A Workshop in Strategic Planning for Artists

The people at Creative Capital call it a Professional Development Core Weekend Workshop, PDCWW for short. It is a "Crash course in self-management, strategic planing, fundraising and promotion. Based on a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum..." Those of you who are regular perusers of my abombitallizations of grammer, know that I do love orderly things and planning, but the closest I ever come to Rigorous, is babbling on and on and on, (case in point)

How every, when I read more about this workshop, I saw it as an opportunity to focus on some of my weaker points... in a healthy constructive sort of way, as opposed to the binge induced rants that me and my fellow artists normally indulge in.

So I applied for 1 of the 24 spots, sending 10 slides, a CV, and a short artist's statement. I am happy to say that I was selected, AND I got a Creative Capital Subsidy Grant as well!

Sorry, that's getting very close to blowing my own horn, but I am very excited about this workshop. Hopes are high that I will learn a lot about modern professional art practices, and connect with a new group of artists to interact with.

The workshop is being held at the Arthouse in Austin, hence the oldish photo of me standing next to the Arthouse placard.

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Putting on a Polish

On the bottom row are the 3 bronze sculptures I have been working on in the last wax casting class at CAC. They are polished up, patinated and to all purposes they are finished. They are about 2 inches long, and fit very comfortably in the hand. A friend said they feel like worry stones or hand candy. Perhaps I'll carry them around in my pocket, and when someone asks what I do I can hand them one and say "This, only bigger."

In my last posting I mentioned the risk of losing all your hard work during that .05 seconds of pouring bronze. Well, the first 2 items on the second row are a good example. I mislabeled the flasks, so when I poured this flask I didn't have enough bronze to fully cast the sculptures. GRRR

The black shapes are paper cut outs of the sculptures yet to be poured. We have one more class this session. We'll be spending the whole time casting. Our teacher, Rebecca Swann is a highly skilled jewelerist and a well of knowledge.