Things. Going on.

I've been really busy lately and it's been wonderful.  Until today.  Maybe this is a migraine?  I'm not sure, but it fucking hurts, and while not in the places where my injury was, bringing with it a similar photosensitivity in my left eye to that I had after the accident.  I've called out of work and took a nap and some pills.  Now I'm up again and thought I'd try to gather myself together and catch up on the blog, but damn.  Even with the blinds drawn, my eye patch in place, and the brightness turned down low on the netbook, this is probably a dumb idea, but fuck it- here goes:

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an ad on Craigslist written by an artists' agent's assistant offering essentially to look at online portfolios if one were to email a link.  So I did, and then got an email the following morning from the agent herself saying she liked the work.  After a little online research into the agency and a phone interview, I decided to go ahead and set up a face-to-face meeting.  The bottom line is essentially this:  I am confident that this woman is legitimate and can potentially ratchet up my chances of getting shown in a really prestigious gallery in the next 4 or 5 years, but still need to contact one or two artists she represents- in person- before the paranoid center of my soul is placated. Once that's done, assuming I get positive references, I'll need to really hunker down and save up the cash for her fee.  I'm probably going to need to set up a kickstarter page for that, because it's significant, but I think it's worth it. More on that later.

She gave me some homework to attend to while I'm saving up her fee, to put me in a position that will make me a little easier to market when she takes me on.  One of those things I've never gotten my ass into gear and actually done is write a proper artist's statement and CV.  I've also never fully cataloged my work or assembled an actual portfolio.  So those've both got to get done. She also strongly suggested I look into applying for membership in some the area's Arts Associations, about which up to that point I'd never heard before. The Cambridge Art Association's members are selected through a jurying process four times a year. To be accepted would be an honor.  I'm going to apply, and go out for some other ones as well. To that end, I've started putting the CV together (which is difficult, given my terrible memory and utter lack of reliable record-keeping skills) and am still working on that, but barring any major edits from Meghan (whose editorial word is fairly close to gospel for me, which may be why I avoid it sometimes), I'm pretty sure I've got my artist's statement ready to go.  Ready?

Jason Randolph Burrell is a narcissistic paint nerd living and working in Cambridge prone to severe bouts of social paralysis, run-on sentences and British spellings who withdrew from art school in 1998 as soon as he perceived, accurately or otherwise, that his artistic gifts were under attack and at risk of being perverted by the conventions of his professors.  Since then he has laboured in relative isolation, raising his son on weekends and pursuing his own meandering art self-education by experimenting primarily with poured and splattered paint, observing its properties under various conditions, and contemplating his spiritual connection to the work, seeing the flow of paint as always running parallel, somehow, to his life. 

"Untitled Funnscoop Experiment #1"

 

 

In other news, I sold two paintings this past weekend to a good friend of mine who decided that he wanted to get in early before the price of my work skyrockets. His optimism is refreshingly heartening and frankly both much appreciated and needed.  Originally I thought that money would be the first chunk I save for the agent's fee, but I'm realizing it makes much more sense to use it to pay off the hospital and the dentist and to buy paint (which I'm running out of... um... out of which I'm running?  ...whatever).

"Untitled Funnscoop Experiment #2"

On top of everything else going on, I've also gone back to work after a two-month medical leave, and have to try to find time to paint and be a father to my son.  But right now?  I'm going to take another nap.  My head hurts.  This was a dumb idea.