Anne Leuck Feldhaus Adventures & Art

Space...

...I've been looking at a lot of it the last two days. I just gave my 30 day notice to terminate my storefront lease on Roscoe. This space didn't turn out to be exactly what I originally envisioned, but in this economy I was very lucky to receive many commissions from folks in the neighborhood, get some great exposure, interact with the community and in the end learn quite a bit about my(neurotic)self! I'm grateful that I was able to host some pet adoption events and share my passion for animals and finding them homes. I also met many artists inquiring about my journey and can only hope they were inspired to follow their artistic dreams.  
 
So, in a year of many changes in my life, this should complete the logistical portion of these changes, at least for awhile - I hope! Now I have some decisions to make, I loved the space above, but it's a little out of my price range and a bit further north than I want to be. The good news is, I saw some other great options today...so stay tuned, hope to have a new studio secured sooner than later...and this all means good news for you if you like my work: A STUDIO MOVING SALE!  Let me know if you've had your eye on anything, I'm feeling VERY negotiable these days and would rather see my art on your wall than mine!

Not just a change of seasons...

Having this storefront space has been an interesting experience...I've been here 1.5 years and kept regular open studio/gallery/shop hours for most of that time. I continue to get lots of commission work from people in the neighborhood but it's difficult to get that work done during 'open' hours and it's hard to commit to that during the summer when I have so many outdoor shows. So...I re-painted the "Gallery & Shop" sign to read "Art Studio". For now I'll be open on occasion, for special events and probably most Saturdays. Closer to the holidays, I may have set hours. It already seems to be working out, I've had a few appointments and even some knocks on the door this week. I'm happy to meet with you most days or evenings and you are always welcome to knock on the door if you're in the neighborhood!

Speaking of being open...this Saturday, September 18th is Guinness Oyster Fest in Roscoe Village so I will be open from Noon-7pm. Stop in for a drink and some special end of the season deals!

Sketchbook Project 2011...

I just signed up for the Sketchbook Project 2011. Guess which theme I chose? Big surprise: 'It's raining dogs & cats'. You can participate too..just follow the links. Thanks to Kathy Weller for the reminder.

Anne's Art in another Feature Film...!

"Dog Days"

"Betty & Barney"

I just signed a final film credit release for my prints "Dog Days" and "Betty & Barney" to be used on the set of Doggie Boogie, a feature film coming out sometime next winter. These prints will be hanging in the set apartment of character, Peter Wolfe, owner of Doggie Boogie, a dog dancing school...hopefully we'll see them - that's not always the case.

My previous brushes with the silver screen:

The Break-Up - You never saw my art in this Vince Vaughn/Jennifer Aniston movie because they cut the original ending...didn't see it in the dvd alternate ending either. (My entire art fair booth was in it, plus my friend Eva May and I were hired as extras...it was a very fun 2 days of shooting along with some other art fair pals and their work on the set at Buckingham Fountain in August of 2005.)

The Number 23 - My postcards and book mark were easy to spot in this Jim Carrey flick plus I got a little press and sold the painting that was on the postcard....

 

Unified body of work...you be the judge.

I didn't take into consideration the spacing, each piece is formatted in a 1920 square, so the spacing might change the way the images are seen. I'm now leaning towards A with the B booth shot as shown above.

care to comment further?
I need your help, I have lots of art fair deadlines coming up this week - I'm on the fence with my slide selections. As a jury member you will be reviewing up to 1200 sets of slides. In the first round each set is projected for 5-10 seconds, the set is either rejected or goes on to the next round, more time is given in the next rounds, booth slides can be tie breakers.

My question for you: which of these 3 groups (A,B,C) makes the best initial first impression as a unified body of work? (click on the image to enlarge)

Tuesday Set up...

Rich & I headed down to the Merchandise Mart yesterday morning to set up for my show which starts tomorrow. It was nice to have today to catch up...and I've still got work to do tonight but I should relax a tiny bit as the hard part is done. Some photos from the day:

 
 
 

The entrance into the underworld of the Merchandise Mart from Kinzie Street.

It was so dark I couldn't get a good photo so I desaturated it...it's remarkable how much freight goes in & out of this building in an average day. We have 500+ exhibitors for our event alone setting up over 2 days...you pull in, unload and they take your work up on giant dolleys. You then go park your truck and by the time you get upstairs: your work is in your booth! wah-la!

 
so before...
 
and after...

Will put more goodies and the magnets out tomorrow...okay..now I'm excited, I needed that visual reminder that I am really set up and pretty much ready. This really is an amazing event with lots of good energy and shoppers...and it's always so fun to catch up with my artist friends from all over the country! (and to trade with them! stay tuned..hopefully I'll have new treasures to share in a few days.)

Mojo

Just whipped up this card to go in my new mixed sets of holiday greeting cards for One of a Kind. Cafe Press only lets you order sets of one design and people always want mixed so this year I will give the people what they want! Running out to Xpedx to see if I can find boxes or bags that fit better than my current stock of clear bags.

Adrenaline is coursing through my body...This always happens, I worry for 3 weeks prior to an event but the mojo always kicks in at the last minute and brings all these other great ideas along with it! The clincher, I only have 'x' amount of time so I can only do so much...and in the middle of my short time to pull it together we are running up to WI to be with my family for the Thanksgiving Holiday (which I am VERY grateful for - but the timing is always tough). I'm just relieved that I'm back in 'super anne' mode, I was getting worried! okay..now I sound a little manic depressive don't I?

Wishing you & yours a wonderful holiday filled with lots of laughter and good cheer!

Better Late Than Never...

Just finished my Holiday Show Postcard...a week late! Hopefully GotPrint.com will come through for me, probably not in time for my November 30th Open Studio Sale...but hopefully in time for the One of a Kind Show, December 4-7.

Discovered Artists...

Over the summer I was asked to be a Founding Artist with DiscoveredArtists.com. The site was launched to the public early this month and I sold my first painting last week...I also just joined a site called BoundlessGallery.com. I thought it would be a good idea to make live links from my website portfolio to these live retail pages. Joining these sites adds to my exposure on-line and makes it easier for customers on my website to buy pieces immediately. So next week, after my last outdoor art fair (this weekend in Louisville, KY) I hope to get more of my inventory listed at AnnesArt.com and cross linked to these other sites. Looking forward to more on-line sales and sharing my work with potential new customers!

Crunch Time...

Phew...after we loaded the truck, I came in and finished 2 more paintings...this is a close up of a tiny portion of one of them. We hit the road tomorrow morning for the Prairie Village Art Fair this weekend in Kansas City. I've been in SUPER ANNE mode which is neccessary to produce my Newsletter before heading out of town and pull everything together for the first show of the season: (getting my booth display and equipment all back together, packing paintings, figuring out what stays and what goes and how to hang it. Making price tags, getting portfolios, credit card machine, receipt books, mailing list, bags, weights, and my brand new front Awning  for my Tent....woo hoo: additional shade!). 

It's almost a relief to just focus on one part of my business for a week....I've always felt that if I just chose one direction I could be really successful (and probably more sane) but for some reason I feel the need to be involved in all these different facets of art: the Art Fairs, Pet Portraits, Illustration, Licensing, Wholesale, my Design work for Animal Welfare Groups...did I forget anything? Some day I would love to have a business manager that facilitates all that 'stuff' so I could just do the creative part...know anyone like that?

Also edited and uploaded another video clip - this one is of me painting a recent pet portrait of Dudley & Murphy (above) for Stacy of ZuZuPetals. You can watch it on my Pet Portrait Blog.  It's actually easier to upload video to Blogger than to Typepad...go figure.

Proposed Orphan Works Bill

We (artists, illustrators, photographers, designers) need your help!

There is a bill in the senate called The Orphan Works Act of 2008. It will endanger the rights of anyone who creates intellectual property.

It will expose your art to commercial infringement. It will include work from professional paintings to family snapshots. It will include published and unpublished work. It will include any image that resides or has ever resided on the internet. It will force you to register every picture you do with privately-held commercial registries. It will make all unregistered works potential orphans.

This radical change to U.S. copyright law will shift the burden of diligence from infringer's to rights holders. It is wrong to give infringer's the right to make money from your property without your knowledge or consent. You should not have to pay businessmen to keep the work you’ve created.The Illustrators Partnership of America has made it very easy for you to contact your representatives.

Take Action: Don't Let Congress Orphan Our Work

2 minutes is all it takes, click to write Congress and protect your copyright:

Just click "Take Action" under each bullet and you can quickly make your voice heard. I just sent to all the links and it really takes very little time. PLEASE take a moment and do the same.

Joanne Fink gives a very good description here of what art licensing is and what this bill will do to artists who make a living from licensing and selling their work: illustrators, designers, artists.

Artists Found on FLickr

I just found another wonderful artist..this time on Flickr. This ceramic piece "large head with avocado" is by Kim Murton of Washington state. She also has great illustrations and 2d work on her Flickr site. I found her on a flickr group...yes, I'm finding that all these sites have multi-layered networking capabilities.

It's one thing to know there are many talented artists out there but now with sites like etsy and flickr you suddenlty realize you have no clue...you are just skimming a little corner of an endless, awesome pool of amazing talent, creativity and cleverness. And those are just the sites I'm referencing...there are a gazillion others that I
don't even know about as well as all the amazing illustration artist sites (but that's a whole other post). Here are some I know about and a few I belong to:

AbsoluteArts.com
MyArtSpace.com
Fine Art America
Imagekind.com

Do you have any favorites that you would like to share?

Banner Art for my Blog..Finally!

Putting a custom banner with my artwork has been on my to do list for a long time...although I kind of liked the clean simplicity of just the sold blue banner with white text. But then I always felt pressure to have an image of my work visible in my posts so people could see my work/know that I am an artist..you know, I'm always wearing that marketing hat!

So aside from that, I've procrastinated for the usual reasons:

*Didn't know how to do it, Kathy Frey emailed me some pointers back in February

*Wouldn't take the time to investigate further, until today.

*I found myself upgrading my account because the buttons Kathy told me to look for were not there! No wonder I couldn't figure it out before (I've been blogging since November of 2005!)

*Couldn't decide on the design, what imagery to include, text etc.

So this is it for now..until I come up with something better. Which I will...but now I have to also design all the other things that normally come with a pre-designed template, text color, link colors, borders...too much for today. I'm also thinking of having 2 columns on either side as well, any opinions out there? For now I'm just going to cross that "blog banner art" item off my to do list and be glad! 

PS I also updated my menu bar on my website...more white: cleaner...do you like it better than the old one? see below.

 

this was the old menu bar...dark and I thought I should refresh the logo image.

My New Friend Lynda!

I just made a great new friend and she's really SMART!  For $25 a month Lynda.com gives you full access to online training for almost any application out there. I am self taught on 99% of the software that I use, making things really complicated at times. I heard about this site quite awhile ago and realized how silly it was to put off signing up. What I learned today alone will cover my $25 for the month, I finally figured out how to make downloadable pdf files for my Pet Portrait Order Forms in Adobe GoLive. Yay! The teachers are very thorough and even make a few jokes along the way. I can't wait to explore and solve some of my problems with Illustrator and Photoshop and to add Forms to my website on GoLive. Learning is so much fun when you have a good teacher! And you only pay for what you need, I can just unsubscribe at the end of the month if I've had all my questions answered. Pretty cool.

Website Updates!

Several times of year I seriously think about hiring a web designer, but then time slips away and I just continue morphing this monster I created so many years ago! That's what I did this week:

• I added my newly completed painting "65 South" to my front page. I love this painting and am now ready to let go of 12 Acres if the right buyer comes along.
• Reworked many of my Custom Dog & Pet Portrait Order pages: Starting with the Sketch Process Page, I used Brutus as a case study.
• Updated and simplified the Face Portrait and the Full Body Custom Canvas Painting order forms.I still have to figure out how to get a downloadable pdf on my site. The dangers of doing everything yourself. The other problem I can't update my leftside menu frame, it'sm making me crazy.
• Uploaded my Mission Statement page...I recently completed a longer version for a potential licensing deal and have meant to post this on my website forever. I just want people to adopt and not buy animals, if they really new the statistics I think they would adopt. Speaking of: I heard Oprah is doing a show on puppy mills tomorrow...I am so happy about this, people need to know. She could in this one hour show change the lives of thousands of homeless pets (I'm hoping in addition to getting these mills shut down that they make the point to encourage people to go their local shelters to adopt instead of buying dogs). We'll see how it all plays out tomorrow.
  
• Updated my Animal Inspiration page - added a few more recent photos to the very old ones.
• Updated my listing to show recently SOLD pieces...always a joy to do!

Art Business News

I was very happy to find my booth shot from the One of a Kind Show featured in the Picture Gallery section of the March 08 Issue of Art Business News Magazine! This is a national trade journal for the art, publishing & framing industries.

My Candy Colored World...

Inspired by Kathy Frey's blog: "Taming the Tangle", I recently revamped my categories. She has one called "Personal Glimpse" I edited mine to "My Candy Colored World" it's just more of a focused peek at the everyday here. I also thought that made for a good name for my blog since I've always said my hues are candy colored, and as you can see here in these photos, so is my life!

In honor of the everyday..things that happened around here last week:

• 

• Home Improvement...we had the wonderful guys from Samanco working here this week, the jobs not huge, but closing the walls and ceiling back up made for a 4 day event. We now have insulation in our laundry room (the pipes froze last winter) and we have fabulous pendants hanging over the kitchen island....this will add so much ambiance to our dinner hour...not too mention dramatic lighting for our high stakes Scrabble games! Also replaced the very froofy brass fixtures that were hanging in the living rooms that join the kitchen. They are very simple schoolroom style period fixtures that echo the age of this old house. I love them...!! And a plug for Angie's List, this is how I found Samanco, they also did our bathroom rehab in our old house on Oakley....sadly that bathroom no longer exists as the house was torn down.

• 

• I hung my fun Birthday gifts from my dear pal Erica by my desk..shrinky dinks! She did a portrait of me and one of each of our hands...they are precious little talismans. She also presented me with this sweet hand sewn birthday cake! Perfect...I can take it with me on my annual sojourn.

• 

• I went to the Art Girls Pot Luck for the first time since December! We met at printmaker, Judy Zeddie's house. My big tip for the night was to get the business book "The E Myth Revisited". I went with the unabridged audio version...I have too many books stacked on my bedside table and I want to get right into this one...I can listen while I paint!
• 

• We hosted an easter brunch here for some of Rich's family, it was a fun day...my nephew Dexter made this great drawing of me and him:

• 

• My next assignment: Create a Blog Banner with art on it....I should have done that first!

Artist Statement.....I finally wrote one.

I only accomplish these important things when I really don't have time. I should be packing as I'm heading out of town in the morning for my 4th annual Birthday Adventure...Premise: Go to sleep or wake up someplace you have never been on your birthday! This year I will go to sleep near Lake Wenatchee in the Cascade Moutains of Seattle at my brother's new cabin!

So back to the statement, the deadline for Chicago's Public Art Portrait Project is Monday, I just couldn't pass it by. The Proposal required a Design,Concept Statement, Resume, Slides and...sigh, an Artist Statement. I have been putting this off for too long...instead using a weird bio/statementee thing. So tonight I did it...please note this project does not involve my animal imagery so I did not include anything relating to the animal art or mission. That will be an altogether separate piece. When I have more time I will created a combination statement that ties it all together. Enough talk, here it is:

When I paint, I feel like I am on an adventure, the blank canvas or board is like the open road. It’s easiest to take a route I know well but most satisfying when I have the courage to go down a path I have not traveled before – that’s when my most interesting compositions emerge.

Based on my adventure theory, I guess it’s not surprising that many of my paintings include roads and narrative landscapes. These painted stories include a visual vocabulary of beloved shapes and patterns that make up my contemporary folk and urban pop art style. I have a constant source of imagery influenced by my dreams, daily sketchbooks and my precious adopted dogs.

Raised in a small Wisconsin town, I always dreamed of living in the big city. The energy and vistas of Chicago’s more industrial, urban views constantly inspire me. My style was surely influenced by a childhood of endless Sunday mornings sitting in a Catholic church staring at the stained glass windows.  My color sense further developed every Christmas as my Mother allowed my Brother and I to mix our own frosting colors for holiday cutout cookies. Those colors still make up my palette.

Making art and seeing the joy it brings to other people inspires me, and keeps me moving forward in life, always excited to create something new.

-Anne Leuck Feldhaus

I would love your feedback. If you are looking for tips on how to write your artist statement I highly recommend visiting the very helpful sites of Alyson Stanfield, Molly Gordon and Arianne Goodwin. And most definitely check out the Smartist Telesummit for statements and so much more.

Art Fairs...How do we get there?

I've already submitted several applications for the 2008 shows and whisked off a few more for a January 31 deadline yesterday. Most people have know idea the lengthy process artists go through to get into the art fairs. In addition to paying to rent our spaces, months in advance we spend time filling out applications, labeling slides, writing checks for jury fees, booth fees, SASEs (stamp self-addressed envelopes) including 100 character (yes character not word) descriptions, and in some cases resumes ..(this is the prompt I have every year to update mine).  We are all competing with other artists based on 4 slides (3 for some shows) and a booth shot and also paying a jury fee for them to look at our slides. Picking those slides becomes very important, I learned some tips from a workshop taught by Bruce Baker. I visited his website and saw that he now has a cd available on the topic: Your Slides and the Jury. Since my images are now digital I use iprintfromhome.com to have my slides made, you can upload digital files and they ship the same day. 

There is a great new on-line art fair application process which streamlines the whole system dramatically, it's called Zapplication (Zapplication.org). We upload our images to the site and can apply and manage our applications on-line to the shows that subscribe to the service. The downside is it's simplified the application process so much that hundreds more are applying to each show and competition is higher than ever before. I recently received a rejection letter from the Brookside Show in Kansas City: they received 1,300 applications for 170 spots! and painting is generally the largest category so with odds like that you do the happy dance if you get in! If they like your work and it's a tie, it often comes down to your booth shot, which I have not had professionally taken outdoors...one of these days. Below are the images I am using for the 2008 show submissions. So anyways...if you are still reading...thanks! and I hope this was somewhat informative if you are interested in jumping into the art fair circuit.

Art Biz Coach...Alyson Stanfield

Alyson is based in the Denver area and I've worked with her off and on for several years via phone and email. She is a great art business coach: ArtBizCoach.com. Her blog: ArtBizBlog.com and Newsletters are a constant help and resource for me and thousands of other artists. I finally had the pleasure of meeting her in person over the weekend at the Art Marketing Workshop she held in Lake Forest for the Deer Path Art League. I helped with sales of her new book : "I'd Rather Be In The Studio" (hot off the presses last week) and her other educational art marketing cd's. It was great to see her in action, she is a wonderful presenter. I then had the added bonus of having  her visit my home & studio and take me to dinner on Sunday...she even got to meet Izzy &  crazy Alice. Thanks Alyson!

#10 is my Nemesis...

I get lots of emails from other artists looking for tips and help. I have collected a great referral list of sites and other inspring artists to check out among them is Keri Smith...she posted the list above on her Wish Jar Journal and I had to laugh when I read it because I happen to be having a miserable artist's week: Numbers 1,3,5,9,10...especially 10. I'm not supposed to feel this way in January, this should be free and easy catch up time but instead I feel like I'm never going to get caught up.

On a positive note here are some very helpful resources to check out:
www.artbizcoach.com
www.artbizblog.com
www.another.girlatplay.com
www.kerismith.com
www.smartist-telesummit.com
www.cherylphelps.com/workshops.html
www.artmarketing.com/books
www.karenrossi.com/faqs-licensing.htm
www.maryengelbreit.com/ForArtists/GettingStarted.aspx
www.porterfieldsfineart.com/howtolicenseyourart.htm
www.surtex.com
licensingshow.com 

Etsy...Mounted Prints are on their way!

We are preparing to add our inventory of mounted 'ready-to-hang' prints on etsy.com for immediate purchase. I've only listed this  dalmation...more to come later this week, check back.

Most of the year it's hard to list things with the turnover of sales from all the shows but here we are in the dead of winter with the temp dipping below zero here in Chicago...the time is perfect! Snuggle up to your mac or pc next to a toasty fire (or in my case, space heater under my desk!) and go shopping on the coolest indie art site out there.

A note on the cold: I LOVE weather and the seasons and the extremes of temperature (okay not so much the hot extremes) obviously it's easy for me to feel this way working from home...but those are the days/nights you remember: the record cold, blizzards and thunderstorms; as a kid whenever a thunderstorm was rolling in, my whole family would run out in the back yard to dance around in the whirling wind and welcome it..I still do! But of course the extremes are getting very scary with global warming. I really don't want to see anymore record anything, and my biggest fear as a kid (besides snakes) was a tornado. But in spite of this I have the crazy fascination of a storm chaser and a small collection of tornado paintings. All right, I'm way off subject, time for bed!

As Seen on The ispot...

I did it! I am now represented on the ispot Illustration Portfolio Website. Of course I do not know if I chose the right images but I can change and edit them at any time. I'm still on the fence regarding getting a rep (this is one of the reasons I was holding off on putting my work up, I didn't want to do it without getting a rep first). Almost every illustrator I spoke with said, you can do it on your own...I reply that I have a hard time asking for $ and worry about contractual issues. Guess I'll have to wing it...!

Art Girls...

Last night I hosted our monthly Art Girls get together...it was "Pot Leuck" I made my Mother's great Seafood Lasagna.  As usual..I forgot to get out the camera until everyone was on their way out. We had a great time and shared lots of good information. It's inspiring to trade leads and resources and hear eachother's news, big commissions & sales, new venues etc. On resource we'll all be checking out soon from  Kathy Frey is the Women's Business Development Center, they offer seminars with business counseling included in the fee. I also shared about my favorite art/client/exhibit database management software Eartist - from Artscope.net. As usual the food contributed by all made for an amazing meal from the appetizer to the desserts....and yes there is still plenty of talk about doing our own cookbook! Girls in the photos Match, Kathy, Mimi, Kate & Eva sporting their flower child candy bracelet head bands! And Sharon & Match...

New Postcards...

There are benefits of doing your own graphic design but the curse is that you spend way too much time tweaking and changing and deliberating on the final piece. And of course as usual, I left this task to 3 days before leaving for my 8 day artist residency at the Fields Project and a road trip the following week to Colorado for a family reunion at the YMCA of the Rockies. Rich chose the final design, we went with the upper left one. I placed my order late last night so they get printed and mailed before the July 13-15 Magnificent Mile Art Fair. I use GotPrint.com for my printing and my mailing. Their prices are great and the quality superb. Other companies I use are PSPrint.com (for bookmarks and stickers) and ClubFlyers.com (for high quantity - minimum order is 5000 cards but for the incredible price of $150). Phew...okay, now on to the next 25 things on my to do (in the next 48 hours) list!