vendor sits, it appears as if he is disinterested) and not wanting to work on Sunday all add up to No Thanks to festivals, bazaars, boutiques and all such events.

These guys would HATE having strangers invade their space—my painting workshop doubles as their home.

Good grief, it’s a wonder that I can stay in business as a local artist.

After 33 years of full time artisting, arting, scratching out a living with paintbrushes and pencils, I seem to have developed enough ways of earning a living that I can be a little pickier.

But then again, when I had a solo show in Tulare last August, I thought I had it all figured out and almost didn’t bring any pencil drawings. Boy was I wrong—pencil drawings were all that sold!

Such is the business of art. The best I can do is return phone calls and emails, finish work on time, keep improving old skills and learning new ones.

What I do

Editing, proofreading, book design, drawing in pencil, oil painting, painting murals, teaching regular group and private drawing lessons, giving talks about drawing, publishing books (coloring, cabins, and wildflowers for me; a variety of topics for other people), printing and selling notecards and calendars, designing and painting signs, logo design, teaching drawing and oil painting workshops, an occasional solo show, accepting commissions, selling through local shops, selling from my website and to people who call or ask to visit my studio—it all provides great variety, and continues to hold my interest.

This is a fantastic place to teach drawing lessons and workshops.

What I don’t do

Notice that the above list doesn’t include the aforementioned boutiques/bazaars/festivals, or lending my work to places of business so that they don’t have to buy it but can pretend that it is actually going to sell while people are in their offices for other purposes. It doesn’t include giving art to fund raisers or annual beg-a-thons (hint: I will give many charities who ask a free Wilsonia book, or even a certificate for a free private drawing lesson). There’s nothing on the list about participating in shows with entry fees, joining in themed group shows, or schlepping my art to decorate someone’s annual banquet to give people something to do while they are waiting for dinner to begin. I have done all of these things in the past and am thankful to be able to decline such “opportunities for exposure”. The beginners and youngsters can do those things, but I learned that a person can die of exposure. (Yes, I do make exceptions from time to time.)

Why would I ever want to leave here if I didn’t have to?

What About The Internet?

I also don’t sell via Facebook, Instagram, or Etsy. These platforms require copious amounts of time online, building up a following, participating in discussions and commenting and “liking”, being visible, staying connected. I try to keep my connections real rather than virtual, and as much as I try to limit screen time, I’m still on the computer way more than I want to be: photos, communications, photo editing, blogging, more photos, book editing, book design, and even more photos for many reasons and uses, plus reading and commenting regularly on a handful of blogs, which have brought a handful of sales and new friendships.

This was a fun place to give a talk about earning a living with art and how I got to where I am, which really, isn’t anything to brag about. It came with lunch, which we all needed after a very stressful hour before the meeting began of trying to make the powerpoint projector work. (Next time I’ll bring my trusty laptop.)

P.S. Notice also that the list doesn’t include showing in galleries: this means for-profit galleries. There are none in Tulare County, only non-profits, run by volunteers, where I have had my solo shows.

Conclusion

Using pencils, oil paint, and murals, I make art that you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.

P.S. I happily accept commissions, which means I make custom art for people. I hope you know that!

Springville’s Hospital: Fighting TB in Tulare County

THE BOOK IS FINISHED! It was a ten-year project, with a giant distraction of a different book getting written and published first—Tales of TB: White Plague of the North, available through BookBaby. Here’s the link: Tales of TB

But that was last year.

This year, the book is Springville’s Hospital: Fighting TB in Tulare County.

front cover
back cover

The book is now available through Lulu, a great place to print short-run books. Springville’s Hospital at the Lulu Bookstore.

Dr. William Winn, a (now retired) pulmonologist (that means lung doctor), hired me to illustrate a few things for this book that he’d been wanting to write. I asked if he had an editor, and after I explained the role, he hired me for that, in addition to three illustrations.

He clearly loves research, and the Springville book got pushed aside when we realized he was accidentally accumulating enough material for a different book about tuberculosis. After FINALLY finishing Tales of TB, I urged him to write about Springville’s TB hospital, a place that ignited my curiosity back when I first saw it in about 5th or 6th grade. (I’ve always loved old buildings, always always always. Am I being unclear?)

Bill encountered some serious health set-backs, and I finally accepted the fact that he would not be able to complete the book to his satisfaction. (Perfectionism can be a real obstacle to progress, but you can bet that he was a fabulous doctor.) I told him that he had enough chapters for a good book, not the one he had hoped for, but still a good and important book.

The Big Push

He gave me the go-ahead, so I gathered all those chapters (multiple versions of them, sigh) and arranged them into order, finally reading it as a book instead of little bits and pieces, dividing some into two chapters, turning some into appendices, rearranging paragraphs (yeppers, still editing), cobbling enough together for an afterword. Then re-editing and proofreading, gathering and scanning many photos, doing the Photoshop Junior thing, finding captions, and figuring out where each photo belonged in the book. After that came formatting, which I promise you don’t want to hear about. Then oops, what is the title? Bill hadn’t looked that far ahead, so I wrote a list, and he chose one in a phone conversation we had. Oh, oops, I needed to design the cover, and OH NO, he didn’t write a “blurb” for the back. Alrighty then, after some prayer and a night or two lying awake staring at the ceiling, I was able to complete that. I even learned how to turn an ISBN into a bar code, and the final step was to set it up to be sold through the Lulu bookstore.

Now, I am waiting for my copy.

Here is a link to a post I wrote about one of the illustrations back in 2017: Edythe

And another: First Building

And the last two: Tent living I, Tent living

I SURE HOPE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO GET A COPY OFF OF THE LULU BOOKSTORE!

Ahem. Excuse me for shouting. It’s been a long week.

The Building in the Library Mural

Good sunlit photo but before it was quite finished.

When I was designing the Ivanhoe Library mural, I dug around for photos of a building that is cemented in my memory as a beautiful old structure. (Apparently, I’ve loved old buildings all my life.) I found a photo of the Ivanhoe School auditorium in Laura Spalding’s book Ivanhoe—the Town with Three Names: Klink, Venice Hill, Ivanhoe. I was confused that her book identified it as “Ivanhoe Community Hall”, but I recognized it instantly as the building where I learned to play the clarinet*, gave my campaign speech to be the school president**, checked out books, and played the piano for the jazz band.

When I finished painting it, I added “Ivanhoe School Auditorium” and then thought it would be nice to provide the year it was built along with the year it went away.

Like most things in life, that was easier said than done. The librarian called the History Room at the main library branch, and was told it was built in 1932 and demolished in 1948.

Nope and nope. Architecturally speaking, it is clearly older than 1932, and since I graduated from Ivanhoe in 1973, I KNEW it was standing past 1948.

So, I went to Visalia (had to go anyway to retrieve Momscar with its new starter) and visited the History Room. Library Historian Hunter and I pulled three thick folders from a filing cabinet and started flipping through all sorts of old papers.

Like much in life, the building’s dates are complicated, far too complicated to simply put as “19XX – 19??” on the mural.

Here’s what we learned in two different places, along with Spalding’s book:

It was built around 1926 as a community hall. Then, maybe in 1932, or maybe 1937, “the community, who being unable to meet the indebtedness gladly disposed of it to the school.” One source says it was moved in 1932, another says it was moved in 1937; a third source says it was moved in spring of 1939.

Nowhere have I found the year that the building was demolished. Maybe demolition records aren’t kept, because the demolishers are embarrassed to be part of destroying history, or maybe because it is viewed as a hazard or junk to be gotten rid of, rather than something old and beautiful that has reached the end of its functional life.

So, the painting of the old school auditorium will not have dates, only its title as I recall it: Ivanhoe School Auditorium.

When I was a regular patron of the Ivanhoe library, sometimes we had to go to the main library in Visalia in order to find enough good material to write a term paper or do a report. What is now the children’s library used to be the entire Visalia library, which I found to be stunning and overwhelming. I also thought the building was beautiful, because it is. The architectural style is like the house my dad grew up in, built in 1932. (The house—the library was completed in 1936, so it was clearly the same era.)

P.S. I drew the library in 1989 before the new one got built.

P.P.S. I also stopped by a retail store in Visalia to see a childhood friend from Ivanhoe who told me the school library wasn’t in the bay window but was in a door off the porch. That’s why I added a hint of a door on the otherwise dark and bland front porch. I sure would like to find more photos of the building, both in and out, but those were the days before everyone carried a camera.

* Nope, can’t play clarinet anymore

** Yeppers, I won.

Library Mural, Day Thirteen, FINISHED!

The mural looked like this when I arrived in Ivanhoe (photo from the end of the previous painting day—I arrived early enough that the light wasn’t yet on the mural.)

After talking to an old friend who remembered more details than I, I added a hint of a door on the porch of the old auditorium. (Please excuse the poor quality of the After photo!)

Then I added orange blossoms. These are only important if you are up close and inspecting the mural; they are irrelevant if you are riding a fast horse.

Next, I flailed around for a while, trying to figure out where to work next. The idea that I might finish had me a little wound up, wondering if it was possible, wondering how to prioritize. The rooster rose to the top of the list—all those colors!

Here are the feet, before and after.

Next, I sat on the ground, now redwood chips rather than mud, and began the quail.

I stood back, studied the mural while visiting with my cousin on the phone, and decided that the blue sky in the Twin Buttes inset was too blue, too flat, too perfect.

Okay, now let’s look at the whole thing. This was a quick-quick-quick-before-the-tree-shades-it shot.

Some more staring and thinking brought me to the conclusion that despite simplifying the packing label, I needed to not abbreviate Klink to Klink Citrus; the name was Klink Citrus Association. And since I couldn’t figure out how to legibly paint “Tulare County, California” on the wall’s rough surface, I simply added “Ivanhoe.”

Throughout the day, I touched up a few more things, brightening the arms of the wind machine, tightening up the edges of the smudge pots, closing up gaps around some of the insets, putter, putter, tinker, tinker.

Enough, already! I signed it. Even with the guidelines of the bricks, my name went crooked. YOU TRY WRITING YOUR NAME WITH A PAINTBRUSH WHILE LYING ON THE GROUND!

Okay, one more photo before it was completely finished but also before the shadows hit it.

One last look.

I loved working on this mural—the commute, the ease of not working on ladders, the subject matter, the neighborhood, being at the library of my youth, meeting the various people who stopped by, the roosters, the patrolling dogs and yowling cats, all of it.

THANK YOU, IVANHOE!

P.S. An inside mural begins today, Lord willing, etc. . . if I do begin, it will be on the blog on Wednesday. Tomorrow is a little history tidbit about the mural.

Library Mural, Day Twelve

Last week I did not work on the mural for reasons that are irrelevant to my public life, as shared here with my tens of readers. The week before last, actually, since I show you on Mondays what I did on Fridays. Never mind.

This is how it looked last; it’s kind of hard to see things accurately in the late afternoon sun and shadow.

When I got to the library on Friday, it looked like this:

Wait, what is missing?? The mulberry trees were pruned, and THE REDWOOD LOG IS GONE, ALONG WITH THE STUMP! Whoops. That was a monument. Sure made nice chips on the ground and So Much Easier to see and work on the mural!!

There is a saying out there that when you have a difficult job facing you, i.e.,“a frog”, you should “eat the frog first”. So, I did: Ladder Man.

After I painted Ladder Man (this was the 2nd or 3rd attempt), Intern correctly and objectively pointed out that he was too small. (Thank goodness for Intern.) So, I kept Ladder Man the same size but moved him farther away in the orchard, conveniently placed behind the Twin Buttes inset so that the wonky ladder wasn’t visible.

Intern worked on orange blossoms for 3+ hours. (Thank goodness for Intern.) Then I dripped some paint on the bright orange on the label, tried to wipe it off, and then Intern turned it into a star, to be fixed later. I hope we remember all the Fix-it-Laters. . .

While Intern worked on the zillions of tiny white dots masquerading as distant orange blossoms, along with gray-ish green dots in the shadows, I tackled the next frog on the menu—painting the old Ivanhoe School Auditorium on that very rough wall surface, minus a T-square and a triangle, which I would be using if I was drawing it in pencil, or perhaps even when painting if the wall had been plastered.

I worked from left to right, across the inset, just as I would do if drawing in pencil. Yes, I was drawing with my paintbrush!

Time to stand back and admire all the progress, with the sunshine and clear treeless and logless view.

Then I decided to label the Auditorium inset, because no one will know what it is unless I tell them.

That was such a success (with space remaining to put in the year it was built and the year it was torn down if I am able to learn that information) that I decided to help people know what Twin Buttes are. That helped fill the too-big real estate of the road.

I sat down in the redwood wood chips which replaced the mud, and began fixing the label. You can see how the daylight changed during that interval to the late afternoon sunshine which casts a golden glow.

Please admire the detailed orange blossoms and navel on the label’s orange:

Further, note the claws on the rooster along with a hint of a shadow. This appeared on the actual label when I held it in the formerly unavailable bright sunshine.

Throughout the process of painting this mural, I continually use the measurement of “best viewed from the back of a fast horse”. After detailing the auditorium, Intern said it was “getting to be slow horse quality.”

I wonder if I’ll be able to finish it next Friday. Prolly not, when I consider how many orange blossoms remain, along with an uncontrollable desire to make the oranges brighter throughout. I also want to add a few more details, because those are the types of things that keep people looking closely.

To top off the great day of painting, there were PEOPLE IN THE LIBRARY!! Is this because the mural is drawing attention to this great free resource in this poor, tiny town of few benefits other than mountain views and the smell of orange blossoms each spring?

A Day in Sequoia National Park

We live in the foothills at the entrance to Sequoia National Park, which we simply call “The Park”. It’s right here in Tulare County! Because we can go anytime, sometimes we don’t go for several years. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go, so I went. Let’s have some photos.

Moro Rock has steps up the other side. I didn’t go there yesterday.
Eleven Range Overlook has never photographed with my little camera. For some reason it can’t see the blues in the distance. Apparently my inferior phone camera is superior in that aspect.
Why have I never noticed this at the base of the General Sherman Tree?
Sequoia Gigantea, redwood, Big Tree
The bases of these trees resemble elephant feet.
This is all the snow there is in Crescent Meadow in JANUARY!!

The Squatter’s Cabin has this old sign explaining that it “was built in the eighties”. That’s the 1880s!

This is a baby redwood, something I’ve rarely seen. Maybe it is because of the fires in 2020, 2021, 2024. (They all run together in my memory.)
That is one weird burl.

On the way home I took this quick photo of Castle Rocks to show Intern because I spent so much time painting it carefully on the library mural.

Yeah, yeah, I’ll start working again. Eventually. Just taking a little time off.

Library Mural, Day Eleven

Day Eleven was a day of doubt, feeling like a fraud, an imposter, a Jane Bag-of-Donuts masquerading as an artist. This is probably a result of attempting to paint something with an inadequate photo, on a very rough wall, in a space where I couldn’t back up quickly to observe from a distance and then go close to inspect, biting off more than I could chew, overestimating my abilities. . .

It was also a result of being into the finish work stage; Trail Guy reminded me how quickly a building gets framed, and then how long it takes to do all the finish carpentry when building something.

I started to put in Guy On A Ladder. The ladder looked wonky, and then I realized it looks wonky in the photo. The worst moment was when I realized that the oranges surrounding him were as big as his head would be, if his head was visible.

It took a minute to figure out that my photo is quite inadequate; it was fine for drawing the model for the proposal—colored pencils under a magnifying glass. Maybe I need to shrink the oranges around him.

Never mind. I painted him out and concentrated on orange blossoms, of which there are zillions. ZILLIONS. I painted for about 2 hours on these and felt as if I had moved about 6” along the wall and still had empty places.

Never mind. I decided that painting smudge pots would give a greater sense of forward motion, restore a little confidence. (The color is weirdly bright here. . . it’s a photo accident)

Never mind. I need to keep putting those endless blossoms in. (Whose idea was that??)

I wondered if it mattered when someone was standing back at a good distance. Hard to say in the bright light and shadow.

Never mind. It was time to work on something fun and satisfying.

The quality of the light sure changed quickly during that little situation.

This is how it looked at the end of the day. (It probably looks the same to you as it did at the end of Day Ten.)

A muralist friend sent me this picture, which was posted somewhere by the Exeter mural folks, yesterday, the very same day I was doubting my abilities. If I was able to do this 16 years ago, with relatively little experience, certainly I should be able to complete this little mural on the Ivanhoe library!

Library Mural, Day Ten

I left sunny Three Rivers and headed down into the fog. I remember worse fog when I lived outside of Ivanhoe with my parents, so this wasn’t too awful.

Downtown Ivanhoe
Can you see the mural through the fog?

The mural looked like this. I seem to forget where I left off from week to week. I’m pleased with the repaired mountains. Intern and my Number One Fan (Josie brings me treats, encouragement, and posts to some FaceBook group) both noticed the improvement.

I began with orange blossoms.

Intern began working on another layer of white over the words on the label. Since there was only one color used, instead of using a palette, I told him he could dip straight out of the jar. Might have been a mistake, but one we can recover from. When the paint dries, we will simply peel up the plastic, because mural paint is acrylic, and acrylic is plastic.

Slight spillage in the mud. I scooped up as much as possible and put it back in the jar. I wonder if this will dry in the ensuing week.

Next, he worked on the lower border of the auditorium inset.

The two orange groves in the Twin Buttes inset weren’t good enough. So, I made them better. Here are the steps:

Next, orange blossoms on the close branches on the right side.

After Intern left, I was bored* with orange blossoms so I decided to tackle the most difficult piece: the auditorium. Although I prefer drawing architecture to almost any other subject, painting from a poor photo on a rough wall while sitting in the mud presents some challenges.

Most of what remains is tight detailing. This might mean that I’ve almost run out of ways for Intern to assist. However, he will be quite helpful on the distant orange blossoms.

*Probably not actually bored, just wanting to do something with more impact so it felt as if I was making measurable progress.

Library Mural, Day Eight

In case you are wondering, all the previous days’ blog posts croaked with my website. So, here is the best I can do to recreate the most current day for you.

These orange trees have been “skirted”, which means pruned so nothing touches the ground.

I tried to fix the trees on the mural to appear this way. Tricky business. . .

Intern and I mixed a paint color for the inset of the Ivanhoe Elementary Auditorium.

My mom and her brother helped a little bit.

To work on the auditorium, I would have had to sit in the mud. Instead, I sat on the slimy log to work on the inset of Twin Buttes.

The mural looked like this at the end of day #8.

And thus we end the abbreviated version of Day Eight on the Ivanhoe Library Mural.

Now I’m going to either bang my head on the wall or try to learn to back up all my posts so this doesn’t continue to happen OR I’m going to look for an alternative to BlueHost.

Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe is an unincorporated town in Tulare County. I grew up about 4 miles away, and then we moved to about 2 miles away. (Well, I probably didn’t grow up there but I lived there until I moved away at 18 and maybe I grew up then.)

The only places I was really familiar with were the school, which went from kindergarten through eighth grade, and the library.

The secondary places I knew were the drug store (a go-to place to buy birthday presents), the dime store (they had fabric!), and the hardware store, which smelled sort of like greasy metal and also was a possible source of presents because you could buy kitchen wares there. There were two hair places: a fancy one with a following from Visalia (Mr. Green owned it and his wife was a teacher’s aid whose face turned purple when she was mad), and one called Ferguson’s.

There was also a grocery store called SaveMor, a fast food place called The Triangle, and another called The Jolly cone. We didn’t go to those places, and we didn’t frequent the post office much either. Our address was actually Visalia, which made no sense, because it was about 12 miles away.

The fanciest place was the Presbyterian Church, where the cool kids went. My older sister got married there because our church in Visalia was too small. I heard Barry McGuire there in concert when I was in college. Barry McGuire in Ivanhoe— !!

There were two big packing houses for oranges: Klink, and Ivanhoe Citrus Association. I think that is right—my family packed at Klink, which was one of the early names of the town of Ivanhoe.

It had multiple active churches, a scout shack where Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Brownies, and the Lions Club met. These were active groups. There was also a locker plant (for meat); right in front of it was where someone ran into the family wagon while I was driving past one time. The driver got out and ran away, and when the sheriff arrived, they lied about who was driving. (Mr. O’Dell and I both told the sheriff, but nobody cared.)

Now Ivanhoe looks like this (all photographed through the windshield because it was cold and I wanted to get to the mural, and the town is actually a little scary these days.

Klink, now California Citrus
Looking north on “Main Street”, which only has a county road number rather than a name.
The post office is on the left.
The big brick building has a faded mural on the side. It used to be the hardware store and still says “HARDWARE” above the second story. I wonder what is up there. I think the building across the street is where Mr. Green’s fancy hair place.
Family Healthcare is in town on “main street”. I don’t remember ever having a doctor or dentist in town, so this is an improvement.
On the left is the Boys and Girls Club which used to be a church. On the right is the former drugstore. I can still remember what it smelled like. It was the nicest store in town.
Azalea Street got closed to expand the playground. In the distance is the tank that Cuko asked me about painting.
Straight ahead is the former Presbyterian Church. I don’t know what it is anymore. I think it is a church, possibly shared by one or two congregations. Turn right and the library is ahead on your left.

I didn’t take any photos of the dogs patrolling with purpose, although I counted 8. No cat photos either, as they skulk around yowling. The roosters were crowing all day long, but none of them were visible.

Thus we conclude our tour of Ivanhoe. It could cause a sentimental person to shed a tear. Ivanhoe, known for citrus, specifically excellent oranges. Hard to think of anything to say, except all the people I’ve met have been very welcoming and pleasant.