Tales from the Scratch Pad: A year in REVIEW 2016

Hey there sports fans, Al here with the latest:

As the year has rolled over and it is a time to look back at the previous year of what was good bad and bad and hopefully being a little wiser, like any of my reviews of comic book shows and gallery shows it's time to REVIEW 2016!

Namely things have been a little quiet as far as the art SCENE has been concerned.

I don't think that there is one person out there that hasn't felt that 2016 has been a good year regardless of your politics, dealing with the crazy weather that we will all have to live with from here on out to the major celebrity die off that we have had.

All of the factors have had a roll in the art scene whether it has been for a show or event. When the buying public is uneasy about something they don't buy art.

It's just the way it is.

The beginning of the year started off really cool. Having a great solo show opening at the Slingshot Lounge was awesome and selling one piece to a couple that had one of my pieces from two years earlier.

The cool thing about this other than the sale which is always cool in my book, was the fact these people hit me up for a commission in the space vain.

Now had kinda avoided doing Space Stuff for one reason - detail.

Detail is hard to do especially with scratchboard and making it good and functional. I had to research the crap out of space movies and watch them over and over again. I think I could almost quote "Interstellar" by heart. My girlfriend was getting a little tired of me re watching it.

But after that there was a dead zone of almost six months where there was nothing going on no art no nothing. Cept getting my driver's license.

And that was a big deal for me!

Then as the year began wind down from the Presidential Election things began to heat up again in the field of art but with a noticeable difference. There seems to be a listlessness to the work and the feeling from the artists who are producing the work.

This bothered me but I hadn't at that time figured out what I was seeing and sensing. I couldn’t put my finger on it but after confirming with other artist I knew that when it hit me that there was NO HEART to the work.

Technically all the work that was out there was pitch perfect, color composition, but there was just something missing.

When I traveled down with Dan and George to the EUCON 2016 show there was a subtitle feeling of apprehension but there was many different artist there hocking their wears but there was something.

But at that show for me, pieces that I had produced for the DIVE IN Art Show at NWIPA caught the eye of a lady passing by and it turned into one of those great turning points for the show for me and it fed upon itself the as well. I was purely just bring a finished piece with me to show case this is what a finished piece looks like. Prints are good but seeing a actual original piece of work has a special kind of glow to it.

And though the show was not a huge success for some I did pretty well. I was getting closer to that point of where I could actually be not only breaking even on the show but almost making a profit from the work.

But I didn’t have the time to really think about that show because I had two other shows to do.

One was prepping my work for the BIG 500 and trying something new with it by digitally coloring the work and the other helping my girlfriend with her booth for a 3 day event here in Portland called the Crafty Wonderland Show.

It wasn’t till the BIG 500 this last year that I realized there was no heart to the work.

I had seen this thing before in the comic book guild I had ran decades ago in Eugene but now I was seeing it on a massive scale in Portland from a lot of great artist I personally knew.

In the Guild I had talked to the comic book illustrators about “feeling good about your work”.

People can see when you are not feeling it. They might not know what it is but there is something off about of the work- even if it is technically correct, there is something off about it.

When the art producing public is worried about the State of the Nation and the buying public is looking for that escape from reality and not finding it you know it could be a bad year for both because both groups are suffering from the same emotional turmoil.

Of course for me, I had managed to produce a decent amount of black and white work that I really poured my heart into and colored them and surprise they all sold!

By the end of the year riding high from the BIG 500 sale of ALL my pieces (which by the way has never happened to me before.) I ended up with a commission for doing a classic Captain America piece.

Now I prep myself for a new year, a new job after leave and old one for nearly 16 years. I think that this year as I near my half century mark that this could be a major turning point in my life and pursuit of art.

Now I just have to make some new stuff!

Time for this kid to check out

And as always there are places for you to check out as well.
Etsy

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Storenvy