Contact info
===========================
March 2, 2010
Just a quick note to confess: I have no idea how to check my host's server email. The email address that had been previously listed on my contact page is supposed to forward to my regular address, but I just tested it and it doesn't seem to be doing that. Or at least isn't doing it snappily.
So I changed it to my real address. If you've sent me something via that email and I haven't responded that's probably why, and I'm really sorry. It was certainly not my intent.
March 2, 2010
Just a quick note to confess: I have no idea how to check my host's server email. The email address that had been previously listed on my contact page is supposed to forward to my regular address, but I just tested it and it doesn't seem to be doing that. Or at least isn't doing it snappily.
So I changed it to my real address. If you've sent me something via that email and I haven't responded that's probably why, and I'm really sorry. It was certainly not my intent.
Of knees and pictures
===========================
February 21, 2010
You can check my blog for the long version, but the long-story-short version is: surgery went fine. I am still in a lot of pain, but it's different pain than what I had before (swelling and discomfort, rather than nerve pinching).
This is the last week that my knee-picture will be at Reading Frenzy, so be sure to check it out if you haven't yet. If you haven't I can't really chide you, since what with my physical therapy schedule and trying to squeeze back into work, I haven't even see it. I am such a bad artist. I will go this week, promise. Even if you don't make it down there you should go to buy my meat animal postcards. I am so happy with how those turned out.
I'm in sort of hard-restart mode after this knee stuff. I had some good momentum beforehand, but now after about two weeks of being on painkillers and focusing all my energy on learning to walk it's been hard to reign in the bubbly, distracted mind. We're getting there though. Lots of warm-up doodles that may or may not find their way to etsy or to various undisclosed locations here in Portland. You have to stretch before you can run a marathon. Or ski down a fast hill in Whistler.
February 21, 2010
You can check my blog for the long version, but the long-story-short version is: surgery went fine. I am still in a lot of pain, but it's different pain than what I had before (swelling and discomfort, rather than nerve pinching).
This is the last week that my knee-picture will be at Reading Frenzy, so be sure to check it out if you haven't yet. If you haven't I can't really chide you, since what with my physical therapy schedule and trying to squeeze back into work, I haven't even see it. I am such a bad artist. I will go this week, promise. Even if you don't make it down there you should go to buy my meat animal postcards. I am so happy with how those turned out.
I'm in sort of hard-restart mode after this knee stuff. I had some good momentum beforehand, but now after about two weeks of being on painkillers and focusing all my energy on learning to walk it's been hard to reign in the bubbly, distracted mind. We're getting there though. Lots of warm-up doodles that may or may not find their way to etsy or to various undisclosed locations here in Portland. You have to stretch before you can run a marathon. Or ski down a fast hill in Whistler.
Look! A picture roaming the wilds of Reading Frenzy!
===========================
February 2, 2010
If you are in the Portland area you should go see my latest painting ("In sickness and in health") down at Reading Frenzy tomorrow. It is proud to be participating in the 11th annual Valentine Invitational.
Reading Frenzy
921 SW Oak St.
Portland, OR 97205
M-S: 11-7, S: 11-6
It will be there all month, but of course if you are a Team Player you will go down and bid on it tomorrow at the opening. Funds raised will donated to Special Education PTA of Portland, a local non-profit.
You should also go because I don't think I can -- I have a knee surgery scheduled Friday and will be spending much of tomorrow collecting my mother from the airport, getting my art stuff ready to come with me to outpatient bedrest, and generally trying to keep my cool. It's a very minor procedure, all the doctors I've seen have been very bored with my case (which is, I think, a good thing; I will take a boring, run of the mill medical procedure over an exciting one any day,) but of course having a Problem requiring surgery is NOT very minor and boring to ME. So keeping it real is job one. That and recovering. And painting.
February 2, 2010
If you are in the Portland area you should go see my latest painting ("In sickness and in health") down at Reading Frenzy tomorrow. It is proud to be participating in the 11th annual Valentine Invitational.
Reading Frenzy
921 SW Oak St.
Portland, OR 97205
M-S: 11-7, S: 11-6
It will be there all month, but of course if you are a Team Player you will go down and bid on it tomorrow at the opening. Funds raised will donated to Special Education PTA of Portland, a local non-profit.
You should also go because I don't think I can -- I have a knee surgery scheduled Friday and will be spending much of tomorrow collecting my mother from the airport, getting my art stuff ready to come with me to outpatient bedrest, and generally trying to keep my cool. It's a very minor procedure, all the doctors I've seen have been very bored with my case (which is, I think, a good thing; I will take a boring, run of the mill medical procedure over an exciting one any day,) but of course having a Problem requiring surgery is NOT very minor and boring to ME. So keeping it real is job one. That and recovering. And painting.
New painting
===========================
January 27, 2010
There's a new painting in the gallery. There are three other unfinished beauties sitting on my desk.
There are some exciting announcements I will make soon, but I have to wait until everything is completely confirmed. Which is hard for me. I always want to come right out and talk about things.
January 27, 2010
There's a new painting in the gallery. There are three other unfinished beauties sitting on my desk.
There are some exciting announcements I will make soon, but I have to wait until everything is completely confirmed. Which is hard for me. I always want to come right out and talk about things.
Yes, it's true. I have found my twitter password at last.
===========================
January 5, 2010
Good morning, Angels.
A few years ago I was sitting at the classifieds desk with a friend-and-colleague. It was a slow day, not many calls, so we began talking about this new Twitter thing. Micro-blogging. Telling the world what one was doing while one was doing it. It all seemed a bit too meta to me, and trying to wrap my head around it made my head spin. (It still does to be honest.) We both signed up right there and sent each other tweets. Or rather, just made tweets so we could see them. If memory serves, they were simply "I don't know what this is, JG." "I don't either Mags!"
That account didn't last long, particularly since I kept getting "followed" by "people" who followed 345 people but only had one tweet that usually looked like Oh man watch me do something profane on my webcam, also here's a few anatomy references. Creepy. You're creepy, Twitter.
I still get followed by these "people", but now I usually block them so in case they update again I don't have to see it. Or rather, I used to, until I forgot my password. I happily deleted these notification emails for months until some local gallery connections and the Research Club followed me, which made me feel very guilty about being a dinosaur about this whole twitter thing. For heaven's sake. If Scott Simon can twitter, surely I can too.
Thus it was that I went and reset my password. So now you can follow me on Twitter if you want to. simplykumquat. I promise to log in and say some stuff sometimes. I plan on mostly using it for little updates about what I'm working on, any gallery shows I happen to snag, and of course little mundane observations I make in meat-space, because observation is key to the scientific process.
January 5, 2010
Good morning, Angels.
A few years ago I was sitting at the classifieds desk with a friend-and-colleague. It was a slow day, not many calls, so we began talking about this new Twitter thing. Micro-blogging. Telling the world what one was doing while one was doing it. It all seemed a bit too meta to me, and trying to wrap my head around it made my head spin. (It still does to be honest.) We both signed up right there and sent each other tweets. Or rather, just made tweets so we could see them. If memory serves, they were simply "I don't know what this is, JG." "I don't either Mags!"
That account didn't last long, particularly since I kept getting "followed" by "people" who followed 345 people but only had one tweet that usually looked like Oh man watch me do something profane on my webcam, also here's a few anatomy references. Creepy. You're creepy, Twitter.
I still get followed by these "people", but now I usually block them so in case they update again I don't have to see it. Or rather, I used to, until I forgot my password. I happily deleted these notification emails for months until some local gallery connections and the Research Club followed me, which made me feel very guilty about being a dinosaur about this whole twitter thing. For heaven's sake. If Scott Simon can twitter, surely I can too.
Thus it was that I went and reset my password. So now you can follow me on Twitter if you want to. simplykumquat. I promise to log in and say some stuff sometimes. I plan on mostly using it for little updates about what I'm working on, any gallery shows I happen to snag, and of course little mundane observations I make in meat-space, because observation is key to the scientific process.
Big Huge Sale on Etsy
===========================
December 6, 2009
Christmas is coming, the goose is looking thin
Instead of gold and silver we've aluminum and tin.
I'm making all my presents, but send them in the mail
and in case you haven't realized, postage bites me in the tail.
But enough about me.
Are you really going to send your friends and loved ones some sort of fancy electronic gadget? What about all the petroleum used to make the plastic bits on that thing? What about the poor kids in Indonesia who have to assemble it? Worse still, are you sending them yet another gift certificate? Have you no heart?!
Give a guilt-free gift that was made by hand.
Give your loved ones a piece of an artist's soul for the holidays.
There are a few New And Exciting Things coming soon at my little etsy store, but in the meantime, please enjoy slashed prices all around.
(With apologies to my non-Christmas friends. You can enjoy the slashed prices too, guaranteed to be 100% holiday-free.)
December 6, 2009
Christmas is coming, the goose is looking thin
Instead of gold and silver we've aluminum and tin.
I'm making all my presents, but send them in the mail
and in case you haven't realized, postage bites me in the tail.
But enough about me.
Are you really going to send your friends and loved ones some sort of fancy electronic gadget? What about all the petroleum used to make the plastic bits on that thing? What about the poor kids in Indonesia who have to assemble it? Worse still, are you sending them yet another gift certificate? Have you no heart?!
Give a guilt-free gift that was made by hand.
Give your loved ones a piece of an artist's soul for the holidays.
There are a few New And Exciting Things coming soon at my little etsy store, but in the meantime, please enjoy slashed prices all around.
(With apologies to my non-Christmas friends. You can enjoy the slashed prices too, guaranteed to be 100% holiday-free.)
Alohomora
===========================
October 7, 2009
Oh there you are. How are you?
Here's a quick list of things I have been up to since last we spoke:
1. Participated in the 9th Annual Portland Zine Symposium, including designing all promotional material, manning a portion of a table at all three days of the event and generally being quietly helpful. It was a remarkable experience overall, I met many helpful people and I learned a great deal from the process. Not to mention all these cool little buttons and stickers I can include in portfolio mailers.
2. Had a ultimately unrewarding commission experience that caused me to rethink self-marketing and work pro-bono. That is, I need to seek opportunities that actually make sense for me rather than just blindly say yes to things that fall in my lap. I think I knew that anyway, but that was a great refresher course.
3. Started to pay more attention to Illustration Friday and began making a conscious effort to participate. Generating material from ideas that are not initially my own is a fantastic exercise.
4. Became involved with the Real Bridge and Tower Club, including becoming a contributor to the Research Club blog. (You'll will notice as of press date I still have not contributed anything. This will change in the next few days.)
5. Reorganized the artwork here, added some new things. Hopefully from here on out the fare here will look very similar to what can be seen on my facebook and blog galleries.
6. Somewhere in there my car window was smashed in during a trip and a Rather Expensive camera was stolen. As none of that was covered by my insurance, I am also sort of trying to organize all the work that is for sale. Probably more things will be available either at my etsy store or directly on this website via paypal. Just so you know. Those walls of yours are looking pretty bare. And I don't think there are enough postcards in your life.
7. I have rediscovered classical piano. I don't know how it's managed to slip by my attention for so long, but at least now I am paying attention. I have two albums from the library that would be wearing through the wax if they were vinyl.
8. I have been reading Paul Klee's journals and it has been very stimulating. I would highly recommend it if you, like me, have lots of uncertainties sometimes about this whole life thing. In and out of the context of being an artist.
That's about it. I have been thinking of doing another run of small art pieces in and around the neighborhood (see previous post). It did not elicit enormous response, but the one message I did get was heartwarming. Maybe I'll wait for the rain and gloom to set in.
Peace, love and a maroon star fish,
Maggie
October 7, 2009
Oh there you are. How are you?
Here's a quick list of things I have been up to since last we spoke:
1. Participated in the 9th Annual Portland Zine Symposium, including designing all promotional material, manning a portion of a table at all three days of the event and generally being quietly helpful. It was a remarkable experience overall, I met many helpful people and I learned a great deal from the process. Not to mention all these cool little buttons and stickers I can include in portfolio mailers.
2. Had a ultimately unrewarding commission experience that caused me to rethink self-marketing and work pro-bono. That is, I need to seek opportunities that actually make sense for me rather than just blindly say yes to things that fall in my lap. I think I knew that anyway, but that was a great refresher course.
3. Started to pay more attention to Illustration Friday and began making a conscious effort to participate. Generating material from ideas that are not initially my own is a fantastic exercise.
4. Became involved with the Real Bridge and Tower Club, including becoming a contributor to the Research Club blog. (You'll will notice as of press date I still have not contributed anything. This will change in the next few days.)
5. Reorganized the artwork here, added some new things. Hopefully from here on out the fare here will look very similar to what can be seen on my facebook and blog galleries.
6. Somewhere in there my car window was smashed in during a trip and a Rather Expensive camera was stolen. As none of that was covered by my insurance, I am also sort of trying to organize all the work that is for sale. Probably more things will be available either at my etsy store or directly on this website via paypal. Just so you know. Those walls of yours are looking pretty bare. And I don't think there are enough postcards in your life.
7. I have rediscovered classical piano. I don't know how it's managed to slip by my attention for so long, but at least now I am paying attention. I have two albums from the library that would be wearing through the wax if they were vinyl.
8. I have been reading Paul Klee's journals and it has been very stimulating. I would highly recommend it if you, like me, have lots of uncertainties sometimes about this whole life thing. In and out of the context of being an artist.
That's about it. I have been thinking of doing another run of small art pieces in and around the neighborhood (see previous post). It did not elicit enormous response, but the one message I did get was heartwarming. Maybe I'll wait for the rain and gloom to set in.
Peace, love and a maroon star fish,
Maggie
Game on!
===========================
April 15, 2009
Okay. Listen up, Portlanders.
I have sixteen small pieces of art sitting on my desk. Very small. Most of them are around two to four inches square. Some are on cardboard, some on mat board. Some are little characters of mine, some are just things I like, and one in particular is an impression of a painting I saw in someone's house the other day. They aren't particularly polished or amazing, but they're sort of fun and would be even fun-er to find mysteriously sitting on a sidewalk somewhere.
You can take a look at what they look like here.
Here in the next few days I am going to go and hide them around the neighborhood and near landmarks. Surprise art!
If you are in Portland, Oregon and find one of these you are welcome to add a photo to the flickr group and help document the fun. But either way I hope if you do see them you will think of them as a sort of vase-of-flowers in the city. Trying to make the world just a little more fun to look at.
April 15, 2009
Okay. Listen up, Portlanders.
I have sixteen small pieces of art sitting on my desk. Very small. Most of them are around two to four inches square. Some are on cardboard, some on mat board. Some are little characters of mine, some are just things I like, and one in particular is an impression of a painting I saw in someone's house the other day. They aren't particularly polished or amazing, but they're sort of fun and would be even fun-er to find mysteriously sitting on a sidewalk somewhere.
You can take a look at what they look like here.
Here in the next few days I am going to go and hide them around the neighborhood and near landmarks. Surprise art!
If you are in Portland, Oregon and find one of these you are welcome to add a photo to the flickr group and help document the fun. But either way I hope if you do see them you will think of them as a sort of vase-of-flowers in the city. Trying to make the world just a little more fun to look at.
Guerilla art
===========================
April 14, 2009
Hello friends.
I am cooking up a little hair-brained scheme.
Inspired by Keri Smith's guerilla art advocacy, my love of finding the unexpected, and the millions upon millions of little crevices I pass on my daily walks around the neighborhood, I think semi-regularly I am going to paint or draw tiny little thumbnail pieces and hide them in various places in Portland.
I will show you what they look like before I take them out over at the flickr group.
April 14, 2009
Hello friends.
I am cooking up a little hair-brained scheme.
Inspired by Keri Smith's guerilla art advocacy, my love of finding the unexpected, and the millions upon millions of little crevices I pass on my daily walks around the neighborhood, I think semi-regularly I am going to paint or draw tiny little thumbnail pieces and hide them in various places in Portland.
I will show you what they look like before I take them out over at the flickr group.
Portland Zine Symposium
===========================
March 24, 2009
Hello friends.
Pretty soon, a poster I drew for the Portland Zine Symposium will be out on the town, which is pretty neat. If you saw it, or saw my name on the forum and found your way here, welcome.
PZS this year will be July 24, 25, and 26 at the PSU Smith Memorial Ballroom. I should be there with some zines I've done, plus some postcards and paintings to brighten your day.
March 24, 2009
Hello friends.
Pretty soon, a poster I drew for the Portland Zine Symposium will be out on the town, which is pretty neat. If you saw it, or saw my name on the forum and found your way here, welcome.
PZS this year will be July 24, 25, and 26 at the PSU Smith Memorial Ballroom. I should be there with some zines I've done, plus some postcards and paintings to brighten your day.
Postcards for sale!
===========================
March 3, 2009
Hello darlings.
Starting today, there are postcards of both my Rhino and Bird drawings available at my etsy store.
These things are pretty awesome if I do say so myself. They are professionally printed on cardstock, semi-gloss, blank on the back. And of course, they enable you to correspond to people succinctly and cheaply.
Or, if you're a little more selfish about pretty things, you can keep it for yourself and smile. I won't tell.
March 3, 2009
Hello darlings.
Starting today, there are postcards of both my Rhino and Bird drawings available at my etsy store.
These things are pretty awesome if I do say so myself. They are professionally printed on cardstock, semi-gloss, blank on the back. And of course, they enable you to correspond to people succinctly and cheaply.
Or, if you're a little more selfish about pretty things, you can keep it for yourself and smile. I won't tell.
Introducing: Simply Kumquat the website!
===========================
March 1, 2009
Hello there friends.
I just now signed up for this thing, am struggling to figure it all out. So please be patient with me as I move in.
March 1, 2009
Hello there friends.
I just now signed up for this thing, am struggling to figure it all out. So please be patient with me as I move in.
