The real news

On to the exciting things that have been happening in art-life!

The beginning of May, Evan and I had a joint opening at SOVA on H street, in DC. We called it "Third knock on the door". The theme was folklore and storytelling.
A close and talented friend of ours had had her own show there earlier this year, and we met the owner through her. It's a great place to show. The owner is a great guy, the venue gets a lot of traffic, and is overall a varied and interesting looking space.
Artists reading this: SOVA's always looking for new blood. Try contacting them, get some art up! It was an amazing opening, one I hope to replicate in the future.

The show's still up, and probably will be for a few weeks yet.


Illustration:
'Firebird with cherries'
8"x10" Watercolour and sepia ink
May 2010

I should've known this would happen

Another long blogging drought, precipitated in part by this little trouble-maker:

Yup, that's Cinnamonopteryx, that kitten I was talking about in the last post. He's been taking up a lot of time and attention, in part due to the "Awww, I want to play with him!" factor, and also in part due to the "I've never owned a pet mammal before and I had no idea how much more work they are than snakes and birds". He's adorable, he's tenacious, he's friendly and cuddly and purrs like mad when you get close to him. He's also struck up a friendly rivalry with our roommate's cat This causes him to tear about the house at odd times in the morning, poop in our roommate's litter box, and tackle our roommate's cat with vigor.
This last is more hilarious than annoying, really, considering that Shadow weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 pounds, and Cinnamon was last weighed at 7 1/2.

Employment

So I have a job again. A seasonal position as a bookseller for Borders, which is obviously not ideal, but certainly better than nothing. After Office Depot, I had forsworn ever working retail again... though tough times obviously call for doing things you'd rather not. 
But at least it's a book store, and so far everyone I've met there has been really nice (and in some cases, quite pleasingly zany :) ). Being out of Reston and dealing in products rather than services, I think this is going to end up being 50x less stressful than OD was, as well. Despite this being the holiday season. Let's hope time proves me right.
The other advantage of this job is that it dovetails really nicely with my biannual graphic design contract, which happens every early spring and late summer. If they like me well enough at Borders, perhaps I can keep swinging back and forth between the two jobs (working summer and holiday seasonal) until something more permanent comes along. Sure, Borders only pays about 1/3 of what ASET does... but it's more than 0, and admittedly the majority of my entertainment spending goes towards books anyhow. Getting a consistent 33% off of those purchases will be amazing.

In the meantime, I keep drawing and writing. Submitting to magazines and contests. Further successes will, of course, be reported here. :)

In regards to actually getting to work.

So my lovely mate, E, has been in LA for the past week.  He was there attending the workshops and award ceremony attendant upon winning one of the quarterly Illustrators of the Future contests.  Incredibly impressive.  If you want to go rush over and take a look at his work right now, having heard that, it's here.  Go over.  Spend some time.  I post his DeviantArt rather than his website, because he updates it more often.  (Mine own, more neglected, is here).
So I've gotten up off my own butt, and I'm getting back to work on the art that I've been ignoring, due to demanding-contract-dayjob.  I admit to bouts of self-doubt and criticism of late.  There are a few things that are difficult in a relationship between two creative people in the same field, and being torn between extreme pride in your mate and jealousy/self-doubt is one of them.  That, and some people will come at you with the preconceived notion that in a creative couple, one of you must be inherently "better" than the other.  More about that in another post.
Anyhow, I've been spurred to work on my artwork, more vehemently.  Also to pick up my writing again.  After the six books of mini short stories I wrote for my BFA thesis, I took a rather substantial break from writing.  Partly because I didn't know how to surmount the main (and very legitimate) criticism that occurred during my thesis critique: that I have difficulty ending a story.  Or at least, coming to any kind of conclusion.
So this is my goal.  I have several short stories in the works at the moment, and for practice I'm going to try writing flash fiction.  Just to practice better how to bring a story from a begining to a thoughftul conclusion.  The stories will probably begin showing up on here. 
And of course I will be submitting to Illustrators & Writers of the Future as well.  E says he had a smashing time at the workshops, and heartily recommends attendance.  By which he means getting off one's ass, and getting the courage up to submit to this thing.  Now. Because it honestly cannot hurt (except one's confidence).