Your Interview

Posted on June 26, 2023 by SusanG

A few weeks ago, an off-handed response to a text from a friend started a fun little adventure for me, and hopefully him. He texted about something, and I responded about a song I’d just listened to that I was excited and perplexed about. The song was ‘Banks of the Ohio’ but in German. I’ve been trying to learn German for many years, and I was excited about it because I understood a fair bit of what was being sung. Progress for me. I was perplexed because the original song in English was recorded back in the early 70’s. ‘Banks of the Ohio’ was one of the first hit-type songs for Olivia Newton-John. Or close to it.

I mentioned to my friend that it had to be in her back catalog someplace. And that I shouldn’t be surprised she’s recorded in German since her mother was German, the daughter of Max Born. He said something and I responded that I have a lot of not very useful information stuck in my head and that he loved Olivia Newton-John and liked fun information like that. Or something along those lines. I apparently took that as a challenge of sorts because I proceeded to lead him down the rabbit hole of what I could find or had previously found. It was a lot of fun. Thanks, Rick, for playing along.

Selfie in the art studio
Selfie in the art studio

As I was poking around finding all the cool stuff to send him, I watched a lot of live video and interviews. I’d been sorting through a few videos just before I went for a walk and as I was walking, I found myself having this interview conversation with myself, in my head, not out loud, people would think me very strange if I did that. Anyway. It got me to thinking. What would my, your interview be.

Play along with me for a moment.

What would you want to be being interviewed for? When you think about it, most people interviewed, except say eyewitness interviews, are usually being interviewed about something related to their job. Is that what you would want to be interviewed about? Maybe you are an amateur actor and you’re doing a play, or you’re directing the play. Maybe you’re an artist and starting to give lessons or go to art shows. Maybe you’re a musician who has been playing for years and you’re just starting to play performances. Maybe you collect something and have a lot of knowledge about it that you think is cool and you want to share. Maybe you’re an exercise or health guru or an activist or politician.

So. What would you want to be interviewed about?

Next. What questions would you want to be asked? There are some standard interview questions that you would be asked. Things like ‘how did you get started?’ What sparked your interest. Who or what was your early influence. How did you find out about it. Those would be pretty standard how we find out about you and your interview topic. You might even get a question about why it’s important. That question would come up if you are being interviewed about something you’re advocating for or against, so if you are being interviewed for your environmental activism, or your political activism, or any other sort of activism for that matter. It could even come up if you’re talking about history. It’s a good question to consider regardless. But those are standard questions. Is there a question you would want to be asked? Something you think gets missed in the standard stuff.

Now, let’s pretend you’ve been well-known for a while. So, you’re a celebrity in your area so people start asking more probing, not surface questions. Not the how did you get into this, or what was it like working with, questions. Now they want to know about your life. You’re private life. How you feel about love, if you have a love interest, what you like to do when you’re not doing what you’re well-known for. What would you want to be asked? What would you not want to be asked? What would you be willing to answer even if you preferred you weren’t asked the question. How open would you be willing to be? Would you be all out there and open for any question? Would you be evasive? What about the question of ‘guilty pleasure’? Would you, could you answer that?

Guitars on a shelf and an electric keyboard in my living room
Music in the living room

I used to like the ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ interviews because of the questions asked at the end. I forget what the segment was, but it was great. One of the questions was ‘what’s your favorite curse word’. I think he even asked, ‘and why’. I still remember what and how Barbara Streisand answered. Will your interview, or some part of your interview stick in someone’s head?

So, you’re now a celebrity and you’re going to be interviewed. Where? Are you being interviewed remotely, are you on some morning show, some talk show in a studio with a studio audience? Is this an interview for some magazine show and they are interviewing you on set of something? Back stage? Are you inviting them into your home? Where would you want to be interviewed?

What sort of an interviewee would you be? Are you stiff and uncomfortable? Are you difficult and reluctant to answer? Do you answer but with very short answers, so the interviewer has to work hard to fill a ten-minute segment. Or are you relaxed and easy going? Willing to answer just about anything and give a little more to the answer than just ‘yes’, ‘no’, or the date of the event? Are you really talkative and the interviewer has to work to get an additional question asked? Are you shy or embarrassed about being interviewed?

Which leads to, who sets the tone? You’re going to be interviewed. You’re well-known, even a celebrity. How do you approach the interview? Do you set the tone? How do you greet the interviewer and team? Do you give a curt nod, a handshake? A brief embrace, and a kiss? A pat on the back or shoulder? Just a ‘hello’? Do you make it clear they are on your turf so to speak, even if it’s in their studio? Are you gracious and welcoming? Are you combative? Do you make the interviewer and their team feel comfortable and at ease? Or do you intimidate them and keep them on their toes?

We’ve had our fun imagining being interviewed and what we want to be asked, how we would handle it, how we would make the interview team feel. What else would you want for your interview? What else is important for you for your interview?

Most people that we see being interviewed don’t have that much say in their interview set up. Some do. And in some situations. But if you’re going on the ‘Tonight Show’ you know the set and set up and that’s not going to change. At best you might get a stipulation or assurance that you won’t be asked about something. That doesn’t really guarantee that you won’t be asked about it. How would you handle that? Would you get up and walk out? Would you look at them with disdain and clam up? Would you politely decline to answer the question?

There are countless other things got consider as part of your interview for sure. For now, though I have one last set of things for you to think about for your interview. Who would you want to be interviewed by? Would you be comfortable with your friends or family seeing your interview? Would your friends or family learn something about you from the interview they didn’t know, or you didn’t want them to know?

Overgrown apothos plant on a stool
My Apothos, Phil, needed a haircut.

I was going to ask you ‘why’ as well. Why would you want to be interviewed about the particular topic or event? Why would you respond the way you choose? All of those things. I’m not going to ask that, but maybe you should ask yourself, as I should ask myself.

I really didn’t start the walk thinking of how the idea of imagining your interview would be an exercise in self-reflection, and I didn’t start this post with that thought. But there it is. If you really sit down and play the game, come up with the questions, the setting, the scenario, I think we get to learn a lot about ourselves. Things like what is important to us. Did your interview start one way and pivot to something else that you suddenly realized you’re really passionate about? Maybe we learned how we think we are or how we want to be. Maybe we learned how we want to be treated. One last experiment. If your interview was antagonistic, set up a non-antagonistic interview for yourself. And if your interview was pleasant and non-antagonistic and docile, setup an aggressive, or antagonistic interview. How do you handle the other? And what else did you learn?

If you are wondering if I’ve done this myself. Not yet in this form. While I was on the trip for the day job one of the activities, they gave us was to interview one of our colleagues and then introduce them in the group meeting. So, not only did I get to “interview” one of my colleagues, but I also got to be interviewed. I’m not sure I did that great of a job interviewing my colleague because I didn’t really handle it that way. He happened to be sitting across the table from me. But the colleague who interviewed me, we made time to sit down so he could ask me questions. It was an interesting experience. And it did touch on some of the things I’ve presented you in this experiment. It didn’t offer quite the self-reflection that doing this on your own might. Though, it did still teach me a little about how to be interviewed.

I hope you had fun playing along. And thanks again Rick for letting me dig that hole for you. I found a secondary path or two that I expect will be playing a part in things I’m working on. I’ll be sharing more on those things as they come up. For now, don’t forget to check out the new art store. I’ve got a link up so you can get to it easily. I’ll be adding more pieces to it so if you want to stay in the know, you can join the mailing list there. Have fun with your interview. Peace.

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Announcement Time!

Posted on June 20, 2023 by SusanG

I’m excited! It’s time for the big announcement.

Are you ready?!

Susan Michelle Artist is open!

For a while now I’ve been thinking of finding a way to make my art more available to people who might be interested. An opportunity came my way and I decided to take it and open my online art store. You can check it out at the link above.

Currently there is a small selection of works, a couple of stippling pieces, a watercolor, and a pastel painting, that you can purchase as prints, or even tote bags.

There will be more soon.

I have two watercolor pieces I’m working on now. One is just nearly complete and the other is not quite half complete. I expect to be releasing the first one sometime in the next week or so.

When you visit the store, be sure to sign up for the mailing list so you know when I release those new pieces, and any future pieces. Oh. And check your spam folder in case the email ends up there.

This is a big step for me and I’m super excited about it. Please check it out. And return often to see the new stuff.

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Environment and Demand

Posted on June 13, 2023 by SusanG

Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s along with the big hair, big shoulder pads, leg warmers, and neon, followed by grunge rock, there was a resurgence of environmental awareness. I say resurgence because the environmental movement was really launched in in 1962 with Rachel Carson’s book ‘Silent Spring’. Followed by the first Earth Day on 22nd of April 1970. The resurgence was partly fueled, I’m guessing, buy the realization that there was this gaping hole in the planet’s ozone layer. Not really a good thing if you want to keep damaging ultraviolet radiation out. Why would you want to do this? Well, it damages crops, leads to an increase in skin cancer, and an increase in cataract rates, according to the EPA website. Because I grew up during this time, I knew the hole was bad and it was because of radiation and skin cancer. I even knew that it was being caused, or we were told it was caused by chlorofluorocarbons. But it’s been a long time, so I looked it up.

photograph of a cafe style coffee mug supporting surfrider foundation making waves

I have a friend who lives in Australia and at one point I think we talked about how they had become a bit more environmentally conscious due to being closer to that ozone hole. And it makes sense. The sun seems much more intense there so if it’s already intense and blinding then that hole sitting over or near you well, it was probably a little disturbing. And yes, the sun is more intense there. My sunglasses were not near dark enough at times when I was there. And for that matter my friends were telling me that their daughters get sunburned in Australia but can go to someplace like Greece and they don’t get burnt.

A few things brought this to mind this recently. I was reminded by email that it’s time to renew my Surfrider Foundation membership, that was one. Then, as I was doing swapping the music room into the art studio, I found a duplicate DVD of a concert and I had to play it to tell which one was the ‘bad’ DVD and which one was the good one so I could get rid of the bad one. It wasn’t the DVD itself that was the reminder it was who the concert was by. In my mind Olivia Newton-John, in addition to her cancer work, will always be associated with the environmental movement of the 1980’s and 1990’s. And then there was an article I read on the El Pais English site; it talks about a number of thresholds that according to scientists would have devastating effects if they were breached widely. One of the things the article does note is that we solved the ozone hole problem, pretty much at the last moment, but we solved it. And that makes me wonder, what happened? Not what happened that we solved it. What happened that we stopped.

What happened that that movement, that awareness lost momentum? We were concerned about not cutting down trees, about saving species of plants and animals, about protecting the rain forests, about the plight of dolphins and other sea creatures, about toxic waste, about hunger, and the plight of humans all over. What happened? Did we quit caring?

While it might feel like we did, I don’t think we actually quit caring. I think our care and concern for the only home we have right now became a victim to the almighty dollar and to demand. See demand has never been about meeting our needs as customers or even as people. Demand has always been about creating consumers. If it had been about meeting our needs as people, we’d have seen greater progress in sustainable living and health and clean air and clean water and social justice. Instead, we’ve seen life “improvements” in the form of making it “easier” for us to do more work in a shorter amount of time, so that companies don’t think they need to hire as many people to do the work as they used to. As an example. But those companies also need to see constant bottom-line growth in the form of profits. And so, they find ways to create demand of consumers.

photo of a white t-shirt for old environmental friendly type store called 'shop called Mango'

And we as people, that have now been dehumanized into consumers, aren’t getting our demands, desires, or needs met. But we are told we are. Or we’re told that if we just purchase this more thing or bigger thing it will solve everything. Because, if they distract us from our dissatisfaction and disappointment maybe we’ll forget about passing laws that make them more responsible, or even insisting they have more sustainable practices. Because if we make them make quality products that will last beyond their first use then we won’t buy as much of their stuff.

But. There again, they’ve manufactured or induced demand. We are told that if we are really concerned for the environment that we just need to recycle more, buy more expensive “enviro-friendly” products, buy a hybrid car, get solar panels, eat organic, recycle more, and on and on. So that’s what we’ve tried to do. Community recycling programs were started, and recycling was added to our trash pickup so we could feel like we were/are making a difference. Even though they were halfhearted and mostly ineffective or insufficient, recycling programs remain in the form of curbside pickup and recycle bins.

For so long, we were told we were the problem. We created all the trash and waste, and we weren’t taking advantage of the recycling programs as evidenced by the fact that only some miniscule percentage of plastic was being recycled. And yet because we are considered consumers used to create demand for product that we may or may not need but the corporations need us to purchase to make more and more money, we are encouraged to keep…consuming. Which by its very nature creates more waste. But it’s our fault that we aren’t recycling.

The truth is, while we should do our part and reuse or recycle what we can, even if we all did that for everything, the problem would still exist because we as customers and people were not the primary problem. As they say, you don’t repair the fence after the cows get out, or if you prefer, you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. Or something like that. If you want to fix or prevent the problem, you have to start at the source. You don’t want to run out of toothpaste, you put the cap on it before it oozes out. You don’t want the cows to get out, you make sure the fence is in good shape before it’s breaks or falls down. You keep your house in order, so you don’t have to clean up the mess. You take care of things, so you don’t have to replace them. The difference is, while we can replace things, we can’t replace the Earth.

photo of the back of an old tank top that has a rain forest design and says 'The Rain Forest must not die - Sun Lover'

We are at the last minute, again. But unlike the ozone problem, this time we face multiple problems that we have to solve in this last minute. Sure, the most pressing is climate change. And yes, we know most of what has caused it. And no, it’s not a single class of chemical that we can make illegal to use and mandate it be immediately phased out. Even if it were, like with the ozone hole, it would still take time and we are at the last minute. Yes, we need to do our part. But our part isn’t rounding up the cows after they get out or trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube after it’s oozed all over the counter. Our part is helping to stop the problem at its source. Our part is to break the cycle of induced demand. Our part is to demand better. If they want our business, they need to do better business. And we need to insist on it. We need to show them we no longer have the appetite for just being sold the cheapest flashiest stuff that just breaks and gets replaced right away. We also have a part to play in showing lawmakers as well as corporations that we not only want the drastic change required, but we also have an appetite for it.

Making the changes needed to keep our planet livable is not going to be easy. It will require a lot of paradigms shifting. In some case it may look like ‘going backwards’ as older, sustainable methods are revisited and revived. We will resist, as we have been for many years. But we are at the last minute. And while I’m not keen to go back to the big hair and neon of the 1980’s or even the grunge of the 1990’s we could really stand to bring back whatever it was that let us band together to fix the hole in the ozone.

After the post about health care as an induced demand I really thought I was done with the topic of induced demand. But when I read about how many acres of the Amazon Rainforest has been cut down in the last few years just for cattle farming, I realized that the environmental movement had been a victim of it as well. Even if it is a demand/movement that has been unintentionally induced. And then I realized that what happened to that environmental movement of my youth was that it had been appropriated and turned into a demand that we don’t realize is a demand. Remember, when I said that the question was who was making money off us? Well, if we don’t have waste, pollution, a climate crisis, we don’t have a market for the clean-up, we don’t have a market for things that make the air less polluted, we don’t have a market for renewables. The crisis maybe was the result of short-sightedness, but it has turned into a manufactured demand that we perhaps could have avoided.

I’ve been working in the art studio more since I moved things around and I’ve got exciting news about the art store that I’ll be sharing this week. I’ll be posting it here and on Instagram and Facebook soon. I look forward to sharing it with you. Until then, peace.

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Cleaning Time Again

Posted on June 6, 2023 by SusanG

It’s been as they say ‘a hot minute’ since I did some serious cleaning. Particularly on my balcony. Living in the Carolinas and in a condo, it’s not easy to keep the outside space that I have clean. And I confess, though I tried to clean it some last year, I didn’t use it much after that, so it was needing a bit more help.

I found a real need for my balcony the first year of the pandemic lock downs, but I didn’t get around to doing anything about it until the end of the summer. But once I did, I totally enjoyed it and made good use of it. Even through the next summer. Then, like happens so much of the time in life, I got away from it. Except for this one tree that I have.

Photo of a small avocado tree, sapling, in a pot.

My tree is an Avocado tree that my dad started from seed. He is very good at this. Several years ago, now, he gifted it to me on one of my parents’ visits. I had it inside for a while until he got big enough that it seemed like he would be better off outside. The tree has name, and it is: Groot. Then a few years after that he gifted me another one because as it turns out they have gender, and you need one of each to get avocados. Supposedly. This second tree was called: George. Anyway, I love the shape of Groot’s leaves. And yes, even though they were both avocado trees the leaves of Groot and George were different. Um, George didn’t make it by the way.

For that matter, Groot has been a freaking miracle. I have inadvertently killed him off at least three times because of cold. Or not enough water, or more likely both. The first time, I just didn’t know. The second time I had tried to protect him from the cold but was unsuccessful, and figured out that part of it was that I hadn’t watered enough during the winter. So last year, I thought he’d be ok tucked into a corner with a cover and plenty of water. Truth is, I think I had become antipathic about my balcony and plants. I didn’t use the balcony at all last summer even after having someone out to remove the wasp nest. Even so, I still mourned the plight of Groot.

I mourned the death of the plant, and my antipathy. I felt so bad that I had ‘let’ this plant die. And then a month or so ago, I looked out at my dirty balcony covered in pollen and pollution from the near by state highway and saw this growth peaking up. Groot had somehow survived and was growing once again. I was thrilled and quite relieved. It’s a plant, right. So, what’s the big deal.

photo of 3 guitars on a shelf of books and an electronic keyboard on a stand on the floor next to the shelf, and a music stand

It makes me think of how we’ve reacted or responded to the plight of our planet. For a time, it seemed like we might be able to get behind a kinder, gentler world that cared about the animals and the people and then it seemed to have disappeared. I wondered for a while what had happened to that. Had we just quit caring? And I then I realized two things, we haven’t quit caring, we may have become somewhat antipathic to the situation due to being overwhelmed by the enormity of it, and the environmental movement had been co-opped in the name of capitalism and induced and manufactured demand. And it pisses me off. So, I’m probably going to have to write a post about that soon.

But for the moment we’re talking about cleaning season. In the northern hemisphere it’s ‘spring cleaning’ time. A fun catchy phrase to sell more cleaning products and convince people to buy stuff to ‘freshen up’ their homes. It likely had a more practical meaning at one time. The other evening, I was watching a concert on video and realized, I needed to clean off the balcony because the weather was so nice, I should have been sitting out there sipping a beverage listening to music and reading or writing instead of sitting inside. But. My balcony was really dirty. Really dirty.

photo of several guitar cases lined up on a low shelf along a wall with an orange amplifier, pedal board, music stand, and guitar stand

I had just taken the previous weekend to do some serious cleaning inside. No. I didn’t get the whole place scrubbed down. Just one room really. I had to be done and it has certainly solved a problem for me.

See, as I started thinking about how I’d like to be making more art and perhaps selling some of it in one form or another, I realized something. I had given a whole room to the music and just this tiny little corner, in the room that has become the office, to my art and the art needs more space than the guitars. I also need more light.

The room that has been the music room for 11 years has great light. And I love that room. I do. I enjoy just sitting in it. But I wasn’t enjoying being at my art desk in my office, so I wasn’t getting any work done. The solution was obvious, but a big job. The music room, much like my balcony, had been somewhat neglected of the last year so there was much cleaning to do in addition to moving things around. It took me two days, to get things shifted around and to find new places for some things. Or at least comfortable temporary places. I’m pleased with the results. And yes, the guitars are still on the wall. I think they will stay there. They are as much a part of me as my art, and I pull inspiration from music to create my art so it’s appropriate that they stay.

I love the room still. Maybe even a little more right now. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in there since the shift. And it’s resulted in a new piece of art that will be going up in the new store soon.

photo of a wasp nest in a corner of the ceiling over a door

I’ve moved the guitars into the office and even set the amplifier and pedal board up so that I can play. Now, I have an art studio instead of a music room and that’s exactly what it needs to be right now.

And now I even have a clean balcony. As I really enjoy sitting outside and relaxing with a beverage and a book or while writing my posts, I felt it would be worth spending a morning cleaning it up. Making the chairs clean enough to sit on and the table clean so that the sweaty tea glass doesn’t create a muddy puddle. All the dead plants got cleaned out and the deck swept up. The wasps have already moved in. They arrived a month or two ago. I’m not fond of them. I’m allergic to them and they scare the crap out of me. But I refuse to use stuff to kill them anymore. Though it would be really nice if they wouldn’t build their nest right over my door. And since that’s what they do, and I don’t want to kill them, at some point in the next month or so, I’ll probably call someone to come knock down the nest. But for now, I’m sitting on my clean balcony, with the wasps and Groot, while I write this. And thoroughly enjoying it.

photo of small art studio with two easels with artwork in progress, an art desk with papers on it and paints in the foreground

I’ll be going back into the art studio in a little bit. I finished the piece I was working on. Or I’m pretty sure I have. I usually let them sit a few days before I make that final determination. I’ve got a few more things in mind to start on so I’ll start sorting through that. And see what comes of it. I’ve got some pictures from the trip to Paris that I think will make interesting pieces and my sister just sent me a fun one that I’m looking at and there are even a few pictures from the Australia trip a few years ago that I’m thinking of using.

And you did read that right. There’s a new art store coming. I’ll be adding it to this site and posting about it quite soon. Until then. Peace.

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What Happened to the Art and Music?

Posted on June 1, 2023 by SusanG

After a couple of posts about my recent travel and a few posts about induced demand some of you are probably wondering what happened to the other stuff I usually write about. You know, the art, the 3D art, and the music? Well, it’s complicated. But rest assured I’m still doing all of that it just hasn’t been of the volume that I’ve been able to write a lot of posts about. It is only just starting to pick up a little bit with more coming soon. I do have a bit to write about, for now and then I’ll be getting back to it, so I have even more to write about.

First the music. I don’t remember if I mentioned it at some point this year. I did something odd to my left hand. My fretting hand. I was forming a chord of sorts on the guitar, and something popped. I was not a good little human. I didn’t run to the doctor or nurse or urgent care center. At first, I continued on thinking it would get better since I’ve popped things before, and it’s not been an issue. But I did a good job with this one and it wasn’t getting better and at times, because I was still playing guitar and trying to learn piano, it seemed like it was getting worse. So, I plopped it in a brace and tried to go about things. Semi-successfully and ultimately probably causing peripheral damage. The pain got into my shoulder and other parts of my arm, and I finally went to someone for it. It’s not completely back to normal. It is getting better. I have had to take a considerable amount of time off from the music stuff I was working on and while I can do a little now, I try not to do too much so that I can stretch and strengthen the hand without re-injuring it. I hope.

Picture of the bag from the art supply store in Paris France. It says Magasin Sennelier.

With the music on the back burner, you would think I would be getting back into my art. I’ve worked on a little. I started on that Blender character course and was having fun until I got stuck in my head trying to decide what I was going to do about something that needs fixing. And I’ve worked on a few painting type of pieces. It doesn’t really feel like I’ve done much, though I may have done more than I realize. I would like to be working on, starting and finishing, more pieces or even regular sketches. I haven’t done it. I suppose I set a fairly high bar for myself when I was doing the daily sketches. And maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel like I’ve done much so far this year.

I will also add that the changes in the day job have definitely impacted my focus and motivation. For those that haven’t heard, my manager, who was the only other person on my direct or local (US) team announced at the beginning of the year that he was retiring at the end of the first quarter. My day job is as a database administrator and an application administrator. We had been working on migrating off of an old version of Microsoft SQL to a newer one and we have a few legacy and homegrown applications. Not all of those do I have a lot of familiarity with. So, the time from his announcement to the time of his retirement meant that I needed to get as much information out of him as possible to be able to pick up and move forward after his last day. As you can imagine, this was stressful. And there were many a day where my brain was full, or I was unable to think or function well for at least an hour after my day ended. Not especially conducive to being creative. His last day was the Friday before I went to Orlando for an overall departmental meeting and then on to Paris the next week. I’m still getting my bearings but I’m ready to get back to some art.

I’ve got a couple of ideas for paintings, at least two of which will probably be watercolors. And I’ve got two paintings to finish. A large-ish Octopus I’ve been working on in soft pastel, and that crane I started on in oils. Not only that. I brought back from Paris some really lovely handmade paper that I’m going to use for at least one of the watercolor paintings. And I brought back some soft pastels that are dreamy. I can’t wait to find something to use them for. Oh. I also picked up a small guidebook for pastels at the Sennelier store I visited. The book’s in French but the pictures are really descriptive, and I’ve picked up a little so that I might be able to get the idea from context and the pictures. And then there is always one of the translation apps.

I found something out about my sister when we were preparing for the trip that I didn’t know before. In high school she was part of her school’s academic team, or something like that, and her area of interest or expertise was art history. I find that so interesting. Here I’ve taken just enough instructional art courses, but I’ve not had much art history. Much like when I went to the museum in Melbourne with the friend I was visiting, when we finally got to visit an art museum I discovered more about the renowned artists and their styles and how they produced their art.

photo of me in the art supply store in Paris France looking at the colors and the pastels

The only art museum we really got to spend any time in was the Musee d’Orsay which houses a lot of impressionism art. I like detail. I find it important and so I try to include a lot of it in my art. And yet, I struggle sometimes to tell the story I want to tell with my art because that fine detail gets in the way. It isn’t always realistic to draw every single head with hair and a nose and eyes if you’re drawing a crowd of a hundred people. You have to find a way to give the ‘impression’ of there being a hundred different people. Looking at the impressionist art I was able to understand this a little better. I can’t say yet if I’ve figured out how to internalize it and apply some of it to my own art. I may not. At least I better understand it.
I was happy to get to see a couple of Georges Seurat paintings. I do like his work. His pointillism work is incredible. Particularly when you find out he did it as something of a scientific investigation. And when you think about the idea that the way he juxtaposed dots of color so that the eye ultimately mixed the colors is very much the idea of how pixels on a computer screen end up working it’s easy to geek out over.

Another painter’s work I was really happy to get to see was Henri Rousseau who is considered post impressionism. I really like his bold colors, detail, and crisp delineation. My first encounter with Henri Rousseau’s work was not direct. The Fleetwood Mac album Tango in the Night has cover art by Brett Livingstone Strong and the piece is titled ‘Homage A Henri Rousseau’. The cover art is very Rousseau-esque. So, it was really cool to see a Rousseau painting up close.

I also found a new to me impressionist who’s work I like. His name is Gustave Caillebotte. His colors are vibrant and bold and his subject is more delineated. He was part of the impressionist group and exhibited with them. He was also financially well enough off the he supported some of them by collecting the works of his friends.

There are a couple of painters that their most well-known paintings aren’t my favorite. Vincent Van Gogh is one of them. While I did get to see his ‘The Starry Night’ and I think even his ‘Sunflowers’, those were not the pieces I enjoyed the most. I was pleased to find that the museum had others of his work and those, though I did not note their names, those I liked much more.

So, the trip to Paris and the Musse d’Orsay and the Sennelier store were great for feeding my art. If not directly in style, execution, or technique then in understanding and opening up options. And a bit of inspiration.

And believe it or not, the something of the same can be said about the visit to Cirque du Soleil at Disney Springs. ‘Drawn to Art’ was a very cool story and the way they demonstrated some concepts, like squash and stretch, was fun. And even the gift store afterwards contributed. I picked up the book ‘Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men Masters of Animation’. I haven’t read it yet. I also picked up some pencils. Wait. Hear me out. There are these pencils that are so revered by some animators that one even has her social media handle as ‘blackwingjen’ and I remember seeing a post from her a few years ago about finding more of these pencils. Anyway. I bought a box of Blackwing pencils, and I bought a journal book with a Blackwing pencil. I’ve used the pencil for the journal and all I have to say is: “oh my. They are lovely.” They really glide across the paper differently and have a different feel. I’m kind of excited to get to use them for something.

Which brings me to the current state of my art. I’ve worked on the Octopus because it’s big and on an easel. But I haven’t gotten to the watercolors, or even sketching yet because my art desk is a minor disaster zone. It wasn’t especially tidy when I left and then I came back from Orlando and Paris with all my goodies, and I’ve stacked them there. So, I need to clean my desk. I thought I might get to it last weekend, but I didn’t. I think it will have to be a priority before the end of the next weekend. Which means, if I can get it tidied up during the week, I’ll have that much more weekend time to do some art.

photo of my messy art desk with papers and things stacked on it.

There you are. The state of my music and of my art. As it is now. I am looking to what I want for the art in the future and am exploring options for selling some of my art. As more than just greeting cards. I haven’t quite figured out how to go about it in a way that will be effective. Which means there is a bit of the boring art office work to do. There is a lot to learn, I don’t doubt. I’m hoping to find some good tools for marketing and getting the word out because that is something I really don’t do well. That means, some of what I find and learn will likely end up here along with more art or discussion of art.

I’m looking forward to doing more art and getting back to writing about it again. I hope you found the posts about induced demand interesting. If not, well, things might start to get interesting for you again. At least I hope so. And thanks for staying around through it or coming back around. As I think I noted, induced demand was something that was really bugging me, especially since once I started seeing it, it seemed like I was seeing it almost everywhere. And I’d venture that it doesn’t just seem to be, it actually is. I found that the more I looked at it the more frustrated and annoyed I got. And I think that is as it should be. In an ideal situation it would spur action and change. Which it has to some extent. I try to be more cognizant of my choices and reasons for purchasing things and doing things and right now, I think it’s the best I can do. And maybe that’s the best any of us can do. If we are more aware of the choices, we make and examine the reasons for them periodically I think we can start to break the hold of induced demand. I don’t want to forget what I’ve observed and shared and hopefully you won’t either. Now back to the regular schedule of programming. At least for a while. Peace.

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