new work

A new piece called "Smoke and Mirrors"

Available through www.strangerfactory.com

HOLIDAY ART SALE

Welcome to my holiday art sale! Here is a little piece, just one of many available! Hope you can find the time to check it out! Have a wonderful holiday season!

www.wix.com/archerartworks/holiday-sale

since the show....for halloween and london

Here's some in progress, finished, studies, etc.....been drawing more than anything.

for bewitched, annual vintage halloween show at stranger factory

Only in New Mexico

WHAT YOU REMEMBER

First for London, finished.

AAF LONDON

Well the fair is coming up....I will be sending in two or three pieces to Fine Grime Gallery in Bath, who is representing me at the London AAF. Wonderful gallery, wonderful artists. I'm really lucky.

In progress for London

PREVIEW LIST

If you want a look at the work before the show opens, here's your chance!

http://strangerfactory.com/exhibitions-view/20/sfanima2011

SHOW OPENING

ANIMA
Stranger Factory Gallery, Albuquerque NM
Opening night party September 2, 6 - 9 pm

Show runs through Oct 2

Latest piece

Latest piece for "Anima" next month....called "Keeping Up Appearances"

from a drawing to a painting....just cool to look at :)

kind of draggin....

Three full paintings and two drawings in two weeks....man I'm exhausted....here's the second drawing, called "One Died".

newest piece....

called "Death's Head Sideshow"

another day.... more $$$$

I had to buy a bunch of supplies I couldn't afford a few weeks ago but I'm having so much fun with them it's almost paid off!!!
Drawing is the best, and no one can tell me otherwise.

Here's some little ones I did quickly for the show coming up in September.

ANIMA show for September

Well two solo shows in less than one year has got to be some kind of record, and I'm really glad Casey and I are going to be taking a trip together afterward because I'm going to need it. Here's some recent pieces.

new techniques

I talked to Brandt and Kathie and both suggested a new technique that would make my work really work well. I've been attempting it and it requires a lot of patience but it seems to be paying off in jewel like colors, color unity, and compositional harmony.

Here's a few examples...in progress and finished.

work to do

group show opening at Stranger Factory tonight along with Camilla d'Errico, Glenn Barr, Kathie Olivas, Brandt Peters, Doktor A, Chris Ryniak, others....getting ready for another solo in September at Stranger Factory Gallery,  almost completely sold out in NY, group show in San Francisco, more to LA, and interest from England....better get my little rear end in gear...

I Can't Protect You From Everything

finished painting, and details

selling......

Well I suppose it's a good issue to have sold almost as many works as I've made....I started painting last August and made 13 paintings for my show in March this year. So far I've got 4 physically left, but all spoken for and hanging in galleries. My newest piece, #14, is already in another gallery.
It's a good problem to have, I'll just never have a huge inventory to fall back on.
I guess it'll make me work that much harder, right?
Oh well :)
Back to work.

the ups and downs of the business

Well I had to have it out with the owner of my gallery this last weekend....and just from her opening lines I could tell she wanted me to feel guilty that I was questioning her methods at all. But I've learned a lot about how professional galleries should operate from Kathie and Brandt and she's doing some shady things, including claiming exclusive rights to my work and not reciprocating, as an exclusive agreement with an artist goes. If a gallery has an exclusive agreement they also give the artist stipends, advances on sales, pay for framing, etc., while claiming a certain number of works per month, an exclusive solo show, etc.
Well she wants first pick of all new work, website sales rights, etc., and doesn't help with my costs.
Sooooooooo we had a talk.
The "contract" I signed with her also doesn't have any sort of time limit on it. Which is also weird.
So I think she's going to be more careful with me now, hopefully, like pay me on time and not claim fifty percent on sales through my own website - which I pay for and keep up myself.
Should be common sense, you would think, but her claim on fifty percent stretches to crazy limits and I had to really lay it out for her - especially since her "contract" is so ridiculously vague.
Ah, the how the wheels of a singularly businesswoman's mind turn......

the world is crazy

I used to believe in coincidences, but something has happened that makes me rethink the whole destiny thing....
Kathie Olivas and Brandt Peters are amazingly well known artists and they have a huge online forum and artist community called Circus Posterus, with hundreds of thousands of followers and they promote giclees, toys, original works, etc., and their sales sell out literally in seconds.
They are finally opening a gallery/store and just happened to open it in Nob Hill, Albuquerque. I guess this is where Kathie grew up.
I saw the gallery a few weeks before it opened and noticed the Circus Posterus title and the incredibly famous artists whose work was displayed in the window. Travis Louie, Kathie Olivas, Brandt Peters, Gary Baseman, Glenn Barr and others. You have to understand that in the pop surrealism, vinyl toy, newbrow art world these people are major players.
I was stoked that the gallery was opening here because there's nothing like the work I do here. I wasn't thinking of getting into the gallery because the artists are so out of my league.
But my mom hands my business cards out to everyone. And it just so happens that a lady that works with my mom received one, noticed that the work was similar to the new gallery.
It turns out she is best friends with Kathie Olivas' mother, and they were having a birthday party for Brandt Peters and the woman just handed Kathie my business card.
Usually, Kathie told me, she just throws them away.
But she liked it enough to go to my website and gave the woman my card to give to me, with instructions to have me call her.
Well, the rest just happened....I met her, saw the space, brought her pieces....and BAM! I've joined one of the largest pop surrealist artist forums and retailers in the world, with connections and contacts that I would never have dreamed of making.
Coincidence....?

here it is.......i'm not quite happy with it but what'r you gonna do?

Kind of frustrated....

Well I finished my next piece and the problem is I know it could have been great but for some reason it's not.....I must have made some bad decisions along the way but I can't see them. Most of the time when I make a bad decision I can either see it right away or right after the painting is finished, like "I should have done that instead of this...", etc.
But I can't see it in this one - it had so much potential but I'm not quite sure where it was lost or how it lost its energy.
Maybe I'll see it later, coming back to it. I'll post a picture of it later today.

Great news!!!

Since my site's been completed I've been sending it out to galleries and such as a submission. I've heard back from a few, and am now represented by the Hive Gallery in LA and made the first cut to the editors for Hi Fructose magazine!!
Wish me luck....I'm going to paint a lot today because it needs to be done, especially since I might have something going on with the Hive.
Great news, great day.

after the show...after the website...on to the exhibition entries!

After a highly stressful website experience, I ended up finishing it and publishing it on my own! Well, I think it looks good, so now I can actually try to get into other galleries. Mostly they take URL's anymore; not many people do good old fashioned CD submissions anymore.

The show was a great success! Sold a lot of pieces, and my gallery director is taking several to the Affordable Art Fair in New York City - a great venue for NY galleries to pick up new artists. She is extremely excited, she thinks my work will do well there. I hope so!

I'll post my last few paintings, and perhaps a few in progress pictures. Wish me luck! Hopefully I'll get some painting done today! My husband and I are leaving for LA tomorrow, both to make gallery contacts and to go see Camille Rose Garcia's solo show. Man am I looking forward to it....

getting ready for the show

Well I'm almost done with my paintings. I've painted 13 new ones - tons and tons of work for six months. I'm tired. But it's almost over. Show is called "In the Attic." Check it out at Matrix Fine Art.

New Pieces

you can't really see how bright the colors are but this is my newest piece.....called Escape Plan

working....working.....working

My very wonderful Aunt died a few days ago from cancer. I'm having a lot of trouble with my brain space. I'm trying to work, I'm trying really hard, but what's coming out isn't very good. It's frustrating because I know why, but there's nothing I can do about it but just get past it.  I'm trying to do that by working. See what a horrible cycle it is?
Wish me luck over the next few weeks. I need to get these paintings done.

why are people so mean?

So this guy convinced me I needed a new site, which actually wasn't that hard for him to convince me because looking at all the professional sites out there I knew I needed a serious overhaul. But now he says because I don't have the time (I told him I have a show coming up and couldn't commit tons of time to him, and he said that wouldn't be a problem) he can't work with me. Sooooooo now I have a site that's not even in service and have to find someone else that would also charge me about three times what he was going to. Or at least so he says.
Why is this online networking such a pain in the ass? I guess you invite people to walk all over you when you are not only ignorant of such things but trusting as well.
Maybe I was asking for it. I don't know.
We'll see.

.........(sigh)..................

Well i'm supposed to be working and yet am trying to figure out how to set up my website email on my computer. It's stupid and confusing and I don't know what an outgoing server is or why there's a problem with it.
Can't I just paint and hire someone to do all this shit for me?
My brain doesn't work this way.

....and more pictures

 I like showing you where pieces come from; their source. I did this print a few years ago and, thought the plate isn't finished, loved the idea. I would have liked the bird to be a little larger in the painting, like in the print, to play with scale more. But I think it turned out well.

These two are my latest, finished. Well, the one with the bird is finished. I hope to finish the green one today.

pictures, pictures, pictures!!!

I like doing head comparisons. It helps me see the tones and values that I use in my drawings but may paint over during my sessions. It helps me wheedle down the work. 

Finding out more and more every day....

Well I didn't make it into Japan, which is unsurprising since they got a few hundred entries and could only accept 15 artists. They emailed me and told me they would like to see my work as it progresses, which means they like it but they know I haven't been doing it for very long!! I was thinking about that yesterday, actually. I haven't been painting for very long. The "painting" section on my site is horribly small, and very very inexperienced looking. I majored in ceramic sculpture and printmaking, and minored in creative writing. I took one painting class in college and that was to round out my credits.
I started painting last August - about six months ago - to make my drawings on wood more marketable, because what I really love to do is draw. I'm learning with every single painting I do; I'm learning more about how to manipulate the medium to get the effects I want, I'm learning more about how to engage the paint to converse with the drawing, rather than just using it to accent the drawing. I'm learning how to bring backgrounds forward to become fully integrated with the forward subject matter, rather than thinking of backgrounds as an afterthought.
I am getting better. But these paintings I'm doing for this show are really my first attempt. I have to remember that when I get discouraged.
I'm getting closer, I think, to the work that is actually mine. The work I'm supposed to be doing, meant to be doing.
I just have to do it more; as much as I can, so I can keep learning. Each painting gets better and better. I just have to keep listening, and pushing myself, past the familiar. I'll be posting pictures soon, I think :)