deadlines.

I have been so busy doing nothing.. it's been great. That's not entirely true you know. I have a deadline coming up and need to press on and finish the book I was commissioned to make. April 10th is my due date, it must be done.

I absolutely need deadlines or I just spend time starring at the wall and not doing things. It's hard to get motivated and keep inspired. My next show will be a good deadline and push for my art.. but until then I should try and be a little regimented and methodical about working.

The other Lanesplitter might be graced by a show by me as well.. Probably at the end of the year as well. Very exciting.

I have been working on trying to get my portfolio put together and get my website up. It's been difficult hooking up w/ my bud LD (little Daniel), we are just too busy. I want my website to look like his website called "Terra Nullius Photography". Yes!! L.D. is a great photographer and documented my show. I hope that we can find some time to sit down and weed out good pics and bad pics etc. I will keep you posted on the progress.... but while you are waiting you can also check out L.D.'s flickr and get a feel for life in the bay area!!!

More to come..

quick update on my sleeply busy life.

It's true.. I have been a bit MIA lately. Life has really been getting in the way these days. Work and school are taking its toll on me and I'm playing a game of catch up.

Last weekend I took down my show, sadness. In a way I was a bit relieved to hide myself away again for a bit. I am eager to finish up my commissions and get started on my new series.. but again am finding it hard to juggle everything. How did I do it before?? was it speed or hysteria? I don't know?

Next week I plan on not making many social plans and really locking myself away in my place to drown in my creativity.

I suppose I should get back to work since the man is always watching... bummer.

Major problems with blogger

I'm having some major issues switching blogger to my domain. Right now I'm going to leave the blog at the old address but not for long.. hopefully. Ugh.
So if you don't see my blog from time to time, just wait it should get better eventually.

lazy procrastinator, time to regroup and refocus.

Yes.. that's me.

You know that 365 project.. yeah that one. Well, I am postponing that until further notice. I need to focus a little attention on me for a second, I feel weighed down by that project. Can I be honest here.. of course I can, right. The truth is that I'm exhausted and I feel that I'm running at a capacity of 40%. I need some regroup time to propel myself at least to 85% and above.
Not that I'm going to stop posting or anything, I just feel I have enough on my shrinking little plate.
This week I have been trying to catch up on school work while juggling everything else. My mom is coming to town tomorrow and although that seems nice, it actually is very time consuming. I also take my show down on Saturday morning.
All this is going on while I remain unmotivated and tired. I don't even want to do my own dishes, that's how pooped I am.
Yawn.
The rain isn't helping either.

Wish me luck as I search the world for myself again, I seemed to have lost part of me and if you find it first.. please send it back.

That fire under my you know what would be nice right about now.

Yawn.

New Show Booked! and much, much more..

Artquest was awesome last night! I had such a great time. The art was very good, I especially enjoyed the work by Derek Weisberg. His work was overwhelming, his sculptures lined the walls of a room and were all lit up by tea lights. You could feel the heat of the room and also smell the mass amount of people starring at the warm glow. One of the shops that was showing work was a great bookstore/magazine shop called "Issues". I have never been there before but thought it was so intriguing, I think I fell in love a little. The openings also gave me a chance to mingle with local artists, check out some new spaces, and have fun with my bud Mike. Overall.. it was a fab time!


I do have some news as well. First things first, I sold "Well Isn't That Just Swell" yesterday while working at the Split. The gentlemen that bought it is a regular there and has had his eye on the piece this whole month. So far that is 4 sold and 3 commissions. Not to sound narcissistic, but I'm very proud of myself (patting myself on the back).

At Artquest I ran into Matt Decker (I was telling you about in previous post), do you recall me saying I want to have a show at his tattoo/vintage shop. Well.. I booked a show for Sept. 4th!! It's a bit far off but I'm very happy about it.

For my 365 project.. well.. I will say going to the openings on Saturday was working on my art, booking the show etc. Today my art project is that I finally bought my domain name. This blog will be linked to it, not sure how the whole transition works yet. Blogger states that it takes up to at least 3 days for the whole process to be finalized. My new address will www.emilycoker.com It's very exciting! Now I need to start working on my portfolio and moving full steam ahead.

I also need to start really working hard on my commissioned work. Back to juggling all the things I want to do and make it look easy, sort of.

ARTQUEST tonight!!

I am going to this. I also hope to have a show at Premium Tattoo in the future

Here is a link to the Myspace page about the event. Also Matt Decker of Premium Tattoo's page. Matt's art is incredible!! He is a true photorealist and he's a nice guy!

See you there...

New Toys!

Time has definitely slowed down over here. The whirlwind of emotions and getting deadlines met has faded away. Now I'm suddenly stuck with extra time and fumbling to find my motivation. It's funny to me that I write I have extra time, I have actually been very busy, just not with art. Honestly, I could sleep for something like two years and I wouldn't mind. I have spent this last week trying to catch up some things that were put on the back burner (ie: school, work, life) for the last two months. I have also been falling asleep uncontrollably as well.. okay maybe not uncontrollably but it seems the moment I get into bed, I'm out. Three out of five nights last week I woke up in the middle of the night with the lights on and everything, I sit there wondering what happened. I pull myself together and get myself into bed properly. Ha! that sounds funny to me, but it's true.

I finally got around to putting my pictures online. I don't want to show too many of the opening itself due to many people in them that might not want there picture on display. I will display mine though.. this is me before the opening, nervous and not yet tipsy.

My friend/stylist did my hair and makeup. Everything felt extremely surreal to me that night, I wrote about that before. I felt like someone else was doing all the motions and I was along for the ride. (is that scary?) I had fun getting dolled up and buying new clothes and such for the big event.

Now that the main event is done.. I need to keep motivated in creating more art. I think art and almost anything in this world requires practice and persistence. I think I'm in a good creative space to keep delving in and exploring new possibilities. Are you all familiar with Flickr? I'm sure you are. Flickr has a project called "365 project", if you don't know what this is, I will explain. 365 is a project for people to take a picture everyday for a year and post them on Flickr. I love the idea of this, not only does it give you something to do but it pushes consistency and practice. I would like to tweak the idea a bit and have a project like this for myself. I want to work on something creatively everyday and post about it. I gotta keep the flow going and what better way to do that with a good, clean little project/challenge. (am I sure I want to get myself into this?? erm..) I will try my best to post about it daily but may lag and post a weeks worth at once, we shall see.

Here are a couple pictures of some new toys that I picked up. I think they are neat, creepy,interesting, and strange... all things I enjoy a bit.

Eeeeps!!! little dolls and their bodies! I especially think the doll heads are the creepiest. I am torn about doll parts in shadow boxes, I think it's so cliche. I thought that I would be one to avoid them.. but after "Bobbi's Last Ride" , I think they have a place and serve a purpose in art.

I also found these awesome glass disks:

I used to work in a glass factory in Portland, Oregon and since then I have always loved glass. These were obviously from a mold of something, they almost look like bits you would pull out of the bottom on the kiln after cooling. They are way too smooth to be that though. I have been wanting to work with glass and lenses of sorts in my work to depict my horrible eye sight. A interesting fact about me is that I was born with cataracts and have had four eye surgeries to correct it. Two to take the bad lenses out and two other surgeries to put a lens implant in. Only one eye has the implant and the other one still has a contact. It will be fun to see what life that all of this takes on in my art. Yay new toys!!

I have also been playing with pastels and photocopies or prints from the internet. I decided to practice on this little ditty below. Pretty fun stuff so far. It will be interesting where all these new things lead.

Here is a picture of the mending job I did on "Bobbi"

It's not the same but it'll do.. I'm just lucky I had a random cowgirl boot laying around. Who owns crap like that?? I do. Lucky for me the person that purchased the piece was okay with the change and realized that it made the piece unique.