A painting? Of mee? By someone ELSE?

Portrait (of meee!) by Beth-Ann Wilson
www.bethannwilson.com
oil on canvas, 24 x 36

Yes, sir. You heard that right! I just had to share this absolutely beautiful painting (not just because it's er, me, because it's gorgeous regardless) that was recently completed by a friend of mine from college, the lovely Miss Beth-Ann Wilson. The original shot was taken by my hubby during an impromptu photo shoot, and it has been one of my favorite performance/costume/burlesque inspired shots for various media ever since. Here is Beth-Ann's Etsy shop, so please support her fabulous art. Thank you!

Sionara, summertime

Not mine - an inspiring and creepy piece by Brian Viveros

And bienvenidos to fall, and my most favorite holiday... Halloweeeeeeen! (I think this is so for two reasons: 1. Many of my childhood games consisted of playing "Dress Up" in some way shape or form, and I still love everything about costumes, and 2. Teenage goth phase. Need I say more?)

Though I am almost done with the "Honeycomb Merkaba" painting, I haven't had nearly as much time to work on anything lately due to a very hectic regular work schedule. (Work weddings, funerals, family weddings = no free time.) That's okay, for the most part, as I'm finally able to start saving money (and go to the art store, and occasionally go out to dinner, and buy myself stuff. Wee!)

As the season progresses, a new show is in the works for October's first Friday at O'Reillys Pub. The owner, Walt, contacted me asking if I could put anything together a couple weeks ago. Kristin and I had already thrown around the idea when we took the "Midnight" exhibit down to have some kind of group show around fall time, somewhat semi-Halloween or autumnal themed. So it is a go, and we're in the process of finalizing details. Here is what I have so far:

Dark Matters
a group show at O'Reillys Pub in Fishtown
featuring paintings, drawings, and multimedia from local Philadelphia artists
Opening reception : Friday, October 7th at 8pm

And suddenly I was inspired to draw skeletons and zombie goddesses. So both Kristin and I will definitely have some new, creepy work for all of you to enjoy. I'm toying with the idea of debuting the Honeycomb painting for this as well, as it is kind of dark and obsessive, in a way.

So far there are a few artists we have both confirmed to participate. O'Reillys has a SHIT TON of wall space, so if you are reading this blog and want to submit some work, WE WANT IT. If you want to play music or perform, WE WANT THAT, TOO. And you should email me at xtinacarbone@gmail.com with any inquiries.

Here are some images that I stole off the internet, (that I did not take the time to document their whereabouts, sorry to whomever made them, I sincerely apologize...) so you can get an idea of at least where my mind is going for this spooky little art show. Once again, these are not in any way shape or form mine. Thankyou googleimagesearch. Enjoy, my lovelys, and please stay tuned for info about the upcoming show and all that jazz.

Ghost Town

Hurricane Irene 2011: I'd rather be in a dust storm.

This was my catch phrase for the evening. It's been an interesting week on the east coast. First an earthquake, which I felt rattle my bedroom for half a minute, never thinking for an instant that it was actually what it was. Then of course, the monster of Hurricane Irene, which bypassed my home state for the most part, (and cancelling my parents flights up to Philly this past weekend for a wedding) and slammed into the Carolina's, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast with a storm the size of Europe.

We were fine. Didn't even lose power. Did not attend the wedding. (Which by the way, I feel pretty bad about still.) Everyone was so back and forth about it - "Aw, it's just going to rain! No big deal," or "Fill your bathtub with water! Evacuate NYC and the Jersey Shore! Board up your windows!" My stance, for the most part, was just that with something like this headed your direction (a giant, swirling hurricane) better to be safe than sorry. I'm from Florida, I've survived countless OH NEVERMIND IT'S HEADING SOMEWHERE ELSE and the infamous category 5 that slammed my region in 1992. (I was 9, didn't have power for 2 weeks, school was delayed, we still had a roof over our head and many others didn't.) Whatever. They happen, just not usually up here.

Post-storm: With many of my friends now at or on their way to the playa, everything is eerily quiet. The internet is quiet, the city feels quiet. Communication has come to a slow stop. (Maybe a pause.) I've been having dusty dreams of playa adventures, and the longing I am experiencing after just one visit is unlike anything I've ever felt. When you're there, you're "home." Welcome home, everyone greets you. Isn't it good to be home? ... I wish I was home. (2012, baby, I'm there.)

I have an oddly large number of days off this week before I start working just about full time, and so I'm busy trying to find things to do with myself. It's only Tuesday. (Scratch that, it's Wednesday now that I'm posting this. Almost half over.) So far I've spent an entire day working on my commissioned painting, half of one to fix my sewing machine and patch some pants for my darling, and have started a couple of new pieces. Nothing big or drastic, just some subjects I wanted to revisit (drawing/painting of the Golden Spiral - another part of math and geometry I find fascinating and beautiful - attempting to finish up some paintings I started long ago, and working on a hand-painted card for my cousin's wedding I missed this weekend due to the hurricane.)

A Night in Wyman Park (Bamboo)
24" x 48", oil on canvas © 2010

I recently received an order for a print of my most sought-after painting, "A Night in Wyman Park (Bamboo)", pictured above. (I call it "Bamboo" for short and everyone pretty much knows which one I'm talking about... also referred to sometimes as "the really expensive one." The original painting is priced kind of high because well, I'm attached to it and it took many months on and off to paint.) The original size is fairly large, as you can see, and since all my files for my larger paintings that I can't fit into a normal size scanner are from high-res photographs, there was some serious doubt in my mind as to exactly how big I could print it without losing detail.

I am relieved and proud to say that I was able to print the painting everyone wants but no one can afford at 15" x 30" and it still came out amazing! (For any interested clients, a print of this painting that size will cost you $80. What. A. Deal!) I have had nothing but really excellent results reproducing my work so far for art prints. Not that I'll ever reach the limited edition number (most of them are around 100 or 50 prints) but selling anything feels great. I've been at this more "professionally" for almost a year now... and while it seemed rough at times, I can look back at it all today and think - "Wow. I sold one painting, 5+ prints, and have had one commission. Not bad." (This doesn't count printmaking sales, which involved a couple art auctions for various causes and some sales to friends here and there.) It could be better, but it could be worse. I'm still new at this marketing thing. Technically, since I never gave two shits whether or not my work sold or anyone saw it for most of my post-art-school-undergrad career, I have indeed made progress - even if just compared to myself.

Obsession

"It's three o'clock in the morning, your back hurts, your arm hurts, you've been in there for ten hours, and there are no sounds except for the occasional fire truck. Finally, you put the brush down and ask yourself,
Man, what am I doing here?"
-John Alexander

My hiatus was necessary. Now that one of my dear friends has recently started an every-day blog project, I see her posts and am reminded that it's time for an entry. (Check out Jexi's Project: O.365.M here - for all things object manipulation.) Time for one with substance. And pictures.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for the future owners) I have only really been working on one painting for the past month or so - The Honeycomb Merkaba. It's taken me over, in a good way - it is a natural, normal thing to become obsessed with what one is painting. At least you know you will never let it be "done" until your obsessive self decides that it is, finally, finished.

I might have to force myself to work on something else soon. I'm getting deeply engrossed in this painting. I stare at it whenever I'm in the room, and sometimes for long periods when I'm "working" on it. Some of it is still instinctual - a bit - and I trust myself occasionally and go with the flow, let my unconscious fill the spaces, pick the color, it can always be adjusted. Happy accidents. Otherwise I stare and think, and don't make a move till I contemplate the results; the how (will this look next to this other thing?), the why (is there a reason it needs to be green, or yellow?) the what (will this change everything?), and on and on. I'm letting myself become deeply immersed in this piece. I don't know if I've ever been this ... careful.

I've also begun working on it upside down, occasionally, which are what these pictures are of. Thought it would be interesting to have everyone else check it out from another viewpoint as well. Here are some upside down detail shots of some of the more complex areas of the painting so far:

Getting smaller, and smaller, and microcosms of microcosms of the same shape,
repeated over and over again, like the infinity of fractals.

I let myself stumble over to Charmaine Olivia's website and blog again. I love her work, and I can't believe she's so young and so fucking famous (as famous as a thousand people following her facebook and twitter and blog, and oh right, getting jobs, and having shows, being published and that sort of thing) and it fascinates me, inspires me, and pisses me off all at the same time.
How does this happen? How does one get invited to do interviews, and photoshoots, and be published in all these fancy hipster magazines? I've been "concentrating on my art" for almost a year now, and it's had it's ups and downs, hard times and good times. Still haven't sold but one painting, and I sure don't feel any more recognized in the Philadelphia Art World, whatever that is. It makes me feel like I should take a break from this here monster, and do some silly little drawings, or something I can mass produce, something I can start and finish quickly, something that someone will BUYYYYY.... $$$. Right? It's my goal today to start a few other smaller things to distract myself with. (Oh, and apparently I should also be taking a whole bunch of narcissistic photos of myself and posting them here, because that seems to work for Miss Charmaine.)

It's worth a try:

At work on my upside down painting, blown out pic of me standing in front of my painting,
and then more working on my upside down painting. With wine.

Here are some detail shots of my studio area and the cool junk I've been arranging on it's walls for several years. This is what inspires me, I suppose. I'll leave you with that, and promise to write again without waiting a full month next time.

<3

Still here, though no one else seems to be...

Friday night at home, wasting time on the internet. (Actually I'm watching a ton of burlesque videos and listening to music in preparation for a gig next week.) I keep meaning to post pictures of the amazing Summer Dragon, but alas, I haven't gotten around to it. I keep spending way too much time on sites like this one: http://internetkhole.blogspot.com . All pictures. All awesome.

Kept me entertained for hours. Here is a quick dragon snapshot, just to hold you over till I have more time, vested interest and desire, not to mention material for the next post.

Alex's "Summer Dragon" parading down to the
effigy burn at PEX Summer Festival 2011.

PEX Summer Festival, The Summer Dragon, and the Russian Roulette Variety Show!

Took a little break from painting this past month to focus on some other projects, including helping my husband create a 21+ foot long performance "Chinese" inspired dragon, which I am in the middle of working on as I type. (I'm the textile manager, design consultant, and slave labor.)

His psychedelic beast will debut tomorrow evening at the opening ceremony at PEX Summer Festival 2011.

I'll also be performing with The Russian Roulette Variety Show with The Penny Treats and Lux Arati, my bellydance and fire troupe. Here are some photos from our dress rehearsal, courtesy of the fabulous Will Connelly.

A shot of Lux Arati from the first dress rehearsal of Russian Roulette Variety Show.
Photo by Will Connelly.

Anyway, we are closing in on 24 hours away from our debut performance at PEX Summer Fest, and I've spent the past two weeks crafting costumes, rehearsing & practicing my butt off, helping Alex develop his dragon and a whole slew of other related crap. Lux Arati is also hosting 2 bellydance related workshops, one on how to craft your own bellydance bra, and the other an Intro to Bellydance class. I proposed the workshop idea - specifically the bellydance bra crafting one, because I have no qualifications to teach a dance class, but I sure can make costumes.

This is my third year (and the third year of) PEX Summer Fest, and I'm always blown away by the art, music, installations and performances - it's a shit ton of creative minds coming together to make a really amazing event. (Changed some of my friends lives - for real!)

I'll leave you with a stellar video of PEX Summer Festival from 2010 that my dear friend Bill Kennedy put together from camera stills. I'm in it, near the end, you'll see me crawling all over the HoneyTrap sculpture. Enjoy!

Haunted

Kristin and I posing for the camera during our show.
(Photo by Will Connelly Photography, 2011)

It was Monday morning after "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" that I woke up realizing that even though it was all DONE - I had little to no sense of relief.

Yes, the show looked beautiful. Yes, the event was awesome. I got a ton of great feedback about what a fun night it was, what a great party it was, how beautiful the show was, our pieces looked great together, our collaborative painting was successful - even the vibe of the entire party was praised. (There was a very small moment of weird drama, but I'm over that already. Not worth mentioning.) It was, hands down, the most ridiculous thing I've had to work that hard to organize in awhile (possibly ever?) and even though I woke up Monday morning feeling great about that - it was quite difficult to let those positive feelings linger for very long. I had a dress rehearsal I wasn't prepared for in a week, the season for my theater bartending job was coming to an end, I was still totally dirt poor (didn't sell any paintings off the wall, though I did have some folks interested in prints - unfortunately "interest" doesn't equal immediate payment, since I definitely still have to work for it) and a jagged, pointy wave of stress and worry had monsoon-ed out my happy art parade.

Shit.

And then of course, a few days later I get my letter of rejection from the Mural Arts Program - for a lousy summer internship, for Christ's sake. I attempted to apply to be one of their artists back in January, and despite filling out and thinking I submitted the form twice online, it managed to never go through. Since they review their artist applications only once a year (in mid-January, and of course didn't respond to my "Did that go through?" email until mid-February), I was for some reason convinced that the internship would be no problem. Of course I'll get it, I thought. Why wouldn't I?

Welcome to the real world, Xtina!

So I've felt like a complete idiot a couple times in the past few weeks. Between letters of employment rejection based on the one talent and skill I know I possess and then working my ass off for this show that was completely unprofitable - it's been a little difficult to look on the bright side. "Midnight..." was still an amazing night - and I will have a bunch of pictures soon to share with you - but damn, it was a little disappointing. I felt like I was putting in all this effort, and trying SO hard to make this happen - and I did it, and it happened, and it was like a slowly deflating balloon instead of a piñata full of candy. (Funny, I wasn't the only one to feel like this, either.) I have since sucked it up and moved on, and I will no doubt continue to paint and continue to promote myself as an artist, and try and make this art thing work. Besides performing, which I am relatively new at, so to speak - this is the only freaking thing I know I can do well. And maybe it's NOT a full time job, although with the right market and the right product it sure as fucking well can be - but yea. I got a bit of a slap in the face that Monday morning, and as of today (crossing fingers everything continues to go well) I now have another low paying service industry job. Good-ie.

But you know what? These moments of weakness are not going to destroy me. There are things in my brain that I see and experience in a visual, tactile way - an interpretation of a dream world, my dream world - that need to be expressed somehow. On a canvas, still images or moving picture, limbs poised oh-so-perfectly from a body, a carefully crafted (or duct-taped) costume for a performance. It's beyond me, it's something pulsing in my veins, something running through my neurological wiring. This is all I can do. This is what I do.

Aww. Hugs. <3
(Photo by Will Connelly Photography, 2011)

I'll post more pictures from the fabulous Will Connelly as soon as I get them on a disk. Thank you Will, Joe Zang, Kristin, and all the musicians and performers that came out for Midnight and helped make it happen. Even though this blog entry was all about *me* and *my feelings* (tough shit- it's my blog, bitches) - the show itself was really about everyone that was involved. We all came together and put forth amazing efforts, and created a really fun night with a great vibe, great art, and great talent of all kinds. These are my friends, and I love them. So more pictures of that event soon.

In the meantime, please enjoy this shot of my friend Sarah's new tattoo, which I helped design. Another friend of mine was responsible for the actual tattoo and reworking the design slightly to better fit her body. Besides my own, this is (I believe) the first artwork of my own that is now a tattoo on someone's skin. Enjoy!

New ink on Sarah G. Designed by me! Who's next??