Year One

This is the very first day of the new year and what are your plans?

You say you can't think with three football games going on at once and the dog howling to get out and the washer banging because some one overloaded it and now it is trying to rip a hole in the laundry room floor. You need a whole new perspective on life. Why not try art?

I know you have been doing your craft for years and are highly respected in the community and have a wall full of awards and get invitations to show your work from galleries and museums all the time. So what. It's a new year and the slate has been cleared and what you make of depends on what you start doing today.

Maybe you should get out of the studio and start a class? You have all of the credentials, right? Why not share some of that hard won knowledge? Doing it the hard way is what happens when you can't find a teacher. Don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution. New people move to the south coast every day and they know nothing about where to find things here. Go see if you can help them.

Ever wonder why Ava Richey and Susan Lehman get mentioned all of the time? “No, they're just teacher's pets and they get all the good words and probably even get to clean the erasers.” If they do and they don't, because they are so busy that they would, but they don't have the time, so get over it and admit that they do twice as much as any three people and wouldn't you like to know why and how? Maybe if you asked them, they'd tell you. I know, radical idea, ask people about what you'd like to know.

Yes, I do know when you ask an artist about their work everybody within earshot rolls their eyes up into their heads and loses the will to live. Except for the ones willing to pay attention. They actually listen and learn something.

Did you know the South Coast if full of educators? Ex-teachers are hiding behind every easel. They put up with rude, screaming brats for years and now that they are retired you think there is anything an artist can do to intimidate them? Phooey! Go ask them how they got so smart.

Talent. That and a five dollar bill will keep you from getting thrown out of Starbucks. (Just don't take any five dollar bills in North Bend 'cause there are rotten, nasty forgers lurking about and they'd just love to give you some of their art work). Talent is great, but unless you use it and keep on using it and find a way to develop it, is just another happy gift. Remember the line about Carnegie Hall? Nowhere does it say, “Talent.”

Make this the year you go out and beg, plead, weep, toady and moan until you get someone to pony up the money to mount a show. Our Coos Art Museum director Steven Broocks is too polite to say so, but the truth is if you go out and get the money and do the organization and send out all of the mailings he can probably find a place for you to stage your show. But come prepared, he has too much work to do to stop and deal with half-realized pipe dreams.

Maybe a show is too big an idea. How about meeting a fellow artist? As artists we tend to dig in and hide in our studios and not come out until well after Punxsutawney Phil has signaled the all clear. But we could. We could go out and talk to the other artists in the community. There are receptions almost every weekend. Go, look and meet, and you might just enjoy yourself. How 'bout taking a look at The Art Connection, Easy Lane Frames and Select Gallery, Sage Gallery, Whistling Gallery, Bandon Art Supply, The Black Market Gourmet, every one of those places is usually full of artists and they talk. They actually like to meet new people. Did you know that Monty Rogers, one of the most gifted and distinguished artists in our community is a delightful fellow and has a bag full of stories he'll share along with his prodigious knowledge of art and technique. Ask him about the “Ladies” being invited out of town. David Castleberry can be intimidating and I don't always understand what he is doing with his art, but boy can he do it! And if you haven't shared a table with him at the Fall Fling or one of the other events you've missed out. But then how would you know if you don't get out of the studio.

The year is what you make of it. I have learned so much and met so many talented and gifted people since I started writing the South Coast Trawler, I can't begin to acknowledge all of them. Fortunately they don't look for a credit line or a pat on the back, they're just doing what a friend does, they share their gifts, their spirit, their hearts and their knowledge, and thank God, their tales, tall or not!