I'm surprised I haven't posted about this before, but you can find me at the Delmar Farmers Market every Saturday, tomorrow through the end of October (with the exception of August 4th and September 15th).
Tomorrow I'll have three new sock monsters... one is a cat monster! Come check it out, and buy some veggies, fruit, eggs, meat, and... local and artisan cheeses from Eric at The Cheese Traveler!
Friday, July 20, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Art on Lark
Come check out Art on Lark 2012 this Saturday, June 9th, 10am-5pm (tomorrow!). There will be music, food, and of course, lots of art! I'll be hawking my wares closer to Madison Ave, offering fine art prints, card prints, original artwork, handmade jewelry, hand sewn fabric bags, and, of course, sock monsters!
I'm looking forward to the weather getting rain completely out of its system today so that tomorrow is bright and calm and balmy, with nonexistent wind action. Let's see the power of positive thinking!
I'm looking forward to the weather getting rain completely out of its system today so that tomorrow is bright and calm and balmy, with nonexistent wind action. Let's see the power of positive thinking!
Thursday, June 7, 2012
An Opportunity for Consciousness and Community
My grandmother (my dad's mother and my last surviving grandparent) passed away last Saturday, so my sister and I flew down to Florida for her funeral. On the flight down (and after being frisked by the TSA for having done nothing at all -- is this breach of constitutional rights something we're going to continue to allow to normalize?), I was worried about missing three days of work, and my sister had to remind me that in a year I will not remember missing work at all, but will remember attending my grandmother's funeral, putting family first, and reconnecting with my dad's side of the family, who I hadn't seen in over twenty years. She always has a nice way of putting things into perspective.
Over a day and a half of spending time with and getting to know family I never got to, I learned that my cousins and I actually have a lot in common, and they're really kinda cool and my family is pretty fun (and funny). Though I may be mourning the loss of family for a period of twenty years plus, I have the opportunity now to create meaningful relationships with my aunts, my cousins, and their children.
After my grandmother's funeral and internment at Bushnell National Cemetery an hour and a half away (the wake was the evening before), my sister and I went back to the hotel to rest and print our boarding passes for the next morning. Arriving in the hotel lobby, we realized the printer was out of paper. The desk manager, a mid-aged African-American man, came over to see what we were doing with the computers, and we asked him for more paper to print our boarding passes. He brought us paper and recognized from our story--which we offered freely--that we were our father's daughters (he apparently had had conversations with our dad about the loss of his mother), and he offered his condolences. After printing our boarding passes, my sister and I noticed the complimentary happy hour beer keg offering next to us in the lobby. It seemed a sort of free-for-all; guests were approaching and pouring cups of beer for themselves, and returning two or three times over, in front of the concierge/desk manager. My sister then approached to pour herself a glass (now, my sister is six and half years older than I am, and I am nearly twenty-nine, and though we may look younger than we are, we both certainly look older than twenty), at which time the desk manager asked my sister for ID. Who brings their ID with them from their room to the lobby to print boarding passes? There was no signage near the keg saying the hotel would card anyone who looked under thirty, and my sister doesn't look under thirty in any event. No one else was being carded. So while all the other guests can freely pour themselves glass after glass of beer, my sister has to trek back to her room to get ID for a man who is participating in the perpetuation of three oppressions: adultism (agism), sexism and racism. Not to mention the fact that he left the desk and keg area for upwards of ten minutes while a child's high school graduation party was going on in a conference room twenty feet from the then unattended keg. Priorities? My sister was very upset, and I offered her the suggestion that she stand up for herself and let him know just what he did, how it affected her, and how it will affect other people. We went to the room and got our IDs, then headed back to the lobby. We waited patiently until the desk manager was free, and my sister approached the desk. She placed her ID on the desk and said to the manager, "now you know what a 35-year-old woman looks like." He tried to explain himself away, saying that he had to card anyone who looked around thirty or younger (which he had not, for any of the near-thrirty men in the lobby), and that she should take it as a compliment that she looks young. She responded that it is not a compliment, and that she would be filing a formal complaint for discrimination. It is discrimination when an unidentified rule is applied to only certain people because of the way they look. And I will have every reader know that a woman being told she looks young, particularly when she is being condescended to, is not a compliment. Nor should I be pleased when whistled at or catcalled "because he thinks [I'm] hot" (and whistling -- really? I am a human, not a dog). We women all have the ability to stand up for ourselves, and all men can take the opportunity to be conscious of events like these and end oppression in its tracks.
After my sister took her stand, we walked out of the hotel lobby and proceeded to the bar/restaurant across the street. My sister and I had been having a relatively blithe conversation at the bar, and after my father awoke from his nap at the hotel, he joined us. After a little while, one of the hostesses, a lovely Dominican woman, approached me at the bar. She told me that a customer had offered her coworker two dollars to go up to me and slap me on the back. To preface this, I was still recovering from a bright red sunburn I had received from working hard in my garden four days before, and it was visible above the backline of my funereal sundress. Who offers someone two dollars to do something cruel to someone else, something that would clearly hurt, and because it would hurt? Not to mention the sexism that plays in -- the assumption that because I'm blonde, young and pretty, and wearing a sundress, that I would be stupid and lay out in the sun or play in the sun without sunblock, allowing myself to get badly burned, ha ha ha... (insert seething sarcasm). My first instinct was to ask the hostess where that customer was so I could go up to him (I not incorrectly assumed it was a he) and slap him on the back for free. The hostess tried to explain away the comment of the customer who had at that point left the restaurant, saying he was just trying to be funny and didn't really mean it. I told the hostess that I wish I'd gotten my sunburn from laying out on the beach having a nice vacation in Florida, but that my grandmother had passed away and there was no vacation here at all, that I received my sunburn working in my garden in New York. She immediately felt sorry and perhaps partially responsible for the customer's behavior, because she stopped trying to explain his behavior away and became rather apologetic. Rather than letting it go and instead opening myself up with the story of my grandmother, the hostess changed demeanor and in turn opened herself up for sharing of her story. She remembered losing her grandfather two years before, and spoke of her feelings for her grandfather and what that memory was like, as well as other memories. Her perspective on the situation had changed, and and the three of us (my sister, the hostess and I) made a connection in that moment, so much so that my father (who is severely hard of hearing) thought that we had known each other from some time before. Taking something really wrong and turning it around, allowing oneself to be vulnerable for a time while standing firm with what is right and true and human, gives us the opportunity to create real connection and closeness with another person -- to foster consciousness and create community. I believe that something changed for that hostess because of our interaction. It certainly made a difference for my sister and me.
So I guess my grandmother continues to help to take care of us and bring us together, and be a good person, even in her death.
Over a day and a half of spending time with and getting to know family I never got to, I learned that my cousins and I actually have a lot in common, and they're really kinda cool and my family is pretty fun (and funny). Though I may be mourning the loss of family for a period of twenty years plus, I have the opportunity now to create meaningful relationships with my aunts, my cousins, and their children.
After my grandmother's funeral and internment at Bushnell National Cemetery an hour and a half away (the wake was the evening before), my sister and I went back to the hotel to rest and print our boarding passes for the next morning. Arriving in the hotel lobby, we realized the printer was out of paper. The desk manager, a mid-aged African-American man, came over to see what we were doing with the computers, and we asked him for more paper to print our boarding passes. He brought us paper and recognized from our story--which we offered freely--that we were our father's daughters (he apparently had had conversations with our dad about the loss of his mother), and he offered his condolences. After printing our boarding passes, my sister and I noticed the complimentary happy hour beer keg offering next to us in the lobby. It seemed a sort of free-for-all; guests were approaching and pouring cups of beer for themselves, and returning two or three times over, in front of the concierge/desk manager. My sister then approached to pour herself a glass (now, my sister is six and half years older than I am, and I am nearly twenty-nine, and though we may look younger than we are, we both certainly look older than twenty), at which time the desk manager asked my sister for ID. Who brings their ID with them from their room to the lobby to print boarding passes? There was no signage near the keg saying the hotel would card anyone who looked under thirty, and my sister doesn't look under thirty in any event. No one else was being carded. So while all the other guests can freely pour themselves glass after glass of beer, my sister has to trek back to her room to get ID for a man who is participating in the perpetuation of three oppressions: adultism (agism), sexism and racism. Not to mention the fact that he left the desk and keg area for upwards of ten minutes while a child's high school graduation party was going on in a conference room twenty feet from the then unattended keg. Priorities? My sister was very upset, and I offered her the suggestion that she stand up for herself and let him know just what he did, how it affected her, and how it will affect other people. We went to the room and got our IDs, then headed back to the lobby. We waited patiently until the desk manager was free, and my sister approached the desk. She placed her ID on the desk and said to the manager, "now you know what a 35-year-old woman looks like." He tried to explain himself away, saying that he had to card anyone who looked around thirty or younger (which he had not, for any of the near-thrirty men in the lobby), and that she should take it as a compliment that she looks young. She responded that it is not a compliment, and that she would be filing a formal complaint for discrimination. It is discrimination when an unidentified rule is applied to only certain people because of the way they look. And I will have every reader know that a woman being told she looks young, particularly when she is being condescended to, is not a compliment. Nor should I be pleased when whistled at or catcalled "because he thinks [I'm] hot" (and whistling -- really? I am a human, not a dog). We women all have the ability to stand up for ourselves, and all men can take the opportunity to be conscious of events like these and end oppression in its tracks.
After my sister took her stand, we walked out of the hotel lobby and proceeded to the bar/restaurant across the street. My sister and I had been having a relatively blithe conversation at the bar, and after my father awoke from his nap at the hotel, he joined us. After a little while, one of the hostesses, a lovely Dominican woman, approached me at the bar. She told me that a customer had offered her coworker two dollars to go up to me and slap me on the back. To preface this, I was still recovering from a bright red sunburn I had received from working hard in my garden four days before, and it was visible above the backline of my funereal sundress. Who offers someone two dollars to do something cruel to someone else, something that would clearly hurt, and because it would hurt? Not to mention the sexism that plays in -- the assumption that because I'm blonde, young and pretty, and wearing a sundress, that I would be stupid and lay out in the sun or play in the sun without sunblock, allowing myself to get badly burned, ha ha ha... (insert seething sarcasm). My first instinct was to ask the hostess where that customer was so I could go up to him (I not incorrectly assumed it was a he) and slap him on the back for free. The hostess tried to explain away the comment of the customer who had at that point left the restaurant, saying he was just trying to be funny and didn't really mean it. I told the hostess that I wish I'd gotten my sunburn from laying out on the beach having a nice vacation in Florida, but that my grandmother had passed away and there was no vacation here at all, that I received my sunburn working in my garden in New York. She immediately felt sorry and perhaps partially responsible for the customer's behavior, because she stopped trying to explain his behavior away and became rather apologetic. Rather than letting it go and instead opening myself up with the story of my grandmother, the hostess changed demeanor and in turn opened herself up for sharing of her story. She remembered losing her grandfather two years before, and spoke of her feelings for her grandfather and what that memory was like, as well as other memories. Her perspective on the situation had changed, and and the three of us (my sister, the hostess and I) made a connection in that moment, so much so that my father (who is severely hard of hearing) thought that we had known each other from some time before. Taking something really wrong and turning it around, allowing oneself to be vulnerable for a time while standing firm with what is right and true and human, gives us the opportunity to create real connection and closeness with another person -- to foster consciousness and create community. I believe that something changed for that hostess because of our interaction. It certainly made a difference for my sister and me.
So I guess my grandmother continues to help to take care of us and bring us together, and be a good person, even in her death.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Prints are up on Etsy
The images you may have seen before, but the items are new. All prints are on 8.5"x11" archival museum paper, with the image centered at a size slightly smaller than 5"x7". They're ready to go in a frame, or if you want to get fancy, you could stick them behind an acid-free matte. Most are limited edition runs, but my signature piece, "When The Time Is Right" (fox and owl), is an open run. They're really quite a nice addition to any wall, mantle or buffet. Check 'em out. www.nicolettecallaway.etsy.com
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Martin the Raccoon - Study
I finished my first raccoon study for the children's story I am illustrating this year with my friend Tom. Martin may not end up being named Martin, but considering that raccoon is the protagonist of the story, I figured I may as well give him a working name.
This piece developed from raccoon's totem significance, being the master of dexterity and disguise, and what that may mean for a young one struggling to develop its own identity in the midst of developing into a transformation master. How can you know who you are if you are constantly changing yourself to look and act like something else? It's a common question with human adolescents, too, and one thing that makes the story timely.
In this illustration, raccoon has just discovered that he has disguised himself as fox, though because he doesn't yet quite understand his transformative powers, he is shocked when he sees fox staring back at him from the water. He then sees us staring at him, and he looks back, either to ask us what we know, or to tell us to go away out of embarrassment. Maybe both.
(Unfortunately, my scanner is on the small side, and has cut off the right and left edges of the piece.)
 | ||
| Did You Disguise Yourself To Hide From Yourself?, 2012 |
In this illustration, raccoon has just discovered that he has disguised himself as fox, though because he doesn't yet quite understand his transformative powers, he is shocked when he sees fox staring back at him from the water. He then sees us staring at him, and he looks back, either to ask us what we know, or to tell us to go away out of embarrassment. Maybe both.
(Unfortunately, my scanner is on the small side, and has cut off the right and left edges of the piece.)
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Artist Liberation from Artist Oppression
My downstairs neighbors started blasting club music in their living room at 1pm on a Sunday, and I decided to leave my apartment and head for a coffee shop when I realized that the floor wasn't going to stop vibrating any time soon. Obviously, I cannot cart all my art materials to a coffee shop, and in thinking about my neighbors hindering my ability to work on my art in the small amount of time I have outside of my day job, I decided to talk a little bit about Artist Oppression.
While this may be a foreign concept to many readers, it is a commonality that artists everywhere experience. It keeps us in low-paying full-time jobs so we can pay our bills and have health insurance, or keeps us in unsatisfactory living situations in order to lower rent, eating poorly for lack of proper funds, and not having health insurance so we cannot go to the doctor when we get sick, etc. We work and work and work to produce, but have few opportunities that pay us for that work. We work for free. We doubt ourselves. We are not "normal." Our profession is not "lucrative." Yet we are encouraged to "keep [our] dreams alive."
Why is this? Why are we encouraged to "keep at it" when everything we face in capitalism makes us feel undervalued, devalued and, ultimately, worthless? It is because any society without art is a dead society. People view art--visual and expressive (performing)--to view society, to get their attention out, to laugh, cry, and reevaluate what occurs within that society, how we live in our world. In this sense, artists are the world's counselors. We see things and think about the world differently. We, through our creative work, epitomize humanness. Our creativity allows us to move humanity toward full intelligence faster and more directly. We can increase the speed at which the universe advances toward meaning and freedom, and we create new important complexities within the environment. We facilitate new ways of being. In this sense, the presence of the artist in the world is vital.
My experience is that of every person I speak with about my art exhibiting some sort of distress pattern. Sometimes I am lucky enough to have a person take a real interest in my artwork and what I am conveying with it. Even then they cannot bring themselves to purchase an original piece of art. When I say a piece of work costs $500, most people balk. My question is this: how much do you pay your mechanic to work on your car? $65-95/hr? How much do you pay your masseuse? Similarly? How about your plumber, your electrician, your therapist, your doctor? An artist is no less specialized in their profession, so why should they be paid less? At $500, a piece of art that I spend 10 hours on ends up paying me $50/hr. That does not account for the cost of framing or materials. What if that piece of art cost me 50 hours of time? I'm then making less than $10/hr, all added up. Heinous is not too strong a word to use here. Most people do not think in this way. They require that someone else endorse the work -- an agent, a gallery, a publisher, etc. These things do not increase the value of the work. The work is inherently valuable.
Of course, then we get into the discussion of bad art/good art. What is good art? What is bad art? Certainly there are techniques and studying that goes into creating work. But I suppose my answer is this: an artist who is aware of the world and how she functions in it, how she connects with it and other humans, and fights toward full intelligence and sustainability through her art, is an artist who will produce "good" art. Does this play into artist oppression? Maybe so. But this discussion is at least a gesture toward movement out of it.
While this may be a foreign concept to many readers, it is a commonality that artists everywhere experience. It keeps us in low-paying full-time jobs so we can pay our bills and have health insurance, or keeps us in unsatisfactory living situations in order to lower rent, eating poorly for lack of proper funds, and not having health insurance so we cannot go to the doctor when we get sick, etc. We work and work and work to produce, but have few opportunities that pay us for that work. We work for free. We doubt ourselves. We are not "normal." Our profession is not "lucrative." Yet we are encouraged to "keep [our] dreams alive."
Why is this? Why are we encouraged to "keep at it" when everything we face in capitalism makes us feel undervalued, devalued and, ultimately, worthless? It is because any society without art is a dead society. People view art--visual and expressive (performing)--to view society, to get their attention out, to laugh, cry, and reevaluate what occurs within that society, how we live in our world. In this sense, artists are the world's counselors. We see things and think about the world differently. We, through our creative work, epitomize humanness. Our creativity allows us to move humanity toward full intelligence faster and more directly. We can increase the speed at which the universe advances toward meaning and freedom, and we create new important complexities within the environment. We facilitate new ways of being. In this sense, the presence of the artist in the world is vital.
My experience is that of every person I speak with about my art exhibiting some sort of distress pattern. Sometimes I am lucky enough to have a person take a real interest in my artwork and what I am conveying with it. Even then they cannot bring themselves to purchase an original piece of art. When I say a piece of work costs $500, most people balk. My question is this: how much do you pay your mechanic to work on your car? $65-95/hr? How much do you pay your masseuse? Similarly? How about your plumber, your electrician, your therapist, your doctor? An artist is no less specialized in their profession, so why should they be paid less? At $500, a piece of art that I spend 10 hours on ends up paying me $50/hr. That does not account for the cost of framing or materials. What if that piece of art cost me 50 hours of time? I'm then making less than $10/hr, all added up. Heinous is not too strong a word to use here. Most people do not think in this way. They require that someone else endorse the work -- an agent, a gallery, a publisher, etc. These things do not increase the value of the work. The work is inherently valuable.
Of course, then we get into the discussion of bad art/good art. What is good art? What is bad art? Certainly there are techniques and studying that goes into creating work. But I suppose my answer is this: an artist who is aware of the world and how she functions in it, how she connects with it and other humans, and fights toward full intelligence and sustainability through her art, is an artist who will produce "good" art. Does this play into artist oppression? Maybe so. But this discussion is at least a gesture toward movement out of it.
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