Martha Hull's Wicked Juicy Panfried Fluffpocalypse

Clearing the Closet (of Clouds, Clutter, and Corporateness)

Last week, I gave away all but three items of gray clothing.  I am done with it.  Sadly, gray is no longer a color I can enjoy wearing- I'm surrounded by it 6 months of the year.  Rainforests are green on the ground, but gray above.  A great big ol' blanket o' gray.  Which is better than a blanket of white on the ground, don't get me wrong, but I just can't wear it any more.

The same can be said about blazers.  I'm kind of over them.  Well, actually, I always was.  Only now I realized that not only do they make me unhappy (not wired to do corporate well, except as an act), but they are taking up much needed room!  The house has a second bedroom, which primarily houses blazers (and robot parts in boxes).  I need that space to set up an office so I can move business operations (left brain) out of my right brain creative studio space.  I've always been a space hog- it's how I work- but this ephiphany is making it abundantly clear that I need to find the way to a blazer-free life sooner rather than later.

The SBDC (small biz wizards) has deemed me worthy to have my very own business counselor!  So they also want to see me live in a blazer-free world.  I will be practical and try to sell said blazers when the time comes (money good), but perhaps I will burn at least one.  I am sure it will stink, but be very beautiful. 

If I ever go all crazy hippie-dippy, I might change my name to Phoenix.  It's a bit trite, but I like it and I'm tired of worrying about if I'm trite or not.  I might start collecting vintage salt and pepper shakers, too.

I drink from the Kool-aid

Last night I went to a party of Portland's 1%.  Paid.  No, not as a call girl, although frankly, I guess when you exchange your time for money, the definition of prostitution gets a bit blurry...  I (still) work at an urban country club and am daily immersed in people who own million dollar homes.  Which I guess is not that big a stretch since the "cheap" homes in town run $250-350 K.  The funny thing is, most of these people are nice.  But I guess it's Portland.  The weird thing is that they accept their wealth as an everyday thing.  They talk about their multiple houses the way I talk about my multiple... pairs of shoes.  They had a Wizard of Oz theme, because their country club is like no place else.  It's funny how I can see this level of wealth and still not imagine living like that.

In other news, speaking of wealthy, I bought a fancy person's phone!  With a camera AND the internet together in one place!  Hello, 2010!  I will be getting my shite together in a week or so and will begin actually posting pictures of all manner of cool crap for you.  I may stay on Typepad, I may move to Tumblr, I may do both.  I will let you know.

In other news, the show of my paintings at Wild Abandon restaurant at SE 24th and Belmont in PDX (www.wildabandon.com) is on track for a hanging date of Sun. June 10 and a reception of July 6 (Fri.)  I am hoping that a lot of people come and buy art and drinks/food to thank Michael, the owner, for hosting me.  So save your cocktail pennies!

I am working up a super fun post card about the irony of my kitten painting "as seen on Portlandia."  Part of the painting is covered... as seen on Portlandia.  Ha!  Let me know if you want me to send you one, if you are outside of Portland.  http://www.marthahull.com/contactmailing-list.html

I am working, working, working to learn about business so I know what the freak I am doing when my first book (An Untimely Death Alphabet) is published this September.  I am also tired, tired, tired- but the phrase "financial projections" doesn't really make me flinch any more.  Just shows we can get used to anything.  Will whatever alien space ship stole Martha return her soon?  This replicant they left in her place is confusing people.

Speaking of Kool-aid, I have not given up on the dream of starting my own cult some day, only I promise you the Kool-aid will have adult seasonings rather than poison in it.  I like my people.  So you can let me know if you want to be a part of that, too.  :)

Until next week!

 

The Fluffy Don't Stop

It has been a challenging last three weeks, trying to focus all my non-day job energies (which  sadly do NOT come from a bottomless well) into doing businessy things for my SBDC guided self-study, wherein I teach myself a DIY business degree of sorts.  Real business people will be offended no doubt that I compare my rather painful learning curve to their years of study, but considering I'm starting from Reverse to 60 mph, not just 0-60, I'm going to call it whatever I need to to make myself feel good that I'm really learning necessary things.

If you had told me as a teen I would be doing financial projections one day, I'd be sobbing into my Wheat Chex about what will happen to my soul as a grown-up.  Because although I still don't feel mature, I guess doing this "taking my art seriously as a business" thing means I've decided to grow up.  Boo.  

But the good news is, once I get the grown up parts of my day over with, (once I'm really and truly doing art as my job,) I get to be totally un-grown up for vast spans of time, too!  The hard part is that right now, there is WAAAAY too much grown up and not nearly enough silliness. 

And it is still raining.  I still prefer the crushing depression of the clouds to the shivery rage of the great white north, but it does not make it much easier.  The good news is, the rain is warming up and we see glorious pockets of sunshine many days now!

Do we ever not obsess about the weather?  I guess in Hawaii, where it is almost always perfect, you obsess about other things.

In exciting, less grown-up feeling news, I meet with the owner of a neato restaurant next week to see if he would like to hang some paintings of yours truly up as a show!  Woo hoo!  My first real Portland show!  I guess it is official - the years-long mild depression from the earth-shattering move across country during the Great Recession is over!  Now all I need to contend with is the normal amount of cloud moroseness.  I seem to be handling that.

And I am looking forward to this aspect of getting a handle on my business model soon:  I want to see Vermont again this year.  It's not "home" any more, but it is "the homeland."  Makes sense to me.  September seems cheapest - now I just have to figure out if it will become a business trip or just a social call.  Order up some extra humidity for me!

... and on the 9th day, God created polyester.

I found "Vintage by the Pound" last night, on NE MLK.  Holy frackcrap, Batman!  I finally got some MARTHA (or should I say mARTha?) clothes, instead of yet more corporate costumery.  It has been too long.  I am on cloud 9. 

I feel a story about Cloud 9 coming on...

In other news, I am taking a class through the SBDC to help me get my art business moving along like a real business.  I wonder why they didn't clue me in about this sort of thing in art school?!  I am excited and a little worried trying to figure out the actual feasability of how I am going to make and sell my art books as my real job.  

In other news, I may be having a show in a hip-arse restaurant in PDX, possibly as early as June!

I got a super sweet compliment about my skills with acrylic paints last night and I am jazzed about squeezing in the time to paint soon.  I've truly fallen in love with acrylics - and now I'm thinking about maybe teaching a class to share what I've learned about them to others.  Acrylics get a bad rap because it is easy to do them badly.

I am excited about the possibility of seeing the sun and temps over 60 degrees this weekend!  And I seem to be filling up my social calendar at a shocking rate.  I guess this means I am officially out of hibernation for the year.

I am ready to wear loud clothing and resurrect my punk rock boots.  I love it when spring renews things, and people.

Land of the Living

I have mostly recovered from the Evil Death Virus of 2012, where my lungs turned inside out several times.  I was sidelined for well over two weeks - all I could do was drag myself to my day job (most days) and try to be still to conserve energy, and cough.  But enough of sharing in the glamor.

I saw The Hunger Games last night.  Dystopian stories go hand in hand with apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic stories in the Stuff I Love list.  1984 changed me as a young teen.  The Hunger Games trilogy is every bit as powerful a story - possibly more so because it's written in a more modern style.  And the movie very much did not suck.  They changed a bit of this and that but basically did it justice.  It was a glorious ride.  I left wishing I could grow a beard, however.  

I have cleaned the art studio and completed my most recent "art visionquest," in between coughing fits.  I used to call these "artistic crises" in art school, but now  I realize that regular deep thinking about my work and where it is going is just a part of my personal process.  And I'm easing up on myself.  So I'm planning on having no more official "crises."  

What did I realize on my visionquest?  I am redirecting my work - I'm purloining Death's Daughter and the Basket of Kittens for the time being.  I am not going to be making paintings to hang specificially on walls.  There are not enough hours in the day for that on top of my books.   I will finish up my Untimely Death Alphabet book once and for all, as my first book to go all the way to print.  And I am bringing this all the way to print, come Hell or High Water.  I hope to have copies available to sell at some point this summer.  And then I'm pretty sure Satan Saves the World will be my next book.

I am back in the land of the "living."  :)

Is this Cat Trite?

Is this fun like an ironic trucker hat, or trite... like an ironic trucker hat?

It's more of a sketch really, so you don't need to point out the flaws in the grisaille palette or imperfect martini glass.  I'm experimenting with where my work is going to go next. 

Normally, my animals animal-animals, not people-animals.  I think this will not be a direction I am willing to go - critters standing on their hind legs, ha!  Maybe the cats are a theme though, rather than going down the road of (truthfully and sadly less-than-original) animals hanging out in cocktail lounges (hello, dogs playing poker!).  Still I also don't want to go all George Rodrigue on you, even if I would like his success, thank you very much.  It's been done, too

And if you don't know George Rodrigue, you should probably check out his very compelling blue dog work.  Talk about a man who was able to take one thing and own it.

Rich Minions Wanted

It was an epic weekend.  I spent uncounted long and glorious hours sorting through old piles of sketchbooks, writings, loose images... even opening the pink vintage suitcase full of "ideas."  I sorted all of my 45 godzillion stories into labeled folders.  I have so many more stories (in all stages of completion) than I even remembered.  And they give me chills of excitement. 

And yet, right now, all I want to do is paint.  Really paint.  Not some precious unforgiving little work on paper, but on canvas, using an easel.  Kinda big, and a bit messy!  Big for me is not scary big like some people make, but I don't have the monster space to work, or to store unsold finishes which are huge, and the shipping also! Oy! I am dumbfounded how people sell enormous pieces.  Or how they afford a space big enough to make and then store them.  Or transport them...  You can fit a fairly large piece in the back seat of a 1982 Mercedes sedan, luckily. 

I have chosen not to be a sculptor in large part because I can barely contain the trappings associated with my life as a primarily 2D artist - boxes and boxes of junk and ratty old baby dolls, shelves of books from before my birth, scraps of paper torn from magazines long turned to dust.  People love to help me move. 

So- the business consultants say one must focus to be successful.  So I've been wading through the history of my mind and my projects to try to find ONE THING I can love enough, that has enough range, variety, and growth potential, to keep me doing only this one things for years.

The problem with being really creative is that it is hard to focus your love, time, and attention on only one thing.   So hard.  And yet, if I do not, I have been assured I am subjecting myself to life as "a hobbyist!"  Gasp!  And yet, it rings true.  I do not have enough time to make everything in the world I want to make, even if I had an army to find the cash to pay my bills for me and get my work out in front of people.  I will take applications for this army now, by the way.  Basically, if you want the job, it's yours.  Minions wanted.  Rich minions wanted.  Should be an easy job to fill.

And so, I gear up to paint.  More on what I am painting soon.  Hint: it involves animals, and they are naughty.  It's kind of a whole new thing for me.  

I'm serious about the minions.

Good Walls, Very Bad Art - this one has pictures

So the disappointment of Portlandia is also the hilarity of Portlandia.  Look at my painting!  Loud and blue and half obscured and smack dab in the center the whole sketch!  I was relegated to "production value."  But they ended up going with poorly rendered, as well as bad-conceptually, art.  Not what they had asked me for, but Hollywood does change its mind and they find ways to get what they want.  

I am taking the central and visible (without being distracting nature) of my artwork, coupled with it NOT being featured (see below for the most highly mocked piece of all) as a total compliment.  Did I want to go viral and take the short cut to having the lifestyle of late-career Picasso?  Hells bells, yes.  But there is always the lottery, and then there is always good old fashioned hard work.  Stupid hard work.  But I guess it's what I'm good at.

I am thinking about working on a different picture book for a while while the edits for Death's Daughter and the Basket of Kittens gel.  This one is an existential story starring a can of hash.  It gives me chills.  I'll be back.  -m

 

Portlandia Sad-eyed Cat in a Basket in the Rain!

Will this "bad" painting of a cat in a basket in the rain in a puddle be humiliated on Portlandia?  Stay tuned this Friday night (February 3) to find out! I found out that Portlandia airs at both 7 and 10, PST.  Woot! This early show I was not aware of helps for those of you who either a) have a life and need to go out and party on Wayne, or b) don't have cable and can't manage to make it out of the house after 9 (Hello, me. Of course I don't have cable - I live in Portland. It's one of our "things.")

How can they not humiliate it? I mean, look at it! It is a giant kitten in a basket in the rain in a puddle... and what's that? I think it might be crying!

It's ridiculous, and it can be yours.

C'mon, you know you need a print of Kitten in Winter. Why not be the first kid on the block to have one? (5% of profits will go to the Humane Society of the United States, so no more cats need live like this!)  The humans in Portland are, of course, doomed to this existence- but only for eight months of the year. But this is not about me. This poor kitten needs a home. Won't you give it one?

Or at least watch Portlandia with me? How many seconds of fame am I allowed?

Portlandia Kitten T minus 96 hours plus I finally get off the All Kitten Channel for a moment

I found this post while I was supposed to be pimpin' out my kitten (and other prints...)

I have had my kitten painting recently compared to the artist Margaret Keane from the 60s who did creepy, big-eyed children portraits - I think she was actually one of a few.  My favorite coffee house in Portland (Oblique, and I found them BEFORE Portlandia did, thank you very much!) has a bathroom with full surround of pictures of huge-eyed kids.  I think one may be dressed as a clown, and I think one is holding a giant daisy, and I think one has a puppy, or is a puppy, or something like that.  Too strong of a mocha and the kids and puppies all start to look alike.

Today, I went out and bought a sh*t-ton of new pencil leads.  I haven't been in a mood to draw and I thought it was the clouds and the day job but the Epiphany Train ran full-steam into my head last night when I was hating on my pencil...  Whoa.  And duh...

So I am an automatic pencil addict.  That being said, if the lead isn't very soft, well, it turns out - I don't want to use it.  Goes for any pencil, now that I've got my head out of whatever I had it stuck in.  Now I have to go through my large supply of roving pencils, most of whom have unlovable leads, and SCORCH THE EARTH!  Actually, I will give the leads away to my favorite student, who will use them to WRITE with.  What a dork I am to think I can make do with "whatever. " That is not how I roll when it comes to art supplies.

In "Kitten in Winter, as hopefully to be seen on Portlandia THIS FRIDAY NIGHT", news - I have decided to donate 5% of all profits of print sales to the Humane Society of the United States.  Hopefully, I will actually sell some prints so this can happen.  I used to work at the Humane Society of Greater Burlington ages and ages ago.  It's not even called that now, and their facilities and practices have changed for the better, I thing.  But I'll never forget some of the animals I saved (and didn't manage to save) there.  There is a reason animals factor so prominently in much of my work.  My dear own Kiki Diablo cat was rescued from a collector who lived in a trailer with 30 cats.  No wonder she has no teeth.

Here's an old picture of Earth Pig to spice up the visuals:

Thanks for staying tuned while I hype the bejeezus out of the Portlandia Kitten painting thing.  I wish I had the time and energy to make some nutty YouTube video to help it go all viral, but the time and energy and willpower I have aren't going to power me through that before Friday.  You know, I found out we have a limited supply of willpower?  Well, I feel better.

Read this if you have the time - it's a sales pitch/first chapter for a book called Switch -  if you get far enough down to the part about the Rider and the Elephant and the study about "food perception," it will be worth your while.  "What looks like laziness is often exhaustion."  Tahnk you, thank you.  Lighten up Martha, it's just how it's gonna be.  I am sadly no art superhero.  So no YouTube at this time.

I am, however, thinking of chucking it all to become a pirate.