Sidetracked Charley

Cloud Spinner by J. Binford-Bell 29 x 20 Mixed Media on Canvas $1300 I realized when I set down to write this weekly blog that it has been more than a week since I wrote a blog for here. It raises the question of what have I been doing with my life lately. Painting. Cloud Spinner was at last completed this week though I will always think of it as January's painting. Some compositions just take longer. And it was not just the detail in Cloud Spinner which ate up time but that the image was not totally formed in my mind, but seemed to develop through the month. Sacrifice, however, was begun this week and will probably be finished today. I had been giving half my mind to it while finishing Cloud Spinner. The photo below is of it not totally finished but close. It seemed to almost jump onto the canvas. Especially the Raven in the opening for the celestial window. Through the drawing and painting of Sacrifice that window was empty. There is empty as nothing but sky and empty as ...

Been reading several articles about art pricing while the Artists Guild of Northern New Mexico has been debating the donating of art to nonprofit organizations. A couple of the articles I was researching addressed what your work goes for at non-profit auctions. We are all a bit depressed if our art does not sell for what we feel it would in our studios or galleries at these functions. And the non-profits are depressed about what our art brings at auction these days, and the reluctance of artists to donate and have their work devalued by what it sells for. Your art can sell for less at a charity auction for the following reasons: 1) No non-profit is as concerned about the display of your art as a gallery or you are, so chances are your donated piece is not being shown off to its b est. Charity events are about how much they can cram into a space to raise money. Too much art in the conference room makes it look trashy. And a poorly run live auction can look like an estate sale....

Time by J. Binford-Bell The last few days have been most interesting. Nothing monumental by itself but memorable taken together. It was all a bit too much for a status message on Facebook (they once limited them to 400 characters) but perhaps not enough for a blog. But here I am anyway trying to unmuddle my feelings. I move through my life often like those around me thinking it is a stream which goes from birth to death, and then like an Ohio leaf caught in an eddy on the lower Mississippi life just begins going in ever widening circles and back to the center of the whirl just missing the current. And suddenly you are speeding downstream again. The eddy which is winter has caught me against the shore. I have painted and blogged and put one foot before another and then yesterday began with a couple friend requests on Facebook. One was my ex-brother-in-law. Kevin is Marc's brother. None of Marc's relatives, once related to me by marriage, contacted me when he died. What ...

Magique and me It has not been a spectacular first week of 2014. And that is good. After the storms of 2006/2007 which buried our community in six feet of snow I have been thrilled we only got a few snow flurries. It has been entertaining to read about the Arctic Vortex that gobbled up most of the United States. My friends and I have debated just what it is Chicago does with all that snow. Some things are easy out here in the mountain west. Nobody actually has to remove snow. You just push it into a pile beside the county road or off to the side of your driveway (actually with a front in loader during 2006/2007) and wait for the next warm days to begin to melt it low enough you can pile more on top of it. But off the road in Chicago is a roll of parked cars or the sidewalks people expect to walk on to the bus stop. And when the temps really dip we just bring in more firewood and keep the wood stove going all day. Crisis is staring at your diminishing wood supply and wondering ...

Bright New Year So the New Year arrived. Hello 2014. And on the 31st comes the Chinese new year; the year of the Horse. I wish we would name our years beyond just numbers. Us humans are so keen at demarcating time but not real good at trying to make them memorable. So here I am again trying to set some goals for the year. I keep changing the name. Gave up resolutions decades ago. I think I am going with focus this year. Biggest focus is my upcoming one woman show in July. And I also want to work harder on the artistic development of my photography. Those are the creative focuses. Financially I want to market my creative products more and take on more odd jobs so I can support my house without renting out the apartment. I am looking at doing a reverse finance also so I have more access to my equity and can make some improvements on my home and on my transportation. I want a new to me used four wheel drive pickup. And of course I do want to lose weight. Again. And I am plann...