Sometimes life throws you a curveball. Baseball metaphors aside, they’re not always easy to handle. As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to go to the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Living in Vancouver gets more expensive each year, so I came up with an alternative: I’d move to Courtenay and take the ECU external general visual arts degree at North Island College. In January, I bit the bullet and applied. I was nervous, naturally, that I wouldn’t get in. After weeks of waiting and wringing my hands, the letter finally came. Needless to say, I felt like all the pieces of my future as a professional artist were falling into place. I could finally become an artist, as if I was somehow discounting myself as one already.

Side note: I’m not sure at what point I decided that one degree wasn’t enough, or at what point I felt like I could only succeed as a professional artist with a BFA instead of the professional training I already had, but at some point it became the only answer. I fell under the myth that to be successful, I had to have a BFA. I had to go to an “art school”.

I got excited, and begun to plan my future, what I was sure would be more incredible than any other venture I had taken on thus far. I was going to move up island, and “be an artist”. I had a few hiccups in being able to view course selection at my chosen campus, and when I finally got it to work, my heart broke. Nothing that truly applied to me was being offered. This left me a few choices.

1 Go to North Island College anyway. Take what I can, do a couple of courses online, and commute to Granville Island to take drawing and painting studios next year. There are courses available that I could take, including art history, print media and cultural studies. While I may not end up with a full course-load this fall, it might allow me a better grasp on what I want out of furthering my art school education.

2 Suck it up and move to Vancouver. Find a place to live in Vancouver and attend Emily Carr. This would involve switching the program I’m currently enrolled in and possibly playing catch-up on some courses normally slotted into first and second year.

3 Defer. Decide to put off art school, continue to work, and make a decision about my future later.

While it seems I have my heart set on art school, it’s taken me until this point to realize that art school doesn’t make someone an artist. I know this should seem evident to anyone not in my predicament, but I really felt that to propel my future as an artist further professionally, I needed more school. I needed a BFA and an MFA. I needed more. What it really comes down to is that I’m already an artist. I already take my craft seriously, which is part of what separates an amateur from a professional. What I choose to do about school won’t change that. School merely allows me to explore as an artist. I may choose to go to school, I might even choose to go to Vancouver… or I may just choose to move to a more artistic city, like Victoria. In any case, my choice won’t make me any less of an artist, and that is a lesson I needed to learn.

This is how we realize that we don’t have to go to art school.

I’ve been playing with fun ideas to develop my sales as an artist, and I think I came up with one I’m rather pleased with!

Taking the idea of a zine and combining it with accordion picture books, I thought it would be fun to do a double-sized five fold accordion print book for both Dream Fevers and Obscure Sorrows. I’m only planning to get five of each made up, and they’ll be for sale in my art shop. I’m still working out a price point, but like any of my other prints and cards, they’ll be on sale for the first month they launch before being raised to their regular price.

Each image will be 5×5″, a throwback to old film sizes. When flat, the accordion books will be twenty five inches long. I haven’t done mock-ups for products in a long time, and the last image I illustrated was an iPhone 5, so bear with me. The accordion book concept is above the post, and it shows both Dream Fevers and Obscure Sorrows.

This is one of the many ideas I’ve come up with for future art trinkets in my shop. I’m also planning to do up hand cut stickers featuring my art and digitally created patterns inspired by my art. I’m also considering doing mini graphic novels/zines featuring my art, and maybe delving back into poetry.

This is an exciting time for me when it comes to promoting my artwork in new and affordable ways. Keep your eyes peeled on the shop for new products!

After much internal debate, I decided to apply for the RBC Painting Competition again this year. It’s an emerging artist competition for Canadian artists in the first five years of their professional career who have received attention through either a gallery show or the media post-graduation. Last April, I had my first solo show at the Electric Umbrella Tattoo & Gallery, where Russ Morland (an artist also known as LURK) handpicks and curates the artists he chooses to feature in his space. I was honoured that Russ chose me, and took the chance to debut my Obscure Sorrows collection alongside Epicene. I had over 15 pieces in the show and sold nearly everything from the new collection, mixed media works on canvas. Here’s some of the shots from the show:

Shortly after hanging the show, before the opening.

On display at the Electric Umbrella

On display at the Electric Umbrella

Shortly after the show ended, I entered the RBC Painting Competition for 2012. The rules are pretty stiff when it comes to showing the artwork. If it’s on your personal website, it must be removed by the time you submit your application and it can’t be previously published through the media. Essentially, the award is a purchase award and an investment in the artist’s future. Last year I submitted a piece from Obscure Sorrows that I hadn’t included in the show, and unfortunately I was passed over.

This year I feel I’ve developed even further as an artist and so I applied again. It’s the 15th anniversary of the competition, and the funding for emerging artists has increased in celebration. I imagine the competition will be quite intense this year. The piece I chose to submit for consideration was inspired by my Dream Fevers collection. I choose to say “inspired by” since the figures in this piece include eyes. The piece is titled Shanghai Girls and is named after an IO Echo song I happened to be listening to a lot at the time. Unfortunately, I can’t show the piece in it’s completion, but I am remixing it digitally for print sales. I’m curious to see how this pans out, as it would be a huge break for me as an emerging professional artist.

The candidates that they are seriously considering will be contacted at the end of the month, with the 15 finalists being announced mid June. I’ll keep you all posted!

For those well-acquainted with me, you may know of my for artists by an artist blog, Dream Fevers, aptly titled after one of my latest collections. The majority of what loves there revolves around tutorials, product reviews, gallery exhibitions (not my own) and general artist-helping-artist mentality.

This blog is still art-centric, but personal. Personal challenges, shows, projects and more without a guided tutorial accompanying it. I decided to return to art school in the fall to change my Bachelor of Arts degree into a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, propelling me further in my ultimate goal of becoming a professional artist who’s art pays her rent. Part of the process in that is further definition of my artistic style and I get closer all the timers shifting away from “collections” to categorizing my art by year.

I’m in the beginning of my professional career, and I think this’ll be a beautiful way to document the process.