Beginning of June Check-in
Happy June everyone! It’s been a busy two weeks since my last update with family visiting and a lot of projects underway. It’s continuing to be quite busy, so I’m just going to jump right into what I’ve been working on.
What I’m working on:
Last Friday, I dropped off 10 of my paintings at the Sunnyvale Senior Center as part of The City of Sunnyvale’s Exhibition of art in Public Places. I’m excited to have my work showing in new places and it’ll be on display until July 10th.
This upcoming Saturday, I’ll be painting a live mural with Together We Create 408 as part of the Viva Calle San Jose event. It’ll be the first time I’m painting a mural of my own design and the first time I’ll be painting live, so I’m both excited and nervous. I’m to paint an 8’x8’ mural within about 5 hours and I’ll have some help. I’ve just finished sketching out my design and had some help with coming up with a plan of how I break up the painting. I’ll be purchasing paint and supplies in the next few days, so hopefully I’ll be ready.
I’m also still preparing for my ArtBox project with the City of San Jose to paint a pair of utility boxes. We have hit a bit of a snag with confirmation of payment, which includes a deposit for me to be able to purchase supplies, so I haven’t been able to move forward with buying the paint and additional supplies that I’ll need for the project. I’m hoping we’re able to work through this quickly, since the project needs to be completed by June 30th. I’ve already scheduled out a few days for me to work on this project, but I won’t be able to get started until this issue is sorted out.
I’m working on the fifth seashell painting in the ‘Ocean Arrangements’ series of paintings. The painting process has become pretty swift with all of the practice I’ve been able to do with the previous four paintings. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to finish this painting given all of the mural work I’ll be doing soon, but it is likely that I’ll be able to finish it by the end of this month.
I’ve also been preparing and organizing some more in-person events. I’ve been working with some business close to my studio to revitalize the area, so every second Saturday of the month, I’ll be opening my studio, along with other artists, for people to visit and see our studio space and artwork.
Outside of my personal arts practice, I’ve been really busy with volunteering with genARTS, the volunteer organization based in Santa Clara that supports local emerging artists. I’ve stepped up as Vice Chair of the organization in addition to curating this year’s Experimental Exhibition. I’ve been doing a lot of work to help restructure our organization and secure funding for our programming in the background while also tabling each first Friday of the month in Downtown San Jose alongside the museums on 1st Street. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s been a great way for me to engage with my local arts community.
Outings:
I’ve had family visiting me for the last few days and we’ve been doing a little bit of traveling and site-seeing. We went down to Point Lobos, one of my favorite places, to do some tidepooling and hiking. We were able to see seals and otters, which was really nice! We also took a day to go up to SF and visited the SFMOMA, which I haven’t had the chance to visit since moving here. I have visited before the pandemic during a trip out to SF before I had lived here.
In a week in a half, I’ll be taking a long weekend trip up to Lake Tahoe. We also haven’t visited Lake Tahoe since moving here. I’m hoping to use that time to completely unplug, because I haven’t been able to do that for a while, even though I had planned to this week while I have people visiting. There’s just been a lot of things happening at the same time, so I’ve had to do a lot of administrative and planning work even though I haven’t been in the studio.
I think that’s it for my update. There are quite a few things on my mind, but hopefully things will clear up and move forward over the next few weeks and I’ll be able to take some time off during my trip to Tahoe. I hope you all are doing well!
