I created these probably about a year ago, and finally got around to printing them... and they look amazing. I'm going to turn them into a big painting with multiple color variations, and some I will make in big canvases. On other news... I got to hang around one of my favorite people in the world. My long lost bestie Elias, who left the Manhattan to go find professional success in marketing for a cosmetics company in the southwest. Good times.
Something I really love about living in NY is the fact that everywhere you go, you can find something to visually inspire you." Keep your eyes open, you never know what might be your next inspiration source!!" - DM On my recent visit to California,just last week, I got to hang out with my good friend and amazing artist Stephen Workman, and we went to a few galleries in town to see what the current San Francisco art scene is up to. As we went about our business we walked past one of the schools of art, which was having an exhibition on landscape paintings from one of their program's faculty. The artist is a self-proclaimed landscape artist, so she basically ONLY paints landscapes. Which brought us to talking about how we felt about landscape painting.
The Salt Lake City Temple paintings I have do remind me of good times and great people from there. I had really great friends and despite it being a much slower pace than what I enjoy now, living in NYC, it was a great lifestyle for the time I was living. A lot of people ask me if I'm mormon because of having lived there and seeing that I have those paintings, and I'm not, but most my friends there were, and they are all great. The temple is beautiful and it does bring nice memories. Same goes for the painting below. Miami is one of my favorite places to visit, I love the city, the weather, the vibe, but most of all, I mostly visit it with my family, so its a place full of memories with them. One thing i never considered when painting it though, was that I could do the same service for other people, such as the person who wound up buying this piece from me. I know he likes Miami a lot, and he visits quite often, and as he said (and i'm paraphrasing) "now I have the Miami views that I wanted". So to think that every time he sees the painting in his home, would make the connection for him with the place that he loves so much, gives me a great deal of satisfaction. So maybe there is more to painting landscapes, and we can all see them for more than what they seem to be ;)
I just got back from my first traveling show with the Ballets With a Twist company since I started with them in April, and i have to say it was awesome. It's always great to spend some extra time with the people that you work with and have some fun as well as learn more about them and what everyone is about. Besides doing our "Cocktail Hour" show, we had some extra time to visit Ashland, which is a beautiful artsy town in Oregon of which I knew nothing about. After visiting downtown, we were invited by one of the dancer's family to a BBQ at their place and enjoyed great food and company from some of her neighbors growing up. To read a review about this performance follow this link Some people get all crazy on audition season, attending every single company audition that gets posted like its a mission to attend them all, but when auditioning takes money and time (and let's not forget time is money), is this really the best way to get through auditions season? Let's make something clear to begin with, the fact that people have to pay an audition fee for work consideration, is already messed up enough. Talk to some non-dancers for a change, and ask them what they would think if they needed to attend a job interview where they would have to pay to be interviewed, and let me know what they answered. Now, if its a school audition it is different, but when a professional company, searching for dancers to employ goes around the country having auditions charging $20-$30 dollars a pop, there is something absolutely fishy happening, specially when you consider in the fact that most likely there isn't even a handful of jobs to be offered to both men and women. And if you are saying its to pay for the costs of the audition, think again, a flight only costs about $300 and renting prime studio for 2 hours is roughly $150 (in Manhattan), say the person conducting the audition is staying overnight, and hired a teacher to give class so he/she could look for work candidates, add $500, we are still under $1000 which is roughly 50 dancers @$20 dollars each. Having said that, (and I'll get back to that on another post), there are many other things you should consider finding out before blindingly going to an open call and paying for the privilege to work your ass off for an hour and a half for someone who you might not even be certain they have a job to offer, so here is a list of Things You Should Research Before Attending an Audition What kind of work they do? Maybe the particular style of dancing isn't work you would be thrilled to be doing. What kind of dancers do they currently have on contract? You should make sure it is work that you respect and you'll be proud to be working with them. Who is in charge? Maybe you already worked or know someone who works with that director. They could possibly save you from working for a crazy. Or you could possibly want to work harder to land a gig with a super cool boss. What Stats do their dancers currently have? Do you fit the look, height, shape and possibly level, of the company? There are a lot of different companies and some like more muscular people, some like tall, some like short. Where do you fit in?
Is the company is actually hiring? Lets face it, most companies are suffering and are mostly downsizing. If you can, find out how many man and female contracts they have available for the next season. If you have a spine, you might even ask them directly when you arrive at the audition, before you pay. "How many male and female full time contracts do you guys have available?"
What kind of pay do they offer? Unless your parents are still supporting you, you might want to find a REAL dance job, and not one of those that pays $50 dollars a week and requires you to work full time (possibly after you had to relocate). So having researched all of the above should save you some time, money and energy, and will allow you to focus on actually landing the jobs that are a good fit for you.
Don't forget, you ALSO get to audition the company, its not just them auditioning you! WOW. I can't believe it just suddenly came to me. For the longest time (possibly over a couple years) I've been trying to figure out what to call my blog/vlog in a way that it would actually feel right and describe by its name alone what the theme of it is, and suddenly, on my way back from the grocery store... BAM! Artonaut hit me.
I've been meaning to start this blog for quite some time, but for various reasons I just hadn't quite gotten around to doing it. Not even one post, not some pointless "Hi this is my first post" post, I had nothing. I also didn't want to be stuck writing an Art Review and then hating having to only do that, when in reality I do so much more. You see, life gets a little weird when you are a dancer-painter-webdesigner-singer-business enthusiast-photographer-funiture restorer-well... you get the point. The deal however is, I am an artistic creative being, and everything that I do has to do with art. Why? because life with art is much better. There is a reason why these practices date back to the beginning of humanity, and why some of us crave to produce art on a regular basis even today, when functioning as a human is absolutely different than it was maybe 100 years ago thanks to all of the amazing technological advances we have come to get so used to. I knew however my purpose of wanting to have a blog, was to share my daily experiences in the immense universe of artistic possibilities, to sort of perhaps opening someones eyes into realizing how wonderful life can be if you incorporate art in to your life even in the most minimal way, be it hanging some art at your home, appreciating art that you see someplace, or getting down to actually creating something. Art is everywhere and there is potential for there to be art involved in every aspect of life. Art enriches our lives, it serves as therapy, it touches us and ultimately it can change us, and if through sharing my experiences, I can get at least a few people to benefit from art, my blog will have served its purpose. Now, why Artonaut? Because that's what I am. I believe the universe of art is infinite, and I consider myself someone who explores this infinite universe on a daily basis, in one way or another, either by dancing, painting, or seeing someone elses art. So that's what this Blog/Vlog will be about. |
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