Documenting Artwork and Inventory Links

Post number four in this series. 

Learning about documenting artwork and applying what I learn to my own art continues. As I move forward with this it seems to me that providing links to the articles I find most helpful and reflecting upon that will be more helpful to others than me reinventing the wheel. It is also apparent that this series is better spaced out further. (The actual documentation takes time. More time than one would think.) So from here on out the Documenting Your Artwork series will post on the first Monday of the month. The Writing About Your Art series will remain the same.

Today's great find is GYST (Get Your Sh*t Together), a wonderful resource for artists about the business of art. While there are plenty of fine articles, the two that stand out as most pertinent for documenting your artwork are:

Documentation
https://www.gyst-ink.com/documentation/

and

Artwork Inventory
https://www.gyst-ink.com/artwork-inventory/


The Documentation article has plenty of good information about the visual documenting of artwork. This is particularly helpful to those who are planning to apply for publication, exhibitions, etc. I found the additional tips section had plenty to think about.

As a mixed media artist, I took note that labeling my work simply as mixed media is not very helpful for documenting purposes.

My big take away?

Document very soon after creating your piece. My latest piece includes a strip of plastic that came from the soba noodles I cooked for dinner one night, but it looks like washi tape. The likelihood that I will remember that in years to come is... questionable. The piece I finished the day before yesterday is still fresh enough in my memory that I can jot down the full list of materials.

Here's a picture of a fraction of the items I might use in a piece:

A fraction of the items I might use in a mixed media piece. 

What you see here is gelli print on deli paper, caught color on a piece of packing paper from a fragile purchase, stamps on tissue paper, a yellow, paper crown rescued from a cracker imported from England, a fortune cookie fortune, a prismacolor marker, a Stabilo pencil, two Sakura gel pens, a homemade stencil made from a pasta box, acrylic paint, liquid pearls, washi tape, embroidery floss, lace dyed with ink, and a Stays On stamp pad. 

Do you see how it would be hard to remember all of that later? 

As for the Artwork Inventory article, there's a lot of good information for me to chew on. Honestly, they got me in the first paragraph.  

Inventory number. As a librarian I have been used to ISBN (International Standard Book Number) numbers, Library of Congress numbers, barcodes and call numbers. So many numbers. So many ways to keep track of information, index it, retrieve it, sort it, and sometimes simply play with it. I've also been used to keeping data, tracking circulation, numbers of patrons checking in, checking out, renewing, over dues, collection age, collection value, collection circulation, etc. I am used to keeping this kind of information. 

And yet it never occurred to me to give my work an inventory number, much less assign numbers which would provide information. This is another task for me to consider and employ. Watch that google doc I posted, it just might have a few additions. 

Let me know what you think of these articles and the ideas. Were they helpful to you? Was any of the information new to you? 

Busy Time Play

It's been hard to fit in time to paint lately. Too many things to start a new year. I am signed up for two classes and had hoped to make progress in each of them this weekend, but alas, it was not to be.

Still I just had to listen to that voice that begs for expression. Some time ago I decided that I needed to create a forum for just such times. Using a thin journal I splashed paint on the pages, added ink and started adding extra paint/ink/stmaps from other projects. The concept of this book is that it would be easy enough to pull out and do 10 minutes of playing. Some of the pages have ended up favorites.

Too bad it lay forgotten - until tonight. I pulled it out and added color with abandon. It now looks nothing like the page it began as. Transformations are fun. The page wasn't the only thing energized. I was too.

Note to self: This should be a core activity and done so regularly that it is not forgotten in overwhelming times.

Hope you will make a play journal too. 

Optimist or Idiot?

I've neglected my blog, I know, but I am glad to be back at my computer and posting. Frankly, I can't really manage a post on my phone or iPad. Photos get posted to Instagram and then I move on to the next project. So my strategy going forward to is prioritize getting to my desk. 

The struggle to find time for it all is real and yet I remain confident that connection is worth the effort. Prioritizing projects, deciding which things to participate in and which to pass on is hard. After months of thinking about it I finally decided to commit to doing Life Book 2016. The desire to take part is a given, but time...there is always time. I have yet to start my December painting for the Spirit Wings Angel Painting class. There are three more to come. So starting a yearlong project, am I an optimist or an idiot? Can I keep up? The months to come will tell the truth, but I am glad I choose to say "Yes" to this thing I want to do. I'm doing it for me. 

I am a caregiver. I think of the needs of others in so many of my roles. If you are reading this you probably do too, It has been a long time since I started putting the needs of others first. That's ok as long as I put my needs somewhere in the calendar. I'm learning this and it is a struggle. So I am glad I joined this groups as well as the others I enjoy. Life Book 2016, Spirit Wings Angel Painting, CarveDecember, Art Journal Every Day, Mad Tea Party - all these events and the people who host them have made my life more exciting. Thank you all. 

So I may be an idiot, but I hope I will be a happy one following dreams that bring joy and holding the things I cherish dear. If that makes me an idiot, I embrace it. 

Mother's Day Gelli Prints - Stamping and Printing Sunday

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and to the fathers out there who have to fill in a mother's shoes. 

I wanted to send you flowers so here are a couple of gelli printed flowers. I don't know whether I will leave them as is or whether I will choose to fill them in. 

 My family had our meal out yesterday and so today was a lovely day for sleeping in. Just what I wanted! 

I hadn't gelli printed in a few weeks and I was eager to do some. Here are some of my favorites from today. 

I love the prints as they are, as part of my art journaling, and also as a layer in my double exposure photos. I love the way they combine with other photos. 

I hope you had a lovely Mother's Day. It was great for me to celebrate yesterday (less crowd in the restaurant) and have today to loll about. If you could plan your own Mother's Day event, what would be most meaningful to you? Now that you've thought about it, how about asking for it?

Time to phone a friend - Self Care Saturday

I jumped the gun on Self Care Saturday this week and scheduled a call on Friday with dear friend and fiber artist, Cindi Huss. So when I sat down with my journal to do this week's page, I was amazed to see two faces and two phones staring out of the paper at me. The pages were prepped last week as excess paint from other projects and some torn gelli prints. The prep was done before the phone call. Yet there were those two faces. Neither is in a style I would usually create, but they demanded to be set free and so they were.

Cindi and I have been friends for many years. She is one of those rare people with whom I can be my whole wacky, outrageous self. I don't have to limit my love of language (other people do not delight in my favorite words - rancorous, recalcitrant, obstreperous….), I don't have to be serious. I don't have to reign in my dreaming. Our emails and phone calls of late tend toward planning an artist retreat for the two of us. This dreaming and scheming is filling my soul. 

Hope your Self Care Saturday filled you up. 

You can see some of Cindi's work at her blog Dancing Threads.

Decisions, Decisions

I wrote this a couple of months ago and never posted it. Rereading it, it remains as important to me as it was then. What do you think?

Life is jammed packed full of possibilities. Some of them are responsibilities. There is only so much time, however.  Decisions must be made.

Some decisions are easy to make.

Take the garbage out now 

or 

wait until the morning when it has stewed and become more fragrant.

Tea

or

hot chocolate

Soup

or 

Pasta

Pink 

or

yellow

Other decisions are not so simple. They may involve complex layers of social pressures, conflicting desires or lack of realistic potential.

Earlier in life, decisions were so difficult for me. It seemed like there was a right answer. If only I were privy to what that answer might be. Opportunities for joy were missed in the decision making process – or should I say as I tore out my hair and gnashed my teeth trying to make the decision.

“The right answer” is something we are taught to look for as soon as papers with bubbles on them and number 2 pencils become the measure of our worth. From a young age this “right answer” colors our view of how we perform.

But there is no right answer to what cars we should buy or clothes we should wear. My hairdresser has relieved me from worrying about what my hair should look like, but I still wonder about those glasses….

The more people I talk to, the more I am convinced that we stumble through life as best we can weighing the options to the best of our ability. Sometimes we don’t’ need to make the “right” decision. We just need to make “a” decision.

Not every decision has to be made using all the available data. Sometimes, deciding is enough.

I started thinking about making decisions this morning as I had 90 minutes of free time on my hands. Part of me was tempted to take the camera and shoot film of the lovely changing leaves. I haven’t spent enough time with my camera lately. A fair on the common of the town I am in, beaconed. Yet ultimately, the library won. Last week, I was knocked out with a cold and ended up sleeping in the car in the library parking lot. Never made it to the door.

Despite the lure of the beauty outside, the library won. These rare hours of solitude are precious. Not to be squandered. Not a minute can be thrown away on pondering which choice to make. Would that these hours were elastic and could be stretched to fit all that inspires.

We still have to choose. What will fill the time? Flip a coin if you need to. Just decide and move forward.

Changing Seasons

I’m afraid that summer is on the wane. It’s been a bit easy to think that maybe it was not quite over – especially with temperatures in the 90s this past week.

This morning, however, there is a nip in the air. Although the sun is back casting lovely shadows across the grass, the breeze made me reach for my fleece.  It’s time to savor the flowers that remain, to make sure to enjoy some fresh produce and spend time outside. Autumn is fast approaching.

School is firmly underway. I am slowly getting used to the schedule, remembering names and waking up on time. In the summer I take care of the stacks and the library collection. In September, it’s all about the kids. Once we have all the beginning of the year things under control, I’ll be sneaking a peak at the collection again, but September is not the time.

Other things in life are changing, pulling together. Sometimes you plant seeds wondering if anything will come of it. Sometimes all the seeds come to fruition all at once. It feels like that right now. It’s exciting and overwhelming. I keep reminding myself to breathe.

All of this makes me think of Yota Schneider. Her course “Letting Go and Moving Forward, a 4 – weekonline-learning course on the process of letting go and moving on – withconfidence and enthusiasm” starts on September 16 (just 2 days away). I was a member of her beta class. It was an amazing experience. I took the class hoping to find a way to reconcile myself to letting go of some of the things that I could no longer fit in my life. I wanted to hang on to the things that worked for me….the only problem is that I no longer had time to fit them into my current life.

I came out with so much more than that. In fact, the timing was brilliant. Life moves forward whether we choose to or not. I was in the “Kicking and screaming” denial phase. Yota’s class was helpful in the short term, but I can see that it has been a powerful experience for me long term as well. The subtle shifts in the way I viewed the way my path was changing helped me to turn from denial and hanging on, to embracing the reality of my present. From acceptance comes the ability to find the beauty in what is offered.

Since then I have lived much more in the moment and have found that I find so much more joy this way. It does not mean that I don’t plan for the future. The importance of the day I am living has become front and center.  Sometimes that means doing tasks today that will make the future brighter. Other times it means refueling to be ready for that future. In either case, it is easier to notice the beauty around me and the gift of the people who fill my days.

Hope you are making the transition to Autumn with joy. If not, why not give Yota’s course a try? I know I’m grateful that it was there for me. 

The Joys of Menu Planning and a Give Away - My Happy List Tuesday

It's been a couple of weeks since I participated in My Happy List Tuesday. 

Here's what's been making me happy these days. 

The school year is almost upon us. Last year, I spent much of the year lunch-less. I worked straight through the day and found myself ravenous once the last student had left my charge. This was good - I had a lot of work to do and it was easier to get it done without taking the time for lunch. I also spent more time with students. This was bad - I didn't eat as well as is good for me and I missed out on the bonding time with colleagues.

After school there is always a maze of appointments and things to do. Evening meals proved to also be a challenge.

This year I decided I would take the bull by the horns and do something I hadn't done in years - make weekly meal plans. There was a point when I was reading a lot of books about home organization and all of them recommended a weekly meal plan. My reasons for resisting trying this included the inability to take advantage of deals at the green grocer or fish market - a reason that never stood up to examination. Once tried, it was clear that weekly menu plans simplified life. Even the odd daily deal could be accommodated by pushing the plans back one day. It should have been a no brainer to continue this plan. Yet, it's been years since a weekly menu has been in residence here.

Enter Just Bento, a website dedicated to the art of packing lunch boxes, Japanese style. It's a wonderful site full of great resources. One of the personally most helpful parts of the website were the meal planning PDFs. These PDFs were what inspired me to get back on the horse with weekly meal planning. After looking at them, I made my own forms that addressed the needs of my family. The form includes a checklist for protein sources and one for color balance. It helps me to see visually that I am creating a varied menu. There is also a check list for items to be made the night before. The next step is shopping list.

A few weeks ago we took a trip to Ebisuya, a Japanese grocery store in Medford, MA. It's a wonderful store with a very wide range of Japanese foods. In the book section of the store was the Just Bento book! I snatched it up. Even though our stash of o-bentou making supplies is prodigious, some new tools ended up in the grocery cart.

I bought some boiled egg molds. You open the up, place the raw egg inside, snap closed and boil. Presto – a rabbit or bear shaped boiled egg! Cute, right?

Meanwhile, I have been trying out an app called Snap Recipes for tackling the large stack of loose recipes that has defied organization. The app allows you to take up to five photos of the clipped recipe and add information. Tagging the recipes make them searchable by type. The elimination of that stack of clipped recipes and the ease of mobile access to them makes this a real win. It has helped me to work on this project on the go.

Last week I did a trial run of week one menu plan. I hope to eliminate some of the kinks of my system and see where my problems lay. Eventually I hope to have at least four weeks of lunch plans to choose from.

And here’s the give away!

Tools for making your lunch special!

Cookie cutters you can use for cookies, sandwiches, omelets, carrots and more. There are even message stamps – it’s like scrapbooking your food!

Want to win one of these prizes? Subscribe to my blog and leave a comment below with your email. I will select the winners on September 15th.