Yesterday was this beautiful, sunny day. I hiked seven miles then ran errands. Today, so far at least, is an indoor day. We had a snowstorm.
Here are some pictures of my cat. The weather is not a factor in his life. He’s not conditional – unless I don’t get up at 5:00 am to feed him. Pablo eats a gastrointestinal prescription diet of dry and wet cat food provided by Royal Canin. I would love to see his face on the packaging. I mean, who wouldn’t want their pet to have his own modeling contract?
Cats are a recurring theme in my artwork. Did Pablo’s namesake paint cats? Yes!
So far, my entire summer has been a giant ball of butterflies in my stomach. I’m happy – all the time, and excited about all the great things that are happening. That WILL happen.
My little sister is a yoga instructor/interior designer/flea market furniture refinisher/furniture designer/a lot of other things! She let me borrow a bunch of items to use to enhance my display at the Craft & Craft function at the Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison St. Syracuse, New York 13202 this Thursday from 5 – 9 pm.
This is what it looks like now all tossed into the trunk of my car. Hopefully I will create a cute set up that matches my modern, vibrant watercolors with these brass vintage bamboo-patterned fixtures.
Dark Magic, 18″ x 24″, watercolor, 2002, $200
I just found out that I will be inside, rain or shine, in the Sculpture Court (main floor), so that is great news. It’s just one table of unframed paintings in all different sizes and it will be a BOGO sale, meaning you will get two for the price of one but no half price onsies. You will have to buy two. And see? It’s a win-win. You get two, and I have to say that my watercolors do look best in multiples, or you can give one as a gift! I get to go home with less artwork, which is the goal.
Blue Star, 10″ x 7″, 2002
Yes, making money from sales is an obvious goal but the one that really tickles me is the idea that people will enjoy my artwork. That it will have a home where it will be loved, cherished, what have you, for many years to come.
Blue Mandala, 18″ x 24″, watercolor, 2001, $200
I’m not sure if I told you about my cat situation, but my two knuckleheads had a falling out. A couple months ago, Georgie got a plastic bag caught around his waist and was running around the house screaming up a storm. He looked like a bull with a rodeo cowboy riding him as he tried in vain to buck off the bag. Naturally, Pablo was chasing him up and down the stairs and throughout every room until I caught up with Georgie and helped him out.
This was approximately less than five minutes of our lives but it took its toll on the siblings’ relationship because after that Pablo wanted to attack Georgie.
It got pretty awful. For three weeks, I was living like the Sister Wives with my pets. One spent twenty four hours living in the kitchen and back porch while the other had the rest of the house and a spot in my bed, and then the reverse. I tried to give them equal time but whenever Georgie was in the kitchen, he managed to bust in using his giant thumb paws – and then the fur went flying. Very stressful!
I tried these $35 calming collars, but Georgie just ate his. Finally, I brought Georgie to live with my sister and they ended up falling in love with each other. I visit him and it really is all good. Georgie just has a new home where he is equally loved, cherished, what have you for many, many years to come!
Just me and Pablo here now. So I am no longer a stereotype! And to add to my sister’s list of attributes, great cat mommy is at the top of the list.
Hope to see you on Thursday, July 23, 2015 at Craft & Craft! $10 for members, $15 non members. There will be food and drink and art – bring money!
And P.S.: for those of you who miss my outfits of the day on Instagram – I will be wearing a new BCBG Max Azria dress at the event. Can’t wait!
So, ten days into the new year and what have I done to achieve goals?
Um…..
In my defense, a migraine wrapped its tentacles around my brain today. There’s always an excuse to procrastinate and I will use that one. Plus, I left the camera cord at work so I couldn’t upload the student artwork to my school website. I had every intention of doing that today.
And I really should watch what I say. I bragged about being impervious to the cold then we went into a dumb deep freeze with below zero temps and it was soooo coooooold that all I wanted was to be the guy on that commercial with the sweater made of live cats.
I haven’t worked out my issues with Shopify and this website yet. I’m sure it is a minor glitch but you know how that goes. Minor turns into major, and things take a ton longer than you think they will. Really, how do I ever get anything done? I seriously could not concentrate today AT ALL.
*Two of my students won awards at the regional Scholastic Art Awards. A silver key for one of the encaustic paintings and an honorable mention for one of the cow paintings.
*I was asked to judge an art contest in April for the local chapter of the National League of American Pen Women. http://www.nlapw.org/ I emailed with the liaison to confirm the date and time, and wrote it in my datebook.
*My blog post, Holding the Key, will be added to the blog on www.professionalartistmag.com. It will be up some time next week. The editor saw the blog after I’d posted it to their Linkedin group and thought it would benefit their readers! I spent a chunk of the day searching my laptop for high resolution images of the pictures and popping the blog into a word document to email it all to her.
*I now have over 500 connections on www.linkedin.com, and more people are starting to endorse me for my art “skills”, as well as commenting when I post links to the various groups I’ve joined.
*I am up to over 3,700 followers on Twitter! And not all of them are there because of the cats, although a lot of them are, lol. I’m getting more re-tweets and favorites, which may or may not lead to sales, but it seems like progress. https://twitter.com/karentashkovski
Oh, and movie star Taye Diggs is following me! That’s my new claim to fame, my new middle name, as in Hi, I’m the artist Karen-Taye-Diggs-is-following-me-on-Twitter-Tashkovski.
Karen Tashkovski, Devices, 1998, 24″ x 48″, oil & collage, collection of Sophie Tashkovski
*I also spent a bunch of time thinking about devices I will use for the Futura series of paintings. I will start thumbnail sketches soon. I’m using my painting, Devices, as inspiration. It is one of only about four paintings that have survived from my 24″ x 48″ series of works from 1998. I destroyed a number of them for no really good reason except that I didn’t think they were good enough. Eventually, I will resurrect the canvases with the new series, but it will take a bit longer to work everything out (I have nothing, if not all the time in the world to make it happen).
*I purchased a couple of lottery tickets for the Powerball jackpot. I could be two hundred million dollars richer by tomorrow morning. A girl can dream.
