Organizing Michele's Studio, Days 7 and 8:

Today was a day in the studio and our job was to organize it.

First I was to organize the acrylic paints, determining which cans were still useful and which ones were to be washed out. After laboriously washing out the useless paints I then organized the supply cart. It's this sort of organizing that my brain has fun with. Then Allie and I sorted through bags of junk that were in the loft of the studio.

It was essentially a fun scavenger hunt finding all sorts of useful things that would ensure Michele would not have to go art supplies shopping for a while. While Allie sorted out the desk area, my next task was to sort out the colored paper that Michele uses for collage in her artwork.

Even the the tiniest of pieces were saved for collage purposes, and placed in a designated area in Michele's newly organized workspace.

Hopefully it stays that way.

The following week I was to help Michele with tax deductions by putting amounts of money spent into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Piece of cake. She recommended that I'd keep a blank version of this spreadsheet for my own use, and given how it organizes expenses, I'm keeping it.

Fighting the evils of taxes. One Excel cell at a time.

Michele then gave Allie and I a whole list of links to artist opportunities (mainly in New York), examples of artist statements and bios, and a guide to writing an artist statement and resume. I finished adding Michele's expenses early, so I spent the rest of the day working on my artist statement, which I've had in the making since March. This days is filled with valuable resources.

A seminar for alumni on writing artist statements and resumes, as well as a tutorial in photographing work, was held a few days later. I had the opportunity to attend this. The most helpful tip I got was finding a gallery that would hold my sort of work, and submitting work that would go together as a series. Photographer Ken Yanoviak gave a useful tutorial on photographing paintings (it's all about the LIGHTING), and got three of my most recent paintings photographed in the best of quality.