The beginnings of a tentative plan

In case you missed it, you can read last week's post here.

On Monday, I had some big thoughts about my art career. I am not going to get into them in depth but I will say it was a tearful and fraught conversation that needed to happen. It lit a fire under me and fell into the category of "structure and support" that I mentioned a few blogs back. 

I have been completely overwhelmed with all the tasks involved in managing the amount of art I have created. Sometimes when the levee breaks, with it comes a realisation and the beginnings of a tentative plan. 

I had convinced myself that the paper I had created hundreds of drawings on was too delicate to be spray fixed, making storing or maintaining these works feel impossible. But, it turns out the paper wasn't too delicate at all and so began the process of spraying them. I had some spray fix on hand and then ordered some more, a different brand but from a reputable company, but it was awful stuff, extremely noxious and didn't "fix" the dry media I had used at all. My new found momentum had been thwarted and I was upset that I was out £30. This is the kind of shit that at times makes me become inert. However, in this instance, I was able to contact the company, get a full refund and go to a local Cass Art and buy exactly what I needed and get a 10% discount with my SAU membership (just saying). I was so relieved!

As a reward, I treated myself to a perfect oat matcha while marveling at the view of gorgeous Edinburgh. The stars had aligned yet again. I was working as an artist. I was going to art supply stores, spray fixing art, and making progress. It felt good.

You can read next week's post here.

Paper: Shape Shifting Across Time

Memory Serves,
mixed media on paper
29.7 x 42 cm (11.69 x 16.54 in)
£125 

Headphones on. One song on repeat. Here I am baby. In the new year. 

Dancing in. Walking in. Meditating in. Here I am. 

Singing to all the old songs loudly. 

Doing it all a bit differently. You'll see. I'll see. 

I'll feel it. I hope you will too.

Thanks to everyone who read the 2023 in-review blog last week. Thanks for your lovely feedback on the socials and via messages. You are very kind and encouraging and I am lucky to be in a community with you. Happy New Year. 

This month, I am focussing on my work on paper. Even more specifically, I am going to focus on 8 works on paper. 

I am clearing the decks but for these pieces. You can see them all on my artwork archive site, as they are all ready to walk out the door and into their new lives with you this month. Like little fledglings or paper planes from my heart to yours. Flying around the corner or around the world. Colour, power, line, shape-shifting across time.

To be better understood and given their due. You can go look at them all together right now or you can stay tuned and on Instagram and Facebook, they will be revealed daily. 

Thank you to those of you who see me and truly understand. 

A sequence of webs #2
mixed media on paper
29.7 x 42 cm (11.69 x 16.54 in)
Sold

There's no place like home

What can I tell you? What can I share? 

Well, I have had some glorious conversations, affirmations, and put in a lot of hard work this week and so I have arrived here a bit worn out.

Ties that bind
mixed media on canvas board
5x7"/13x18cm
©2021 Megan Chapman
£55 with free shipping in the UK

I learned recently that there is an old house inside me and in the deepest room, there is a kitchen with a long wooden table. I always have a seat reserved there. I can bring whatever I need to bring to this place and I will be received with unconditional care and space to just be. I can see the light coming in the windows and my shoulders drop and I can breathe deeply. I am greeted the same at the table if I am rage-filled, sad, lonely, scared, tired, or happy as a clam. My table is always there in the light in the middle of the house. I carry this place with me. I will forget sometimes, but I do know it is there. Home within.

This scene makes me cry every time...

In other news, yesterday I joined the Granton Hub as a volunteer member of the arts subgroup to contribute ideas and help run events in their arts programme. I attended my first meeting and I am very excited about the ethos and happenings at the hub. I invite you to like their social media pages and posts if you don't already.

FB:

https://www.facebook.com/madelviccommunity/

TW: https://twitter.com/granton_hub
IG: https://www.instagram.com/grantonhub/
YT: https://bit.ly/3cIKyVA
Web: https://grantonhub.org/

And in other, other news, after the computer failure (and thankful replacement) of last week, I realised I really need and want to create a proper archive of my past, current, and future work. I have found an online platform, that has all the features I need to help me manage my art, exhibitions, finances, and patrons in one place. This platform would help me immensely going forward. I am asking my patrons and supporters to invest in my past work and my future by supporting me in this goal over on my ko-fi page. 1 year of this service costs £165. I have 11 days left of my month-long free trial. I have already uploaded over 100 works to the site.

With your support, I could get my archive off the ground and work smarter rather than harder, and easily share even more of my work with you. I am already hard at work getting my files organised. It has been an overwhelming yet empowering experience. I have a long way to go yet, but I think this is the best tool for moving forward. If you have a spare £3 that would be super helpful. Visit: https://ko-fi.com/meganchapman to help me with this goal. Thanks!

Please show up for yourself. Find your home, your room, your space. Find your folders, create your own system. Ask for help, make it happen. Make your mark. There is room for you here too.

And the winner is...

We have a winner in last week's paper painting give away! Congratulations goes to Bookgirl! Please contact me and let me know where to send your paper painting. I am grateful to everyone who read and or commented last week. You really gave me a boost of interest in this blog as well as filling me with inspiring ideas of things you would like to read about in the future. Thanks for all your positive comments.

My studio is overflowing with all my work I recently brought back from the newly closed gallery in Little Rock. I updated my website to reflect the closing and to show where all my work is represented now. You can visit my available paintings here. At some point I took the podcast section down on the site and I do plan to put it back up in the near future along with some new podcasts. For those of you new to my work and interested in my process or learning more about the nuts and bolts of what inspires me to create my paintings, there is an interview on my website that I did a while ago that gives a lot of good basic information about me and my art that you might enjoy.

Since my studio is over flowing with inventory currently, I decided to have a sale for the next month on a small selection of my larger works.I created a slide show that features 9 paintings from an older body of work from 2006-2007. Almost all of the these are my largest sized works (40x30") that usually retail for $1,200 but now they are on sale through the DDP gallery for only $975. There is also one medium sized work in the mix (30x24") that usually retails for $725 but is now only $650.The ddp gallery takes credit cards and makes payment plans! I hope you can benefit from this sale that will last until August 20th. Contact Dede Peters of the DDP gallery for more information or let me know if you have any additional questions about these paintings or this special sale.
http://www.ddpgallery.com/
479.442-0001

This week has been a bit slow, just getting back into the swing of things by looking at all my work, taking stock, trying to find places for it all and figuring out where to go next. Next week I plan to really focus on 100 Flashes of Memory. Hopefully having some good solid results by the end of the week. Thank you again to everyone who has ever read, commented on, encouraged and inspired these posts and my work as an artist. Your time is valuable and that you choose to spend some of it with me, reading my words is very special to me.

Keep fighting- onwards and upwards.

I just want to leave you with a few music videos of songs that have been on heavy rotation in my world lately.







Photograph posted above
"Wednesday"
© 2009 Megan Chapman
all rights reserved

Creating Inventory 101

As an artist, you create with passion, perhaps boundless energy and freedom. Untouchable, you flow deeper into your work. You think you have left the mindless paper work at the office far behind to pursue your true calling called ART... Well, what if I told you that your true calling also requires a paper trail. That there are Excel files to create, mailings to put out, and numbers to crunch. Before you turn your iPod all the way up, or switch back over to YouTube, please realize that this is something you can handle. Keeping an inventory of your work is not going to taint its integrity, it doesn't turn you into "the Man," and it may even bring you more peace of mind and greater financial gain. Today, I am covering the basics of inventory and what it means for your art career.

I know it is a struggle for some to find the time to create art, let alone properly document it and manage an up to date inventory, but it is something that needs to get done. There are many ways to tackle this task. The reason for doing inventory isn't to show off your business smarts or exercise your left brain. I believe the act of counting all your work and knowing where it is and where it has gone is comforting, and frees up creative energy that is spent trying to keep up with all this chatter in your head. So, I highly recommend taking the time to start an inventory, or if you already have one, make sure it is kept up to date. The process will actually free you and create more time to do what you really love.

I must say that the job of inventory is much easier to accomplish if you do this regularly and break it down into small chunks, so that you will not have to spend a whole day, week, or month trying to remember who bought what, which gallery has that, and how much you got paid. If you are a professional artist, you must keep up with all of this. Come tax time, you will be so pleased that you kept such good records.

I highly recommend beginning this process even if you are just starting out. For example, when you sell a painting to a friend or at some "under the table" art event, even if you trade/donate/or give art as gifts, keep up with where it is going. These records will help you build faith in yourself, and the information that you record will help your career in many ways. This information can be used to create : a mailing list of your clients, thank you cards, keeping track of how much money you are making per month, and how many paintings you are selling. Keeping an inventory of all of these details helps you note trends as well, you can see which paintings are selling or what pieces clients' gravitate toward, who makes up your client base, and how the galleries that represent you are doing as far as selling your work. Another surprising benefit of documenting and keeping inventory of your work, is that it serves as an unbroken link to the work, and it may help you part with your art easier, especially if you are just starting out or are very emotionally attached to a particular work.

So lets get into the nuts and bolts of keeping an inventory. It can be as simple and old school as pen and paper or as hard and technologically savvy as you want it to be. Some basic elements of inventory are:

• Title of art ( or you can assign a number or both)
• Date of completion, ( year is about as detailed as I get)
• Medium, Size
• Price ( and how much you earned from the work)
• Where the work was exhibited ( this could be several places)
• Who purchased the work ( name, address, and phone, email and venue they purchased through)
• If the work is in your studio take note, when it leaves your studio take note of that as well
  
• If you are really savvy you may include a photo of the work in your inventory records
• You may also want to digitally archive your exhibits, by burning all the images onto a CD, with the date of the show, curator, location etc.
  

These are just some of the details that are good to record in your inventory, how you organize them is a personal matter, and I encourage you to make it a system that works for you and can be easily updated. You might feel comfortable using a spreadsheet program on your computer, or writing in a composition notebook from the dollar store, that is up to you. Also, there are many art software packages available online to test drive and then purchase. I have tried one of those, and I always think somehow that the software is magically going to do all the work for me but that is never the case, so don't go that route unless you are sure you will see it through and spend the time necessary to get to know the software.

Being an artist is a wonderful and fulfilling career path, and with any job come the responsibilities that aren't always fun but are necessary and vital, keeping an inventory of your art is one of those tasks. It might seem unpleasant and arduous but if you can keep up with it you will be richly rewarded creatively and financially.

Good Luck!

Some resources that have helped me are:

Art Marketing 101 : A Handbook for the Fine Artist by Constance Smith

Art Office: 80+ Business Forms, Charts, Sample Letters, Legal Documents and Business Plans by Constance Smith and Sue Viders

http://www.artworkspro.com
affordable, computerized art inventory data base

Paper, pen and my mind