Cedar Lee October 4th, 2009

Okay–so, I’m not so great at this not-working thing.

I’ve just spent many hours re-designing the gallery page of my website to more clearly represent my current focus.

Check it out!  ArtByCedar.com/gallery

I’ve got more updates to my site in mind, but it’s currently after 4 am, so I’m calling it a night.

Two of my favorite paintings have just sold, Fiery Sky and Awakening.  I am actually quite sad about this because I had priced them too low and I’ll never see them again.  Fiery Sky was my absolute favorite painting.  A few days after sending it to the gallery, and it’s gone.  But I know in my heart of hearts that I’d rather all my work be out in the world being seen and enjoyed by others.  Sending them out there makes room for the new work to come in.

Fiery Sky

Awakening

I’ll have a lot to do when I get back to painting full time.

Alright–maternity leaves officially starts………..NOW!

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Cedar Lee June 12th, 2009

There’s nothing like the impending birth of a child to bring sharp and instant clarity to which tasks need to be prioritized.  Obviously, the things directly related to the coming baby and its needs are moved to the top of the list.  But even after that stuff is taken care of, there are all kinds of other plans to be made.

Being self-employed means I’ve got to give myself maternity leave if I want any.  So, I’ve talked to the owners of the 3 galleries that sell my paintings, and I’ve made a list of all the new art I need to make for them between now and October so they’ll all be well-stocked for several months after the birth of my baby.

I’m so glad to be able to make this flexible arrangement.  But I need to make a lot of paintings, and I need to get cracking now.  I’m afraid I’ll fall short, but I’m determined to keep my cool.  A motivating quote I came across today: “Feel the fear, and do it anyway.”

So next up on my list of art projects is to make a small Looking Up painting to replace one that just sold, followed by a large number of beautiful Lotus paintings, which everyone wants because they always sell out.  Stay tuned!

In other news, I have a couple of deliciously ripe mangoes calling from my kitchen, and today I’m going to make a mango lassi, a sweet and refreshing Indian treat made by blending the following in a blender:

• 1 cup yogurt
• 1 cup mango, cubed
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tsp. sugar

Mmmm!

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Cedar Lee May 4th, 2009

The 9 sunflower paintings I’ve been working on for weeks are finally finished!  They look beautiful.  I’m just waiting for the paint to fully dry before I can ship them to the gallery.

I’m also waiting for a sunny enough day to get good photographs of the finished paintings.  It has been raining constantly and dark outside all this past week.  The sun is supposed to come out for a bit tomorrow, so you can expect to see photos very soon!

I was telling a friend that out of the 17 paintings I’ve made for my Sunflower series in the past 10 months, all of them have sold, and that’s partly why I’m making 9 more.  It’s rare for 100% of a series to sell out so quickly like that.  So I’m excited that there’s a demand for them, because I really enjoy painting them.

At the same time I’m eager to paint some more trees. 

I haven’t worked on my garden all week because I’m not keen on getting covered in rain and mud.  I can’t wait for the sun to come out so I can get out there again.  Our grass seems to have grown a foot in the past 4 days, but it’s been too wet to mow.

Later this month two of my siblings will be visiting, and I’m waiting for that with great anticipation.

I’ve been making an effort to tweet on Twitter pretty consistently–I try to update at least once a day.  So if you’ve recently jumped on the Twitter bandwagon or have been there for awhile but haven’t connected with me yet: http://twitter.com/ArtByCedar

• Art Career Happenings , Social Networking
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Cedar Lee January 15th, 2009

I’ve finally finished a huge project I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks–3 new paintings for my Lotus art series.  Unlike the others in the series, these are much larger paintings.

They are all oil on canvas, 30″ x 30″

Lotus X

Lotus XI

Lotus XII

This picture of me with Lotus XI shows the large scale of the artwork:

If you have a very large wall (8-9 feet of uninterrupted space) you can hang them all in a row, like this:

But these pieces are each visually striking on their own, and can be hung on any wall by themselves.

Today I received a Thai massage from a friend of mine who is a massage therapist.  Thai massage is different from the Swedish massage I’m used to.  She pulled my arms and legs into various gentle stretches, and even walked on my back!  It was just what I needed, and left me feeling relaxed and stress-free.  I highly recommend it!

All next week, I’ll be taking part in an online event for professional artists called the smARTist Telesummit.  It’s similar to any convention for professionals in a field, but instead of being held in a convention center, it’s held online.  A panel of experts will communicate with the artists via web-casts, very large conference calls, and downloadable documents and audio recordings.  The experts know things about art law & taxes, corporate art, social media,  entrepreneurial marketing, portfolio presentation, cultivating business relationships, etc.

I’ll probably learn some new things, and even if not, I’m sure to be inspired towards greater action, and to meet some interesting people!

• Art Career Happenings , New Works: Petals
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Cedar Lee September 9th, 2008

This month I have a small art show on display at the Irvine Nature Center.

Irvine Nature Center is the only private, non-profit nature center in the region, and has a reputation for providing impactful, high-quality environmental education programs for Baltimore-area schools and the public.  The Center has a museum, a nature store, and a walking trail.

From Irvine’s website: “It is only because of the generosity of many forward thinking and environmentally minded people that we are able to offer our programs at low to no cost to participating schools in the Baltimore region.”

If you would like to support this organization as well as me and my work, 20% of the proceeds of any artwork you purchase from the show this month will go towards Irvine Nature Center and all the good things they are doing.

I am the first artist to display my work in their brand new facility in Owings Mills, MD.  The official opening of the new facility is this weekend, and all are invited to attend.  If you live in the area, go check it out!

WEEKEND FESTIVAL
Saturday, September 13
10 am – 4 pm
Sunday, September 14
noon – 4 pm
On Saturday and Sunday, bring the whole family for two days of free festivities and fun. Experience our new interactive exhibit hall; catch a puppet show; try your hand at traditional Native American games; meet our resident animals; take a guided nature walk; or head over to the main stage to sing and dance with award-winning musical acts. And don’t forget the food! Local and organic treats will abound, prepared by vendors who respect Irvine’s zero-waste goals. With so much more to explore, why would you ever want to leave?
Free and open to the public!

Irvine Nature Center is located at: 11201 Garrison Forest Road, Owings Mills, MD  21117

Other news:

My dog Clara is doing much better!  Thank you so much for all of your caring and compassionate letters when she was so sick.  Click here to read an update on her health.

I am happy to report that Clara has also gotten a new baby brother.  He is 8 weeks old, half lab and half springer spaniel.  His name is Blake Fanghoff and his antics are hilarious.

This past week has been spent chasing this little guy around, making sure he doesn’t eat houseplants or tubes of paint, and working on potty-training, which involves taking him outside at all hours of the day and night until he’s big enough to hold it for longer.  It is an exercise in patience and devotion.  The repetitious, often frustrating task of raising a puppy is so rewarding in the long run.  Every day I am a little bit more enamored of him (which is saying a lot, since for me, it was love at first sight the day we adopted him.)

My life is so good lately.

Many of my paintings have sold this summer–both to new and repeat collectors.  I am so grateful for this steady income that has been allowing me to pay the bills and to continue making my art.  My work is selling in galleries.  People are finding my website.  People are asking about commissions.  Sometimes I can’t believe that I am really making this happen–my “art career.”  But I’m doing it!

All this and I’ve hardly been in the studio since mid-July.  There have been many adventures.

I attended Sugar Hill 2008, my first contra dance weekend, with one of my oldest friends and also lots of new friends, all of whom are thoroughly charming.  The whole thing was marvelous beyond all expectations.  It included canoeing and swimming all day, delicious food, and dancing all night–literally all night.  I danced till 4:30 am.

I went to Cincinnati and visited several art galleries.  There’s one that I really like there, and my art would totally fit in, but I can’t even think about taking on another gallery until I make enough new art to keep up with the galleries that already represent me.  But it’s a good possibility to keep in mind for the future.

Then, I went white water rafting in the New River Gorge, which I did last year and just had to do again.  This time we opted for the “High Adventure” option, and I fell out of the raft several times, which was very exciting.  We even capsized completely, twice.  (Only once on purpose.)

I’ve ordered my copy of my 2009 Calendar, and I can’t wait to see it.  A friend of mine wants to sell them in the pet supply store where he works!

And, I have several new paintings done that you’ll see as soon as they’re photographed.  And, I’m working on building several large canvases–the plans for several spectacular large paintings are currently percolating in my mind.

• Art Career Happenings , Fun With Friends , Pets
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Cedar Lee July 8th, 2008

My new painting shows the rising sun burning away the darkness of night.  It embodies the concept of balance in the universe–yin and yang.  Sun and moon, day and night, heaven and earth, fire and water, hot and cold.  For fun, I have included the constellation Orion, (can you find it?) and a shooting star.

I painted the sun and moon in such a way that they could be allegorical characters, so looking at their interaction may conjure thoughts of epic myths and creation stories.  The swirling colors bring to mind the incredible photos of galaxies and nebulae taken from satellites in outer space.  Whatever you may take from it, it is an inspiring image.

Because this painting implies the enormity of the cosmos, and is full of dynamic motion, it is titled “Cosmic Dance.”

Acrylic 36″ x 42″

What it looks like in a room:

Details:

The psychedelic qualities of this painting made me recall a poem I wrote when I was 16, called “Psycho Sunrise.” Despite its obviously being written by a 16-year-old, its descriptions are vivid.  Click here to read it.

In other news, my painting “October Hawks” is currently on display at the HoCo Open 2008 show at the Howard County Center for the Arts.  The reception for the show is from 6-8 pm on July 22.  Unfortunately, I’ll be out of town on that day, so I won’t be there.  But if you live in the area, stop by and check it out–the show includes 100 pieces of art done by local artists.  (And, by the way, as the gallery installer for the Arts Center, I am the person who hung all 100 paintings.)

The exhibit will be up until August 17th.  The address: 8510 High Ridge Road, Ellicott City, MD 21043

The next month and a half are going to be crazy for me.  My husband and I, between the two of us, have six trips planned this summer.  The shenanigans include two family reunions, house-sitting in NC, visiting friends and scouting out galleries in Ohio, contra dancing in Indiana, and white water rafting in West Virginia.  Kevan will also be going on a road trip with his cousins.

So if I appear to drop off the face of the earth for a little while, that’s why.

• Art Career Happenings , New Works: Cosmic Dance
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Cedar Lee June 2nd, 2008

I just got an order for 7 paintings from a woman in Utah who will be opening an art gallery in the fall. In the past year, and in particular the past several months, I have been blessed with sales of my artwork. The most extraordinary thing about all my recent sales is that almost all of them were made by people coming to me–finding me, through word of mouth, through referrals from my collectors, and through the Internet. I don’t have an explanation for this snowball effect–I feel like I really haven’t done much to deserve it.

I keep an Excel file with information about every painting I do, whether or not they are sold and who bought them. Some of the buyers are anonymous mystery collectors–customers of my galleries that never had any personal contact with me. But I have the names of a lot of my collectors too. I’ve only been keeping good records like this for the past 2 and a half years, and regretfully, I never kept any information about paintings I sold before then, or who they went to.

In the past 2 and a half years, though, 41 people (or households, I should say–some are couples or families) have become collectors of my art. 12 of these collectors own more than one of my paintings. I know that some of my paintings have been purchased as gifts for other people. I have also given my art as gifts to many of my family and closest friends. So, I have no idea of the actual number of people in possession of my art, but it’s a lot more than 41.

In the past 12 months, I have sold more than double my sales from the previous 12 months.

If this trend continues in my career, I see my dreams coming true. I will be a success story in a typically brutal and thankless industry. For this, I feel more grateful than words can express.

The moral of the story: if you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to buy a painting from me, do it now while I am still relatively unknown to the public and while my prices are still low. I tell my collectors that art is always a good investment, because they’re getting something they can enjoy every day of their life forever, even if its value never goes up. My art is a good investment for this reason, and also because its value will go up. I am too tenacious for it not to.

I grow my garden with the same tenacity that keeps my art career going, and like my art career, it is now more bountiful than ever before. One of my first harvests of the year: sweet strawberries and crisp white icicle radishes:

More bounty–mulberries from a tree my husband and I found in a local park while walking our dog. The tree was bursting with ripe ones, so we took some!

I’ll have new paintings to show you soon!

• Art Career Happenings , Garden
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Cedar Lee April 12th, 2008

Sorry for the lack of updates–glorious spring is finally here and I’ve been spending more time outside than at my computer. Everything seems to be picking up speed.

My husband and I are working on our garden this weekend. One of my very best friends, Katrina, volunteers at a local horse farm teaching kids to ride once a week. Through her connections, I have scored a free, unlimited source of rich, already composted horse manure, the stuff I call “black gold,” for use in fertilizing my garden. Yesterday we procured 7 giant garbage bags of the stuff, and I have plans to go back for more.

Words can barely describe how giddy I was when I saw this mountain of manure at the horse farm. Ranging from colors of burnt sienna to a near-black charcoal, it is literally as tall as a 2-story building, and free for the taking. With the help of this beautiful addition to my soil, I am confident that I will grow the monster-sized veggies of my dreams this summer.

And, lacking the sheer awe of a 2-story-building-sized heap of composted horse manure, but probably of more interest to you, here’s the thing this post was supposed to be about:

Last night I attended Maryland Art Place’s “Out of Order” art show and silent auction, where I hung my painting “Glowing Water.” This is the third time I’ve taken part in this annual event, and it was fun! I met a lot of other artists.

Here’s me next to my painting:

As you can see, the place was packed:

And there was a lot of excellent art:

And I received many compliments on my work.

I’ll have new paintings to show you in my next update–for now, I’m off to dig in the garden!

• Art Career Happenings , Garden
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Cedar Lee June 27th, 2007

• Art Career Happenings
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Cedar Lee June 10th, 2007

I’ve finally taken some photos of our new kitchen to share with you. Sorry it’s taken me so long!

The last 5 pictures on the Kitchen Progress page (you’ll have to scroll down) show the finished kitchen:

Click here!

I wish I had taken “before” pictures of what our old kitchen looked like, so you could see what a drastic improvement this is…but alas, I didn’t start recording this project till after we had done all the demolition.

I did find one picture while looking through my photo archives. It’s a picture of me on Halloween a few years back (check it out, I’m dressed as a Bic ballpoint pen!) and you can kind of see the old kitchen in the background…a busy patterned brown and yellow linoleum floor, small tiles on the walls (note, in yet a different, non-matching shade of brown), dark brown appliances (you can see a piece of the stove on the right), a marble-looking countertop, which had yellow and…seriously, pink blotches in it, which you can’t really see in this photo, and very dark cabinets. Also, the lighting was a huge square fixture on the ceiling with fluorescent tubes in it…it was a very dingy atmosphere. And inside some of the cabinets and in the pantry, you could see the walls that were still painted Pepto-Bismol-pink by a former occupant with extremely bad taste.

Even worse than these aesthetic horrors, the old kitchen was terribly inefficient. The old pantry had a wall in front of it with a very narrow doorway in it, so that the shelves were very inaccessible. There was tons of wasted space, unusable corners, etc. The new design is open and spacious while still giving us almost twice the storage space as before and more than twice the usable counter space.

In the short time we’ve had our kitchen finished, we have gotten so much enjoyment out of it. It’s now a bright, sunny room with a place for everything and everything in its place. I love the new counters…an elegant, deep blue, our new modern light fixtures with aim-able spotlights, and I love how the tiling pulls everything together.

Of course, 15 years from now, a young couple will move into our house and disdainfully rip everything out of the kitchen and start over, ranting about the previous generation’s horrifically tasteless design choices.

In art-related news, I have another solo show coming up! I will be displaying paintings, some old, some new, at the Mayorga Coffee Factory in Silver Spring, MD for the entire month of July. If you are in the DC/Baltimore area, I’d love to see you at the opening. More details to come.

• Art Career Happenings , Home Improvement
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