Snow is my "KHAAAAANNNN!!!"

Snow is proving itself to be the bane of my existence. I must've been really lucky last year. Here it is, almost February, and many of my best shots from this year are just mediocre. The snow has been the same old thing, and my equipment is really frustrating me. The digital field microscope only captures 3 megapixels; my phone takes higher-res pictures. Granted, the field of vision is a lot smaller on the microscope, so you don't need as many megapixels, but the frustrations are still there. Also, the depth is challenging. Many potentially awesome shots are marred by a blurry patch from something being a millimeter closer to the camera (or further away) in the shot, and because the imperfection is tiny and made of ice, I can't move it out of the way. (The radiant heat would melt the flake I'm trying to capture, even with gloves or the use of a tool.)

A friend and fellow artist suggested that I enter some contests to get my morale back, and I've taken her advice by entering a landscape shot I got while walking the dog along the bay at my parents' place in a couple of competitions. The next post is actually going to be a contest entry for one of the photomicrographs, so if that post seems out of place with the tone of the rest of the blog, that's why.

Other than that, things are relatively slow in my little art world, with the exception of receiving an email from Dennos with an application for their small works show in May attached. I'm excited to try out some new shots and see how they sell. I'm hoping to do better this year than last year, and last year I sold five.

First Snow of '09

Since my last post, I've been fighting a bit of artists' block. The co-op (not surprisingly) fell through, because artists are generally flighty and disorganized. It was a little bit of a letdown, but I didn't have my hopes very high in the first place.

Between then and now, I've been fighting off feelings of being completely uninspired. Everything that I thought had the potential to be interesting under a microscope fell through. Frost is uninteresting ice hexes. Sulfite crystals that form on wine corks look like boring old amethyst. My last hope rested in snow.

Snow is unbelievably challenging to photograph. The subjects are only there for a few seconds, the distance from the lens is constantly changing as they melt, and each snowflake is generally attached to bits of other flakes, if not several other whole ones. All of this makes it extremely difficult to capture a whole snowflake, all by itself, in focus.

Today was the first flake-forming snow of the year at our house, which meant throwing on gear and getting outside as soon as I woke up. I took 128 shots, and was really only happy with one flake, but it was enough to restore my inspiration. My goal of having a whole portfolio of decent snow shots might actually become a reality. Here's a heavily cropped, low-res image of that lovely little flake.

The museum sale went... okay. I sold two pieces. It definitely wasn't my best show, but I talked to some other artists, and they were disappointed with their sales, too. I'm glad it wasn't just me.

I found a note that I had overlooked on my last payment receipt from the gallery asking me for more stuff. (whoops!) It's been almost a month since I received that. I want to see what the plans for this new co-op are before I get back with her, though, because under my current gallery contract I wouldn't be able to do both.

Nothing new to report; hopefully I'll have something interesting to post after the co-op meeting.

Things are Looking Up!

Sales picked up during the summer at the gallery. I sold 5 pieces, which was good.

I'm also in another sale at Dennos, which starts later today and ends Sunday. This one is much more exclusive, and I've already sold a piece! I went in yesterday morning to set up my table, and there were a few museum visitors milling about, looking at the inuit art collection and pre-Columbian American gold exhibit. A couple made their way over to my table to see my work, and after some admiration of the snow pieces, the lady decided she had to have the "Perfect Snowflake" print. They bought it on the spot, and I didn't even have to give Dennos any commission, because the sale hadn't started yet! (I did replace the Perfect Snowflake print before the end of the day though, so that everything I had on my table was true to the inventory sheet I'd turned in.) It was very exciting.

To add to the excitement, another artist saw the exchange, came over to look at my work, and invited me to be a part of an artist co-op that's starting up. They've got a show/retail space on Front Street (tourist gold!) and I'm going to attend their meeting on Tuesday to see if it's something I'd like to be involved with. It sounds kind of promising. My current gallery is on Front Street, but they take a commission of 50%. It would be nice to be in a more beneficial situation.

Update

The museum sale went really well! I sold five pieces out of ten submitted, which is better than average. Also, I was able to donate 4 more pieces to various silent auctions in the area, and, while they didn't sell for very much, at least my work is out there for people to see.

According to the folks at the gallery, people aren't quite sure what they're looking at when they see my work, despite the informational tags. Everybody thinks it's cool and amazing when they see the piece and find out what it is, but then nobody buys the work. I've found the same to be true with my website, despite the site creators making me a featured artist for free. It's disheartening.

I'm beginning to think that the best way for me to make money at this is to do art fairs; but the expense to do that is huge. When I can talk to people and explain my methods and the backstory to the piece, they usually make the purchase, but I don't want to have to sell a minimum of ten pieces in one day to just cover the booth expense.

My first museum art sale...

Dennos Museum is hosting a small works art exhibit and sale in May, and my photomicrography prints are totally in! It will be a good chance to introduce some new work to the public, maybe some color images and more abstract stuff than the series at the gallery. Of course, it will also be a good chance to create some publicity for the series on sale, too. Yay for being a shameless art-whore!

Hotshot!

One of our local news stations has a nightly bit called the "weather hotshot," which features a photograph of the weather, taken by a viewer. Last Saturday, the coolest meteorologist of them all, (who also happens to be a personal friend,) featured one of my photomicrographs, below, of a snowflake! It was very exciting!

Unfortunately, it happened during a weekend when the rest of my family was downstate, but my sister was able to record it for all to see.

It's good to have awesome friends in television.