Life Stories Materialize With the Artists' Hand

The Journey

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you will take time to post a comment. I have been working on my "Artist Resume" today. It is coming along well.

Today I also set my computer up to receive email from 3 different accounts. One is for my longstanding and 1st email account that is for personal emails. The second is for my artwork marketing, including calls for entry, online tutorials and tips and the third is for my Photography.

I  choose the following 2 pictures to share with you in this blog this evening. I have included the stories for each. I hope you enjoy them.

Is an organized artist and oxymoron?

It is now January 7th. Sometimes beginning a new day requires a plan. One of my worst areas of organization is my filing systems...my file cabinet is more of a crypt than a system. Most of the things that go in it never come out. I have successfully recovered documents and patterns form the metal box and that is a good thing, however my computer has been a nightmare for years! Organization - I can organize! The problem is remembering where the organized stuff went!
As my goal for this year is to be very proactive and very intentional about becoming successful as a working artist I have set an secondary goal of being aware and actively develop more discipline with my filing and storage methods!

I spent a good part of 3 days getting my computer files organized and cleaned up. I wanted to free up some of the Macs memory and now I could put my very large numbers of photographs where they can be easily accessed!  Husband Dave gave me an external hard drive  for my Mac. I wanted to file photographs on that drive.

Was so excited about getting my plans accomplished! I thought things were going very well when I began installing the new drive.....then....after spending an hour and a half online searching for an answer as to why the installation instructions were getting me nowhere I stumbled upon a 'HELP" item.

Guess what? I was going to have to update my computer. I knew that a lot of upgrades could be downloaded from apple and I searched for what I needed. After an additional 45 minutes of search time online i determined what I needed could not be simply downloaded. After ordering what I needed, and punching in the digits off my credit card for programing $129.00 for what my system required, I realized it would be 6-7 days before it would arrive. It took 7 the full 7 days to receive my order.

I began downloading my upgrades within 10 minutes. 14 hours to completely download disk one including the time that it took to download all of the updates for the stuff on the program cd. I waited until I went to bed to download the second one. The third one was short, only 2 hours. I spent several hours today familiarizing myself with the new programing.

I have gotten several things organized so far:

I have created searchable lists of all the websites that I visit  which indicate passwords including a lot of art references including tutorials and downloads that I can refer to. I also updated my address book to save time finding emails and client information. I updated my Vendor emails as well.

Success as an Artist Bringing Home the Bacon.

I am sure that this great adventure will have its ups and downs. I plan to publish at least 2 blogs per week and I hope you will follow my progress and lack of it too! I will keep you posted as I make my every effort in sharing my steps along the way. I Wish there was a quick elevator that would take me straight to the top! I think that enjoying the trip is said to be the best part of the journey. Day 1: January 4, 2011 - Organized my studio and moved a bunch of stuff I haven't used in months to the shed. I just incase I need it. Later for a project.

Day 2: January 5, 2011 - Spent 5 hours organizing my filling system. What a mess that was. I hope I can be disciplined enough to keep it straight. I ran across 12 different Artist Statements in my journals from over the years. I read through all of them, keeping what I thought was good. I hope to get a great current statement posted tomorrow.

Day 3: January 6 - 2011 - FInished My Artist statement and posted it below for you to read. I welcome any comments and questions that you would like to contribute! Thanks in advance for your input! I will begin on my Artist Resume tomorrow. Later today I hope to  get some pictures of my work, along with the stories that coincide to them. I think I will also post some  of free time and relaxation time activities posted tomorrow. I hope to finish up my Electronic Press Kit by the first part of next week.

Artist Statement, Kristine L. Johnston

As humans we are a culmination of our individual life experiences. Through these experiences, we live collecting many stories. These stories express the very core of our lives. My intent is to express the human condition articulated in unique and various visual mediums.

I see richness and diversity of daily life stories, which I am simply driven to share through the visualization of the thoughts and emotions within these stories. They embody the very substance of our lives and personalities. They depict decisive turning points, moments of life’s processes and growth, opportunities seized or lost and moments of realization. Some are exciting and exhilarating and others are open wounds or ugly scars from dreadful events. Some are of things dreamt of, or hoped for, others are treasured memories from days gone by. Finally, some are based in simple truth, beliefs and faith.

Over the past 15 years my goal has been to capture these stories in the mediums of textiles, colored pencil, pastels, watercolor, charcoal, pen & Ink, magic markers and simple children’s crayons. Ultimately my motivation to create comes from an amazing energy that stirs deep within me to express the stories, which I have experienced. Over the past 6 months my work has been directed toward my expression of God’s Word as it has affected me through messages from the Holy Bible.