a long hard summer

This summer has been very hard.
Financially and artistically, since the two tend to go hand in hand.

The studio sale helped a lot. Not financially exactly, Brett and I did make around $1300 but,
almost all of it was spent financing the burlesque festival Dr Sketchy's art show at the Gladstone hotel. I'll write more on that later.
The thing that meant the most to me during our studio sale was that so many people came out, not just to be supportive, but because they truly wanted our art. It is very important for an artists work to be wanted. I supose there are some people who make art just to please themselves but I have never been one of them.
When you make work that is unwanted it hurts all the way to the core, you can not look at it without pain, knowing even when your asking price is as low as it can go no one is willing to pay.
How many times have people told me
"You shouldn't be underselling yourself, you should charge ten times as much"
but I've learned that these same people will never ever buy anything.

Knowing this, I hope most of you will understand what we did after the show.



What ever didn't sell was burned.

In Brett case with so many drawings on mylar (plastic) he cut them to pieces with a razor blade.

Pieces were saved from destruction right up until the last minute.
I actually laughed out loud in relief when one piece I had be particularly fond of was bought in the last hour.

I am not an artist that revels in destruction. what we did was painful to me, but I was the one who decided that it must be done.

Brett joked about it during the show when people asked what we would do with the pieces after the show. Our roomate looked horrified and said
"why don't you just sell them for less"
That was the moment I knew we had to burn them.
I explained to her that selling them for less would be a slap in the face to the people who had come out and suported us. It would also mean that the next show we had wouldn't be taken seriously, everyone would just wait around till we got desperate and slashed the prices.

No. what we did meant that for our next show if some one really wants something they will tell us right away and not think about it for a week, a month, a year, an eternity.
I don't have that kind of time, and I don't feel like giving it to anyone else.

Rest in pieces you glorious shades of my heart.