YOU'RE INVITED! Somerville Open Studios

SOMERVILLE OPEN STUDIOS
Once again I am participating in Somerville Open Studios. I will have many new paintings, old favorites, and tons of things to buy. I am also working out a way to accept credit cards so there are no excuses this year. Please stop by my studio and say hi. I will have good food and wine. There are also 300 other artists participating across the city. Bring your bicycle and make a day of it!

There will also be a party at some point on the rooftop deck of the studio. I will let you know about that when I have the details. Also there are 2 other related exhibitions I am participating in- one at Bloc 11 (up now) and one at the Somerville Museum (opening April 15th.) Please check those out if you can. However, the open studio itself is the big event and I hope you will come.

WHEN?
Saturday, April 30 · 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Sunday, May 1 · 12:00pm - 6:00pm

WHERE?
All over Somerville MA. However, my studio is located at:

Mad Oyster Studios, 2 Bradley Street, Somerville, MA

MORE INFO:
Visit the official site at Somerville Open Studios
Visit Somerville's Diverse + Vibrant Arts Community
Over 300 artists in over 100 venues will open their homes and studios for the 12th Annual Somerville Open Studios Event on April 30 & May 1, 2011, noon to 6pm.

During this free showcase for the arts, mid-career and emerging artists working across a broad spectrum of fine art styles and craft media will exhibit their work to the public.

Visitors to SOS will be treated to displays of art in both traditional and non-traditional spaces throughout the city.

Getting around Somerville
SOS attendees are encouraged to use public transport, the Somerville Open Studios Trolleys, bikes scooter and walk by foot if possible.

Trolleys
During the event Trolley service is available to help visitors get around. Trolleys will at approximately 15 minute intervals during SOS hours. Signs indicating where stops are located will be posted. The trolley route will be available in the map book.

Sleep Never

I'm behind and haven't been posting due to weeks of travel, a bad cold, and another show (which will be up for a bit if you're interested.)

One of the things I wanted to start doing was to start taking pictures of interesting things that catch my eye, and posting them. I've been itching to do this for a while because there are always things I want to capture and often it's not possible to sketch or anything. And sometimes a photo is really the thing that is needed. I bought a small little camera that fits in my bag for this purpose.

I thought it might be interesting to see what I'm compelled to photograph. It's definitely something that will come together over time. Some days I don't even touch the camera. Others, I go crazy. Anyway, since I'm behind on this, I'm going to post several today, in the order I took them....

Website Updated with New Paintings!

I've put 6 new 2008 paintings on my website (as well as my flickr site.)

Take a look!

www.bekkateerlink.com

I reordered the paintings on my website so not all the new one's come up right away.

A new website is coming soon, it's in the design phase and hopefully it will be done in a month or so depending on how busy things are. I want to have something with more involved navigation and paintings separated into different series by theme-- now that the number of paintings is climbing.

And don't forget the Cannibal Flower show this upcoming Saturday. I'll have a piece in it, probably an even newer one ...if it gets finished in time.

So tired. So happy.

I can't be someone who's always on, always going going going... which has been proven by the last 2 months of mad furious productivity... and then the inevitable energy crash that came yesterday. I was so tired I was physically shaking for a good part of the day. Some good tea helped to steady me.

I told myself I would keep going strong, I've been painting so much and I have soooo many new ideas but I need a break to sleep and eat better for a while. And maybe exercise. (I'm buying a bike and going to bike to work!)

I think I'm going to read a book for a change of pace. Another thing that went by the wayside. "The Night Watch." And I joined a book group. Another change of pace, and one of my new years resolutions. And I'll go see some live music again (Hello Avett Brothers!) And I'm going camping too, and it will be the first time since I was 12 surprisingly (well not counting setting up the time I slept in a tent in my backyard in high school.) OH AND THEN THERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING-- I'M GOING TO PARIS IN APRIL, A MONTH FROM NOW! I'll be eating tons of pastry and looking at my most favorite paintings in the world and doing a series of artsy photos hopefully for a future show.

I'm really looking forward to all of this. I love my life, even when I'm grumpy and hungry and tired like right now.

Lastly, if you live in LA (or surrounding areas) come to my show this Saturday!

Upcoming Show!

I have another show coming up in March. It's with Create:Fixate which puts on several shows a year which only last a single day. But they get massive amounts of people coming through and they're pretty well known. I have friends who don't like to do 1-day shows, but for me it seems that right now I just need to get as much exposure as possible, and that I can't turn down any opportunity to show. I'm hoping that shows like this might lead to other opportunities down the road. And more people see my work in 1 day of these shows than in 1 year if it just stays in my apartment.

The show is called "Transformation" and it explores "the topics of transformation in relation to human consciousness, energy, technology, creative expression the transformation of our environment in terms of climate-change, and how it affects our daily lives." So it's an environmental themed show, which is awesome.

I'm really excited for this show, and I've been working pretty hard on some new stuff to go in it. I decided I'm not going to post any images or detailed descriptions of what I'm working on until after the show-- so everybody will have to come out and see it in person. It's going to be a busy few weeks, and I may not blog much for a while because I want to put all my time into painting. I know I'm busy and focused when I don't even bother to make plans with friends on Saturday night. Seriously, I painted until 11 last night. Then I had dinner.

Right now I'm a little frustrated with one of my paintings so I thought I'd take a break. The canvas I made is not my best, and I don't know how it got so sloppy but sometimes it happens. I didn't stretch it tight enough-- but it seemed fine up until now. I don't know if I was tired when I stretched it or assumed it was tight enough when it was done and just kept going instead of redoing it.... But it's kind of crappy and I don't really know what I can do to fix it at this late point. I'm starting to wonder if it might be worth it to buy my stretcher bars from now on, instead of build them. Because the professionally made bars have ways you can tighten them later. But mine are dumb poor-man's stretchers. So this whole debacle is making me kind of depressed, and it's too late to re-do the canvas because it would take another few weeks I don't have. So I'm gonna make do and maybe turn to my Artist Handbook and see if there is any guidance. Or I'll just keep going and maybe later (after the show?) I can restretch it, which I hate to do and it may be even more frustrating for me. But I'll have to do something.

my sketchy book

Inspired by the Hockney show to start keeping a sketchbook again (well one that that actually includes sketches and doesn't fill up with phone numbers and random notes.) I have been pretty much been doing a drawing a day-- usually when I'm out with friends or on my lunch break from my day job. I thought I'd post a few things-- nothing is particularly stunning but I like capturing brief moments of people and things I see. I'm pretty good at capturing things quickly before the scene changes too much, and I like the challenge of moving subjects and changing places. Some drawings are interrupted by the subject walking away (or worse, the subject noticing me hiding in a corner looking at them out of the corner of my eye.) So far nobody has bothered me or spoken to me-- that's what drove me crazy a few years ago when I did a group of paintings from sketches made at the Farmer's Market or 3rd Street Promenade. (I'm real popular with old lonely men, and sketching gives them a jumping off point for conversation....) Things that prevent this: sunglasses, headphones. They are an artist's best friend when they are secretly drawing people.

This is a sketch of my friend Guillermo over an impromtu dinner at the East India Grill July 7. We discussed life, our future, Los Angeles, and the magic of double decker buses (I had come from the West Hollywood art ride-- very enjoyable!)

Some sketches over lunch. I love people watching (until they start watching me.)

On some of my quick sketches I have started to revisit them later (in my studio) and add to them in what ever way that strikes me at that moment-- usually completely out of my head and very random and impulsive. Sometimes magical things happen. Sometimes it ends up looking like mud.

I'll post more bits and pieces from my sketchbook as they can. More is on my flickr site-- just a start. It will grow...

rambling thoughts of the week

Because I'm a lame-o I only just saw the Klimt paintings at LACMA last week (I think, I lost track...) and true to my museum visits the one thing I went to see there turns out to be the least interesting thing to me.

What ended sucking me in was their American landscape stuff (now I'm wishing I had taken notes) but what I have been interested in recently is how location effects art. This is always most evident in landscape painting-- and what I found myself looking at was east coast landscapes vs. west coast, bare desert hills vs. dense, lush forestscapes. It stood out to me because I always hated landscapes and painted pretty crappy ones if I ever did (I had multiple art teachers tell me to not try them again). But that was on the east coast. The second I come to California I started painting/drawing landscapes every week. At first it was because I didn't know anybody and I didn't have any friends to model. But then I started getting into the landscape here. What I found was that I was just more drawn to paint the California geography. CA is more solid and concrete with grassy hills, rocky mountains, distance, as opposed to the dense bushes as opposed to the lush all-over greenery of Massachusetts. This was suprising because I was (at the time) prejudice against places with real trees and forests. I lived in the west until I was 11 and spent my whole childhood dreaming of tall green trees and hating the dead desert yellow color of everything around me. I'm kind of surprised I'm on this end of the country, but I've fallen in love with it- and the paintings it makes me do.

The other thing at LACMA that I saw was the Hockney exhibit. I can't say that I was a big Hockney fan before but I really enjoyed this exhibit for several reasons. First of all, I love portraits and figures of any sort. Could look at them all day, almost did. Also, again I'm really intrigued by the location an artists chooses to work in and how it inspires them-- or just seeps into their work. Sometimes I wonder if the whold NYC-starving artist thing limit's POV. I personally think that-- art being inspired by real life-- lives or dies based on what an artist surrounds themself with. And an artist like Hockney that incorporates his life so directly in his work is a very good example how an environment (social, geographic, cultural) plays a role. Just looking at his color choice-- turquoise, mint green, dusty rose, etc.-- these are not colors inspired by the northeast.

The last thing that the Hockney exhibit taught me is that I need to frikkin' start sketching more. I used to carry a sketchbook every where I went and would sketch every minute I had a down moment. The habit slowly faded when I stopped doing paintings strictly from sketches of brief real life moments. But even if I don't paint from my sketches, it is a fabulous way to slow down the process of observation as well as just get inspired.

That's all for tonight. Gotta go wash my brushes. (And my dinner dishes too probably while I'm at it, they'll get smelly.)