I've quit my day job

That's right! While it was bittersweet and one of the hardest things I've had to do, I left my position at Easthampton City Arts (ECA) as Coordinator. I've been with the group since its early days and started at 3 hours a week managing the website and encouraging other artists in the community to sign up on the brand new site. It slowly developed into a full time position and the group took on some pretty amazing projects, including Bear Fest 2009! It was one of the most amazing projects I've ever been involved with!

All along the way I've been trying to continue to work in my own studio and also manage a growing quilting/sewing business on Etsy. It became clear over the last year that I could not devote enough attention to any of my work, including ECA, and everything was suffering. Not really suffering, but I was just maintaining each thing at a kind of flat-line level...not really how I like to operate.

And so, I've taken the plunge and am facing the risks head on. BTaylor Quilts is doing great, and it can be better, and that's what I'm trying to devote my attention to. I've also got an exhibit this October at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts and am busily working on new paintings to include in that show (well, if it wasn't so hot in my studio!!) I feel so fortunate to be able to have this time to focus on my own work. It's more than a full time job, it's every waking moment for the most part, but I LOVE it! I've got a new long arm quilting machine in the shop, which is another story (I promise to tell you about shortly!!), and have been busy designing new products, quilts, and brewing other ideas for marketing and getting the word out.

Church Street canvas shaping up

After a couple of days work, making a little more progress on the Church Street canvas. At least getting the major areas of color laid out. I still need to print out a swatch from the sofa, because I intend to use either that color or something complimentary in the big umbrella in the foreground. You can see the paint chip hanging from the top of the canvas, the lightest color "Litchefield Grey" is the wall color, so I'm working the steeple and probably the foreground sidewalk to be of like color. I came pretty close mixing up the color and painted some right on the chip, it was sooo close. I've added a couple of new figures in the distance, a father and son holding hands and walking towards the back. The boy is about one step behind father, and I've tried to shape the father's head so that it looks like he's talking about something to the right and the boy looks in that direction. It's not too hard to create gestural emphasis on figures that are larger when they lack detail, but the smaller the figure the more difficult it becomes. They are not even close to being completely finished, so there's more work to be done there.
It was kind of dark at the studio when I took these photos...they are definitely not as bright as the canvas truly is. More work on it tomorrow!