3 days

...Till my birthday, in case you're wondering. WHEW!! I just finished formatting a bunch of ACEO PRINTS and certificates for the Grit City Art Fair at the end of the month! Man, now I'm tired. I'll leave the printing for tomorrow. I'm gonna go get some beauty sleep. :-)

Check out this website if you don't know what an ACEO PRINT is: www.art-card.org. Don't feel bad. I didn't know what the heck they were either until last week. I hear about 'em all the time though, so I figured it was worth looking in to. You know, find out what all the rage is about. Now I'm with the program. And you can be too. Yeah two thousand ten! Alright!!!

Art for Sale!

Hello all!

I currently have some art on display and for sale at the Boudoir Bed & Bath up in Anacortes, WA for your viewing/buying pleasure. I am taking orders or consignments as well.

Full-sized giclées are not at the store, unfortunately, because I've been having issues with my current printer. The machine they normally use for fine art items such as mine BROKE, and they do not plan on replacing it any time soon. We tried to see if their other printer would work, but the quality is just not there. I will be in the market over the weekend for a new company that can create the giclées to my standards. After all, why would I want to give my collector's less than the best, right? Luckily, I know a LOT of other artists in the area and have already been given some awesome recommendations to go take a look at. :-) Stay tuned, my friends! I should have an update by next week.

CD Artwork for Nate Palin - aka - "The Bottom Line" is finished and in production!!! Yay :-D

For more info on this, go to: www.bottomlinelive.com

Monday, BAD DAY! Oh well.

So I don't know which news I received today is worse...

The fact that:
1) I have a disgruntled ex-employee trying to make my life miserable. She has a personal vendetta against me, but fortunately is dumber than she is scandalous, and she WILL be getting into some MAJOR trouble.

2) Nobody in the office (including me) could get paid today or buy any needed office supplies BECAUSE of this disgruntled employee, who caused all of our work accounts to freeze.

3) My paycheck from last week was returned, and now my account is overdrawn. Cool!

4) The appraisal came back from Thursday's walk-through.. and it's $5,000 below the purchase price (in other words, we HAD/HAVE a buyer, and it came in below even though 7 months ago it appraised for $22k HIGHER than the purchase price, & we've sunk over $30k in the house just since August). Someone was offering to BUY it! Why ruin a good thing and make it lower than what they were offering?! What an ass. We are NOT writing a check to close the sale!

5) Because of the appraisal, this also means is that the apartment we've had on hold with a friend will not be available any longer - he had to know by this morning if we were gonna be able to take it since he already had 3 other prospective-tenants. He wasn't gonna charge us deposit or last-month's like most places because he has known and done work with my boyfriend for so many years. So, basically, we're screwed out of the apartment too. Anywhere else is gonna charge up the butt.

6) Someone HACKED into one of my email accounts, and emailed all of my contacts a load of junk mail. Joy.

So I've heard bad things come in 3's... Since I got a double dose, does this mean something grand will be coming my way soon?! Please oh please say that it's so! Fuh shizzle. Today sucked.

I need a drink. Margarita anyone? I've got about 11 bucks to my name, if you're game.

On the bright side, at least I'm generally healthy, not pregnant, not homeless, and have friends, right? And I got some mad skillz too. That's always a plus.

Art for Sale!

I'm so frustrated!!! Last night I got into a big fight with Steve. His argument?..

"I see you farting around with all this art crap - it's wasting an exorbitant amount of your time - and yet you have YET to make a dime off of any of it. When are you going to GET REAL and stop this art nonsense!? It's not making you any money!! I have never met a person who struggles as much as you do - it's not like making money is hard, anyone can do it. Except you. Put the dream away, Kristina. It's just a dream. You have more important things to think about."

Now, I understand where he's coming from -oh "Mr. I-make-5-figures-per-month-plumbing"- but I don't know how to change the circumstances to prove that what I do has any value! I'm told MAKE MORE ART by teachers and artists, but I get YELLED at every time I DO because I haven't even sold any of the ones I've already made!!! ...And he gets REALLY mad when I run out of materials and I have to buy more. I took art class, yes, and granted, I learned some cool applications I hadn't thought of before, but what they didn't teach me was how to SELL ART. I don't **want** to stop creating art! I wish I could do it all day, every day!! I wish people **liked** my art enough that they wanted to buy it, so I'd have proof that I ***COULD*** do it all day, every day and actually survive!!!

Do I need to stand outside, and shout to the mountains in order for anyone to hear me?!?!

What can I do? Seriously. This is quite the pickle. I'm pretty torn up about this.

Lost and Found

Yesterday evening I retrieved my very first chalk pastel painting from the TAFA studio so I could present it to my mother for her birthday. Mind you, I haven't actually *seen* this painting in over two years. Upon having it matted, I realized -someone- I don't know who, CUT around the edges of the Canson paper... most likely so it would fit into the previous frame it was put in during my absence from the academy. As it doesn't disrupt the actual pastel itself, I suppose it doesn't matter, but I was a bit angry about discovering this anyhow. I mean, I DID pay for the paper and positioned the still-life exactly where I wanted it. I LIKED the excess of smokey gray background! Oh well.

At any rate, Rachel, the awesome framing manager at Michaels hooked me up with a great mat to fit around my own frame, which I promptly assembled before leaving for my mom's 53rd birthday-party dinner. She cried when I presented it to her, lol..

She will be giving it back briefly sometime this week so I can take it to my photographer's studio and get a digital copy made, after which, I will be returning it to her for safe keeping.

The pastel, if you're wondering, was/is a still life of the Horse of Turino. I forgot how amazingly brilliant it is for being a plain white statue. My lighting layer really shows through brilliantly in just the right spots. My mother loves horses, so there you go.

I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!

Etsy-bitsy shop-o-rama!!

Last night I hit my goal for the week of creating an online shop with items for sale! I know, I know, it's not much to look at *right now*... but I've got big plans, and at least it's something! Far better than nothing, for sure!!! If I waited and waited around until I was completely ready all the time, nothing would ever get done because most of the time, I have no idea where to start. So the word "progress" has earned an important spot on my motivating to-do vocabulary.

My motivating four P's: Progress + Produce + Promote = Profit

That's right! Sure it's elementary, and I'm sure someone out there is thinking to themselves "Oh Lord, this girl needs help. What a dummy!" But It's short and easy for me to remember day to day. Whatever works, eh? Progress.