Definitely late this week, sorry. The Commons show went very well - the opening was packed, as you can see from the photo above, and I held my own talking to strangers about my art. The show’s down now but while it was up, I began work on a complex grant proposal with eight essay sections that are similar but with slight variations. It’s project-oriented and yesterday I worked out the detailed budget for it so I’m almost done. This also stems from The Commons show as well, but let me backtrack a bit. The morning after the opening, I got a call that the Snow Owl had sold and they had cash for me to pick up. I assumed it had sold to one of the women I spoke to about it the night before, but it turned out it went to a woman who saw is image in the local press and drove forty miles to be there when The Commons opened to buy it. Her ATM only gave her enough cash for a deposit, so she drove the forty miles home empty handed but happy with her purchase. She then drove the same forty miles back and forth a few days later with the balance, but this time she left with the Snow Owl and I filled its space on the wall with the Harpy that had been on the Youtube show that I’d kept aside in case this happened. Very cool, very smooth, but while I was there that first morning collecting my cash, a man walked in hoping to find me. He was from the Provincetown Conservation Trust and had seen the windows project and wanted to talk to me about an event he was planning for next spring. I had already been thinking about the project I’m now doing the grant proposal for, and speaking to him pulled my ideas together. Also very cool, and this time serendipitous.

But wait, there’s more. Besides finishing Gatsby, the Starling above, while the show was in progress, and the SIDE Gallery online show that I have a photograph in going live, one of the women I spoke to at the opening was a curator and she contacted me a few days later about a show she was putting together. After some discussion, we settled on two large pieces that weren’t in The Commons show or part of what is going to the Ali Gray Gallery next week, and she came by yesterday with a contract and took the two pieces with her. They had been on my studio wall since my last Commons show in 2024. Luckily, I had the charcoals safely at home by then so my studio wall is not lonely. And if that’s not enough, I also went on a job interview last Thursday that reminded me of my internship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Battery Park. I’ve written about it before at least a year ago, it was post-9/11 and part of a program I was in at Pace University, and I was very happy there. I spent most of my time greeting visitors at my reception desk, and on slow days, I read books about Native American art that I borrowed from their research library. I also was a hostess at their film festival, where I met all the Dances With Wolves Indian actors, and attended workshops for kids because they were stringing beads and making masks and corn husk dolls. It was profoundly inspiring and led to me making my own masks, like Feather below, and the papier-mâché sculptures that are some of my best NYC work. So yes, I’ve been busy, I still am, and time’s a wastin’ - on with the day.

Greetings from the lounge at the Provincetown Commons where I am hanging out for a few hours every day while the show is up. The opening is tonight, although I hung the work on Wednesday, and I am very happy with the results. Everything fit without being crowded, as you can see in these shots of some of the show. Harpy#2, which I kept in reserve, has gone to the set of the Wake Up In Provincetown YouTube hourly weekly show so it could be featured in this morning’s video. There’s a screen shot at the bottom of this post.

Besides the YouTube show, I also have nice blurbs with images in the Provincetown Magazine as well as the weekly arts section of the Provincetown Independent. This weekend is the first Friday evening Gallery Stroll in town, so there should be some good traffic tonight, especially since there is a huge collage show opening in another space at The Commons and it’s also getting a lot of attention.

The Commons, by the way, is not just gallery spaces. It is a multifunctional art community organization with studios and co-working areas for creative entrepreneurs plus a number of private meeting rooms of various sizes. It was built in 1935 to replace the 1892 schoolhouse that burned down, and remained a school for decades. Eventually, it was acquired by The Commons we know and love, which after extensive interior renovations, opened in 2017. They focus their solo shows on artists without gallery representation, which I was one of until a few weeks ago, and they let me slide because I am, gratefully, one of their success stories.

In the meantime, the art advisor I mentioned last week bought the two larger pieces of the collection of small works she had on hold for her project. She may come back for the rest of them for a different project, but the gallery is happy to take them since the summer season tourists like little paintings that will fit easily in their suitcases when they fly home. Speaking of which, have you seen the new limited edition US passport design? Luckily I can request the old format when I renew mine this fall. OK, enough about that, on with the day.