wow!

(a portion of this week's art to be shipped out!)

It has been a busy week here at HQ (aka, the storage closet off of my dining room). I have had plenty of holidays sales off of Etsy-- which is amazing to me, because Etsy is such a dense web of sellers and work that I feel like its easy to get overlooked. I was preparing a shipment to the four corners of the country when I received an email asking me to ship to the UK. After a little research and math, I'm happy to report that I am now shipping internationally! I sent prints to both the UK and France this week, and am thinking about their long voyage ahead.

I also took this week to make some trades with other art lovlies for Christmas gifts. I met Chrissy of Boh Bon Soap Co. at the Detroit Urban Craft Fair-- her table was across the way from me and she came over to take a photo for a DUCF write up on IndieFixx, and then the whole day was so busy we didn't get to look at each other's tables at all! I now have six wonderful bars of soap on the way to disperse to friends and family for the holidays-- I'm sure they'll all be very excited to get something other than one of my prints!

I have been eying prints by Loaded Hips Press for months-- I love her scenes of Chicago, and I think they would work really well hung near each other. So Shannon and I made a little trade this week as well. This was probably the most direct trade I could ever do on Etsy-- we use the same basic process, in around the same size, and price them about the same. The only difference is that I ordered urban scenes from her, and she natural ones from me-- its funny how that works!

Aside from all of that I actually spent a large portion of the weekend relaxing. I can't remember the last time I made it a point to relax-- the older I get the more I'm becoming one of those people who can't sit still for very long! We did take a trip to the DIA-- Chris is a huge Dali fan and they have a fantastic modern art exhibit right now that promised to include Dali by way of its title. In the end, it only had one Dali, which was a little disappointing. I had never seen a Dali up close though, and that was amazing. It looks like it was printed off on an inkjet-- the surface is so smooth and crisp, not at all painterly. I was also slightly perturbed because almost everyone in the exhibit was on an audio tour, and walking around like dumb cattle hooked up to cordless phones. I like to get my face right up in paintings-- I think because I feel like I might be able to gleam a little knowledge from brushstrokes or application-- that was a lot harder with 40 people in front of a piece staring at it while their phone entertained them. I don't know-- I just did not like the vibe in there. Everyone attached to machines, being fed what to think about each piece. Almost none of the whispers you hear in museums as friends exchange impressions of disgust or delight. Surprisingly, my favorite piece in there was by Otto Dix-- I thought it was really exciting to see something once deemed degenerate by the Third Reich. His portraits say a lot more in person than they do on the slides or textbooks where I saw them in art school.

We went to the modern wing afterward, and I got to spend a little quality time with my favorite at the DIA:

(Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay. 1965)

This photo does it no justice, but I used to look at this like Africa with Egypt hooked on and then one day I realized wait! this is a bird's eye view! I haven't seen it the same since. I'm always trying to figure out what the orange spot means-- other than the fact that it might indicate the best place to live, ever. Frankenthaler pioneered this stained canvas idea (one I have tried before-- its VERY hard) I am in awe of the beauty and control in this huge piece-- the colors are so vibrant that they radiate off of the canvas.

We went to the Golden Fleece in Greektown afterward-- Chris used to go with his family when he was young. The gyros were amazing, tasty and huge! The lamb was perfect and the tzatziki sauce was the best I've ever had.

I have today off as well-- I'm trying a longer 4 day work week-- so I am off to do a little holiday shopping today and not trapped in the back of the store where I can't see the sun. I will pay for today with an extra hour tacked on to T-F, but I'm hoping I discover that its worth it.

I did experiement with making a little something new this weekend-- I will be posting about that this week!