karen cooper

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Wannabees

by Cooper on 7/13/2010 9:07:56 AM1 Comment

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa on a gorgeous Tuesday, July 13th.

I just read the latest "painter's keys" newsletter from Robert Genn. Most of it was about the age old problem of knowing when it's time to stop on a painting, how to avoid working a painting to death, literally and figuratively :)

The article included a statement that really stopped me:

"I find our world to be loaded and cocked with creator wannabees. We artists represent the last bastion of the hand of man."

I would love to sit down and have a cup of coffee and converse with Mr Genn about his thoughts given there. To me, the contrast between the wannabees and the creatives is especially stark.

I just returned home from KraslArtFair, St Joseph, Michigan. (yes, it's a wonderful event) Lately, at art fairs, I've noticed my work attracting more young people---maybe it's what I'm painting, or the way I'm painting, or is it the "creator wannabee" factor? Quite possibly it's the compilation of all three. Is it the next generation looking ahead and contrasting automated versus creative? I try to always encourage: practice, practice, practice, and never stop with the studying. I balance it with: it's hard work and you have to have the determination to persevere. And as they walk away romancing the life of an artist, I wonder which side of that contrast line between wannabees and creatives they will end up on?

Ok, so we'll rename today "philosophical Tuesday" :) but now it's time to go paint. Thanks for stopping by. Have a lovely day.

Later, Cooper

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Maps

by Cooper on 7/8/2010 8:34:54 AMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, on a SUNNY beautiful day, in Jefferson, Iowa.

There's probably minimal painting happening in the studio today, as it's time to pack again. This weekend I am showing my paintings at KraslArtFairOnTheBluff, in StJoseph, Michigan. If you feel the need to give yourself a treat, go there---there are not many spots on the map as beautiful and relaxing as the park overlooking LakeMichigan. There is a perfect hotel, The Boulevard Inn, right next to the park. I have plans for someday when there is a blizzard heading east from Nebraska: I will grab my husband, load us into the car, drive to that hotel (hopefully staying ahead of the storm) move into an upper floor room, and watch the storm come across the lake. I think it will be an exceptional sight. :)

Anyway, maps. When I travel to art fairs, I am pretty picky about maps. I learned quite a while ago that saving paper does not rate, when compared to having mapquest directions to my location printed off in LARGE ENOUGH TYPE to read sans glasses. Tollway traffic through Chicago does not approve of people stopping to read the fine print on their maps.

And then, maps of the art fair sort. Last summer there came an aha! moment. Prior, setting up my display at an art fair was a long drawn out process---which painting should hang where, what painting would fit into that long skinny space, which one would fit into that wide space, ooops, we didn't leave enough room for that one, better scoot it over 4 inches---you get the picture. The solution was so simple, I can't quite believe it took me years (literally) to see it.

I use a propanel display system as my exhibit walls at art fairs. I "hinged' together pieces of foam core that simulate the dimensions of my display system. Using the same scale, I print images of my paintings that are making the trip to the art fair. Do you know how much easier it is when, glass of iced tea in hand, I can sit at the kitchen counter and plan my exhibit? If I think "Smells Like Summer" looks better next to "Ped Mall DogWalk", but then change my mind and think I need to try "Elementary School Readers" all I have to do is move a couple little squares of paper. Surely I don't have to tell you how much easier THAT is than moving the actual paintings? And getting it right, when you know you've got people coming to see in just an hour or so?

Prior to the great aha moment that lead to the mapping system, I used to plan for a minimum of two hours to get everything organized for an exhibit. May I brag a little?---I now allow 40 minutes. For those of you who have not set up an art fair exhibit, I know, I know, that's only an hour and ten minutes difference. But. On the morning of an art fair, it's a BIG difference. May I share just a little more insight about that?

If I had a roadie who set it all up for me, so that I could waltz in last minute, it would be different, but usually, I am on my own, doing it all myself. People come to art fairs hoping for an enjoyable outing. If I am out of sorts due to a hectic setup, helping those people enjoy their outing is a dim possibility. By removing the chance of "hectic" from the setup routine, it gets my day off to a good start, where I can share with visitors about my paintings, and we can all enjoy the day.

The 49th Annual Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff happens on July 10th, 10-6, and July 11th, 10-5. If you want to see the booth map in action, you'll have to stop by exhibit #164 about 7am on July 10th. The good folks of Krasl, and Port 412 are serving breakfast for the artists and I plan to hang paintings before dining! :)

Later, Cooper

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I Photoed The Queen Yesterday

by Cooper on 7/2/2010 9:24:57 AMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper Studio, Jefferson, Iowa, where the day is so beautiful, I can hardly stand to be indoors. We'll fix that soon.

But first, about that title, I Photoed The Queen Yesterday, yes, really, I did. Let me explain. I've already told you about my exhibit of paintings at TheWineBarArtGallery in Arnolds Park, Iowa. Yesterday was the day to retrieve paintings from the exhibit that have not yet sold, as well as deliver a painting that will hopefully help raise funds for the Gull Point State Park in the Iowa Great Lakes. The weather was just as stunning yesterday---other than the painting "shuffle"---I had the rest of the day to enjoy in a pretty darned enjoyable place. And so I did.

When people see my paintings, I often get the question, "where do they come from?" I know part of the question is specific location, but just as often the question speaks to inspiration, and why I think what I see will become a painting. It would be okay to paint paintings of things I know would sell well, accepted popular subject matter. But when I'm out and about, looking at what's around me, that's not necessarily where my camera goes. If my husband is with me and the camera, he often asks "what on earth are you looking at with that thing?" :) Heck, I think we are talking about gut instinct here. I always figure it's a gamble worth taking and sharing.

And see, I really did photo the queen yesterday. Specifically the Queen II, but who's counting. I keep making jokes about painting the "Queen". Quite possibly there have been enough paintings of the "Queen" painted to lay a road clear across the state of Iowa. Hmmmm-----but maybe, just maybe---a cute little dog catching a drink from a paper cup, with the queen in the background-----yup, that would certainly have possibilites. Thanks for stopping by, and have a lovely day.

Later, Cooper

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Budgets And Art

by Cooper on 6/30/2010 8:38:19 AMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, on a fantastic June 30th.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to deliver a painting. It's a budget thing. I suppose there are a few people in the world, financial types, who like that word budget, but most of us would just as soon not have to think about it. In this case, it's not my budget we're talking about, so that's good. BUT. Iowa went through a little spell late last year, where every single state department was ordered to cut their budget by 10%. Now if they just hadn't overspent during the first part of the year---oh, wait--let's not go there. It's too lovely a morning for politics.

Anyway. I have shared with you before about the Great Lakes area of northwest Iowa, Okoboji, Spirit Lake, Arnolds Park, a delightful part of our state, to be sure. There are two state park facilites in the immediate area of the Iowa Great Lakes, both of which include areas that can be rented by groups or individuals. The rental money goes straight to the state's general fund. Sounds logical, right? State park, state general fund. The problem becomes when it's all one way. For upkeep of the facilites, the state kicks back a whopping $200 for the year. What a budget. Fortunately there are people of vision, willing to take care of the problem on their own. And so scheduled is:

“Works of Arts for the State Parks…An Endeavor for the Endowment,” takes place at Gull Point on Sunday, August 29, 2010, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m

And a painting that will hopefully help the cause:

Biking With A Lake View, acrylic painting on a perfect 20 x 20 inch canvas, and on it's way to Arnolds Park, Iowa tomorrow. Have a lovely day!

Later, Cooper

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You Know You've Been At The Art Fair Too Long When....

by Cooper on 6/28/2010 7:40:28 AMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio on an excellent Monday morning in Jefferson, Iowa.

Today we will talk about the summer art fair. Specifically, the Omaha Summer Art Festival. May I share that Omaha dealt us brutal weather for Friday and Saturday? Dios mio. Bring on the ice cream, lemonade, popsicles, freezies, anything cold. You see, we had heat index warnings for the first two days. The College World Series was happening in Omaha as well---they set a record low attendance that day---we weren't alone.

But that title up there, "you know you've been at the art fair too long when..." Despite the weather effects, we survived almost until closing time on Saturday evening. A gentleman was looking at paintings in my exhibit, came up to say he enjoyed them. Said, I'd like to welcome you to Omaha, I'm the mayor". My instant reaction was "oh, really". (and what bridge would you like to sell me?) Fortunately, the bridge portion of that thought didn't escape my mouth, but I'm afraid the "oh, really" part did. Where is instant rewind when you need it? So Mayor Suttle, I do apologize for that moment---may I use the excuse of "thought processes shut down due to weather"?

This is probably a good place to remind artist-readers who exhibit at summer art fairs about the importance of taking care of yourself, especially when the weather goes the wrong direction. I was fortunate that my husband joined me for the Omaha event. That meant I was able to get away to that wonderful artist's breakroom on a regular basis. Whew.

Okay, now for the rest of the story. Sunday morning wee hours hosted a lovely little shower for the Omaha area. The day dawned about 15 degrees cooler. People came to the art fair by the thousands. I sent many paintings to happy new homes. Thank you Omaha. Let's do it again next year.

Later, Cooper

---one of my favorite's that now lives in Omaha :)

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Omaha Summer Arts Festival

by Cooper on 6/24/2010 3:10:16 PMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa. We are packing today.

Tomorrow, June 25th, at 11am, begins the Omaha Summer Arts Festival. I am exhibitor #81, in front of the library. And lucky you, assuming you come, will be the first to see a painting that at the moment, is parked in front of a fan, hoping it's varnish will dry quickly. Sure!

The painting is number two in a potential series. My camera has been attracted to people walking their dogs lately. Why is that? We do not know. But it's happening, and it's fun. See?

And if you can't come on the 25th, try for the 26th or 27th. We are there all three days, downtown, on Farnam Street.

Later, Cooper

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Art Weather

by Cooper on 6/18/2010 10:24:27 AM1 Comment

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa. The rain is gently falling in Jefferson right now.

BUT. Let's talk about Art Weather. My husband called from his office in Ralston, Iowa, just west of Jefferson. "Karen, if you love your garden, you're going to go cover it quick. Ralston is getting pounded with hail and it's headed your way" Lovely. I whip out of my jammies and into my play (ha) clothes. Running through the garage I upend both recycling bins. Too bad about the recycling all over the garage floor, but the bins are the perfect size to cover two tomato plants. At this moment, I have lawn chairs parked over the basil and an eggplant. A step stool is parked over the next spinach salad. Five gallon buckets are upside down over two Hungarian hot wax pepper plants. We only have one sweet pepper plant---it's hiding under an old metal pot. And how on earth does this relate to art???

This morning harkens me back to an earlier time.... Oh, wait, it was actually just six days ago. Hinsdale Art Festival, Hinsdale, Illinois. Yours truely was exhibitor #140, a lovely setting in a lovely park. I arrived early, got set up, and it all looked beautiful.

About this same time of the morning, here come the people in charge with the bad weather report. (Karen, if you love your garden, er, I mean, art---) So, up goes the adrenaline level, down go the zippers on the Ezup walls. The brunt of the storm slides to the northwest and the show continues, until about 4pm when a policeman walks by with the same information, second verse. Close enough to the end of the show day, this time the paintings go into the car, along with the propanels, etc. It would be hard to have a good second day of the show without them, right? Have I mentioned that putting an entire exhibit onto a cart and pushing it to the car parked over in the parking lot, (multiple trips) and loading it into the car is not an easy task? For the Sunday portion of the art show, I had to repeat all of that, minus the storm warnings. Yay for that little detail. If you are thinking about trying on the art fair exhibitor hat, consider yourself warned, it's not as easy as it looks. And bad weather makes it even harder.

So it wasn't great Art Weather last weekend, but we survived, as did the art. Oh, and garden update---the hail all got dropped west of here, my garden is happily soggy only. Now, I need to go pick up the recycling off the garage floor, resort it and get it back in the bins, collect all the other buckets and tubs and get them put away. What we won't do for what we love, right?

It makes me think about the class I just started, "Painting the figure" at the DesMoines art center. The DesMoines art center is a good hour15min drive from Jefferson, probably too far to drive for an art class, and makes getting home after a pretty late event. But what is art, if you are not always being the student, right?---working at it, always moving it forward? And so I go. What we won't do for what we love, huh?

Later, Cooper

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Call Me. Oh, Wait---

by Cooper on 6/14/2010 5:58:45 PMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio on a balmy Monday afternoon. It's one of those kind of days where we have been discussing if it's possible for the dust woolies to grow mold and mildew. Everything else certainly seems to be suceptable to the dilemma. We have also been contemplating a giant squeegee. Hmm.

But look at that---off subject already. Did you see the title of this post? "Call Me. Oh,Wait!" Guess what that means? My trustworthy and reliable cell phone has been reduced to NO NETWORK COVERAGE.

When we moved to Jefferson, Iowa, last August, we decided to do what everybody else was doing: no land line telephone. After all, why do we need three telephones? Now we know, because one of them might suddenly go off duty.

The day has been filled with utterly ridiculous telephone events. I discovered that if I stand in the middle of the street, facing southwest, that 3 of every 7 calls placed to my cell phone company service department will connect. 2 of those will disconnect before I can completely give them my name and phone number. The 7th call, yup, even though I had to repeat everything three times, she understood I was having problems. You're going to love her response: "we'll check into it, and I'll call you with the results" Isn't that precious? She'll call me. Does she expect me to stand out there in the middle of my street waiting for her call?

Then I decided to change tactics. There is that little note down at the bottom of their webpage: "contact us by email". And so I did. Jacob gave me an 800 number to call, as that is really the only way they can help. How special is that? Thank you so very much, Jacob, you are too kind.

I emailed my husband and he was kind enough to call the 800 number. "I am so sorry for your inconvenience. It will be 3-5 days to get that fixed" Dios mio. Did a tower get struck by lightening? Did someone steal it? Did it succomb to the current mold and mildew onslaught, and become disfunctional? Wow. A communication company that won't communicate, what IS this world coming to?

So back to the middle of the street I went. I sure am glad that it's not raining in Jefferson today. Now that I have my street coordinates finessed, I connect with the service department on the first try. But guess what? Way back when we set up this account, my husband was on household business duty, and the account has his name on it. This very helpful service desk person politely informed me that she could not divulge any information to me, because I was unofficial. Does she not know that because I am currently manning the station of household business duty, that I will be the one to fill out the little form requesting that the account profile be changed to include both of us? And surely they realize that they are making me cheat and pretend I am my husband, just to get the little form filled out, because I am the one currently on duty? I guess I still have the option of calling her back and dropping my voice a level or so----

Anyway, the bottom line is, please just send me an email---click on "contact Karen" over there at the left. I'll let you know when I am back to fully communicable. Tomorrow is a painting day, thanks be for that!

Later, Cooper

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'Fessing Up To That Embarrassment

by Cooper on 6/8/2010 10:27:08 PM1 Comment

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

I so enjoyed reading the article on embarrassment, by Clint, about old paintings we have, and wish we never had! I decided to post a couple of photos "indicating" my degree of embarrassment. I went through the archives and came up with a good candidate or two, and then came to a realization.

Here it is: it's a six of one, half dozen of the other, kind of situation. On the "six of one side", yup, that old painting makes me cringe a little. On the "half dozen of the other" side, parking the old painting smack dab next to a more recent painting, hey, that makes me feel pretty good---there's quite a bit of "developmental distance" between the two. If the old painting is the first rung on the ladder, then the newer painting has to be at least the third rung and maybe even the fourth.

Dios mio, how tall is my ladder? But, then again, I like the idea of a tall ladder. It indicates many experiences yet to be, many studies yet to learn, many paintings yet to paint. The game of ladder climbing contiues to be ever so exciting.

Glad We Don't Have Anything Much To Do, acrylic painting on a 30 x 30 inch canvas. It's currently part of my solo show at the WineBarArtGallery in Arnolds Park, Iowa.

Thanks for stopping by.

Later, Cooper

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Tired Car

by Cooper on 6/3/2010 7:42:10 AM2 Comments

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, on a fine, um, is it Thursday? morning. Hey, that's what a Monday holiday will do to a person. Couple that with a calendar blur and it can definitely lead to "what day is it, and where am I?" Please note that title: "Tired Car" which of course would describe mine!

On that note, let me share a copy of my JUNE NEWSLETTER with you:

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio. Around here we definitely agree a picture is worth a thousand words. I have two June pictures for you, pictures of how I will be spending most of my June!

(Iowa City, Iowa, Hinsdale, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska)

-------and then for the entire month of June, I will have a solo exhibit at the WineBarArtGallery, in Arnolds Park, Iowa, with an opening reception on May 28th, 6-8pm.

As I plunk all that info into this newsletter, I realize I should add one more image for you. It's the final painting completed for the exhibit at Arnolds Park:

Glad We Don't Have Much To Do, acrylic painting on a perfect 30 x 30 inch canvas. As noted, it will be available at the WineBarArtGallery, Arnolds Park, Iowa, during the month of June. And how appropriate is that title?? Maybe I will get bit of that in July! Thank you so much for your appreciation of my work!

Later, Karen

What the newsletter copy doesn't mention is that I'm still squeezing in painting hours! :) I have a few cool little still life paintings finished up just in time to travel to Iowa City with. Aren't I amazing?! Sure :) See you at the Iowa City Arts Festival this weekend? Hope so.

Later, Cooper

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