The Entire Hot 100 and UNOS

Isn't it just GREAT when really cool opportunities come your way?  Especially when it involves those who do such an incredible amount of good in this world.

For those of you who remember my thesis exhibit, I donated a portion of all sales to Habitat for Humanity.  Now I am thrilled and honored to have my Hot 100 series connected with yet another very worthy organization, the United Network for Organ Sharing.  I have been asked to exhibit my Hot 100 next month at UNOS gallery in downtown Richmond, Virginia. The opening for all you RVA folks is Friday September 6th from 5-7:30 pm.  It is free and open to the public!

To celebrate I am posting my Hot 100 here, but of course I think that they look much better (and surprisingly somewhat different) in person.

Special thanks to Lisa Schaffner and UNOS for giving me (and my paintings) this opportunity.  Hope to see you on the 6th at UNOS, 700 N 4th Street RVA.

Hot 100: Selected Images, Paint, Pixels and Real Time Opportunities

OFFICIAL DISPLAY LABEL

Kathy Calhoun

Hot 100 #62

acrylic paint on paper
9"x12"
2013

But wait!! Those labels may look comprehensive but it ain't really so.  The information above is really only half the story, or maybe a 1/3....

                                 

 

Kathy Calhoun

Hot 100:  Various Images

acrylic paint on paper

9"x12"

just keeping it legal...

Consider this...the unspoken media (or second 1/3) used in Hot 100 but just as important as the acrylic paint listed above.  In fact, you are using right now to see this...

digital, electronic.

This is the first series I have continuously recorded while producing it.  

 Sorry, no paint here, just pixels

Then the final 1/3... the whole social media/Facebook/blog thing...I decided to post the whole she-bang on my personal FB page because, well why not?  Believe it or not, I started it as a personal nudge not a public acknowledgement thing.  It kept me on track by forcing me to pace my production.  As an aside, I also thought it would also be a nice little experiment to see how it would (or not) be received by the friend-sphere out there.

Will You Friend Me?  I promise not to spam you...

What I also did not realize (consciously anyway) was that I was creating a big opportunity for myself.

Hot 100: Rhythm, Forgiveness and Bouncing Balls

Ever drop the ball sometime?

 Soooo, just who is going to pick these up?

Realism and Forgiveness ....dropping the ball doesn't have to break the flow.

Just catch it on the bounce back up.

I finally figured out how to do this with those stretch, reachable and comfort goals, I mentioned a couple of posts back.  I just used them to break this whole Hot 100 thing into bite-sized daily goals.  I would try to make 4 paintings a day (reachable) but if I made 8 or 12 (stretch) hey, great, pat on the back.  But even if I just moved only one piece of tape on or off a piece of paper that one day (comfort) I thought, "Well at least I moved it forward".  My Hot 100 didn't stay still and it did not go backwards (which would have been a fail to quote my hip middle schooler)

So, I let it bounce.
But I definitely knew I had to do at least the challenge goal the next day...

 This mind set really help to keep me producing at a steady rate.  The sense of forgiveness thrown in ahead of time was liberating.  Initially, I  was afraid it would give me permission to slack off, but that didn't happen. Instead if I missed a day, I did not feel like I let myself down in the long run-no failure, just a smaller goal reached,  It was kept compartmentalized for just that one day.




Whew, what a sense of relief!

Ultimately, along with the studio reconfiguration for convenience, this bouncing ball concept went a long way to creating a sense of rhythm for me; doing my best to even push it even the tiniest bit forward every day and not feeling guilty on that occasional day it all got dropped.  Which happened maybe only twice during the whole 100 series.

Now to be able to transfer this to other areas of life, and to stop juggling delicate balls that break instead of bounce...

Hot 100: The Mommy Angle

Something every mother/artist or really any parent/with outside work or interest deals with.

 Basically it comes down to this...

How do I intergrate my art production into my everyday life without shortchanging my kids?

A top priority since my kids are home for the summer and they like/have to be fed, clothed, carted around etc. on a regular basis. Besides I really like hanging with them and want to do it as long as they, you know, actually still like hanging around with me.

Yet I wanted to create a strong body of work this summer too...So how to handle this?

In fact there is even a documentary about this dilemma called, "Who Does She Thinks She Is?" Which didn't really resolve anything in my opinion but still a good watch for those interested.

Hot 100: Various Pieces 

First,  I needed to figure out how to have many “quick and dirty” art work sessions also add up to something substantial, maybe even exhibition worthy.  Yet each session needed to be resolved and stand alone on its own merit.

Quick!  Time to Make Something Dirty...

Secondly, my work space had to be where my kids are hanging to have as little car time for this as possible. Hence the birth of my tiny, tiny home studio...

Tiny Studio Competes for Space with Fridge, Car, Tools, Sports Equipment etc..

Thirdly, my materials had to be what I had around and a workable size for the aforementioned tiny, tiny studio. Again avoiding the whole drive/errand time thing.

Great unintended side effect of this small scale-portability, to ironically get me back into the car (but with a very important difference - all of us in the car going to the same destination together).  A bit of the Hot 100 was done at the mountains and river (or rivuh as they say in Richmond), just threw it all in a plastic bin and off we went!

Let's Go Make Some Art!!

Finally, my process had to be segmented so that I could work in short time increments that could fit easily into even the most crazy busy days.  Sometimes it was done before breakfast had to be made or between loads of laundry and other exciting memorable domestic goddess moments.

So far so good...