Show time!

The 19^th Annual Orange County Open Studio Tour always falls on the first two weekends of November. This year, the dates are November 2-3 and 9-10. More than 70 local artists are participating. My studio is #25. Brochures are available in likely places around town or you can download one here.

Each year I get an interesting and diverse mix of visitors from collectors, to students of photography, to folks just out for a pleasant weekend activity. This year I plan to exhibit 30 to 40 prints. And with less than two weeks until show time, the making of lists and scratching them off has already begun!

Currently, I'm making an inventory of available prints. Some are hanging in various locations around town. Some are standing stacked in a corner at home. Others need to be matted or framed. I’ve also looked through my pile of finished prints from the past few months of work. Ranking them, I suppose. I'm down to the top 15 and still cutting!

The plan is to select no more than a dozen new prints to finish out. In addition, 8 or 10 prints were framed out for a couple of shows last summer that haven't shown locally. Combined, that should satisfy my need to show new work whenever exhibiting.

That's because not showing new work feels a little too much like being unemployed. Simply put, we are what we create in this life. Most employed people in our society get a paycheck every week or two that provides regular gratification (hopefully) and validation for their labor. Sadly, making gum bichromate photographs doesn't come with that built in work perk. More likely, it comes in the form of holding a satisfyingly-finished-but-still-dripping-wet print in my hands. From there. matting, and framing, and exhibiting these newborn prints completes the creation cycle.