Open Studio

Last Saturday I held an Open Studio at my place in Gowanus. Okay, let me come clean: Last Saturday I stayed in the studio I share with four or five (or six -- I'm not exactly sure) other people with the door open so people taking the Annual Gowanus Art Studio Tour could see me and my work, even though I never paid the $60 fee to officially be part of the tour. In my defense, the deadline for joing the tour was only a few days after I moved in, so I didn't really have time. Also, SIXTY BUCKS!

Anyway. A bunch of people wandered through, some with small children, which was good, and some with small dogs, which was less good. I'm certain one shih-tzu was eyeing my paintings with a view towards marking his territory. One really good thing happened, though, and I'm going to show you these two photos to see if you can guess what it was. What changed?

The answer is a painting's missing because I sold it! Yes! A guy came in with his kids and said, kind of off-handedly, "How much do you get for these?" I wasn't sure, I said, but I had to admit I had some of the smaller ones up on eBay for $150 (none of which, it turned out, sold).

"I'll give you fifty for that one," he said.

"The panel cost about twenty," I replied, "so, um, okay."

He didn't have any money on him, but I realized he could pay via PayPal, which he did. Then he asked for a bag as if I was some kind of retail establishment. Luckily I had a plastic bag from shopping.

The only trouble is it turns out I never got a good photo of that painting, which is based on a pastel I did of Kat Love. All I have is this highly processed version from that group photo above.

The photo contains all of the paintings I've done in the studio since I moved in last August, plus two from before that. So you can see I've finished 20 paintings (a few are stacked up against each other on the floor). Pretty good, but I'm not Van Gogh yet.

Speaking of Van Gogh, you can see the little painting in the middle there. As Nathan told me he introduced people to my work last week when I wasn't there, "As you can see from all these paintings," -- here he gestured expansively -- "Chris is clearly obsessed...with telephone poles."

Anyway, the little painting was my pretending to be Van Gogh for a bit. I was thinking, he copied plenty of painters, so I could copy him for a bit, just to see what happens. So I tried being more linear and brushy and less smooth and curvy. I worked from a cellphone photo I took so I wouldn't be tempted to get into too much detail. I kind of like it. I'll have to get a better photo of it before someone buys it!