…not a stranger to it, no.

Today was another SUPER AWESOME PRODUCTIVE DAY! Kinda. Chugging right on through a lot of BS. My gods there is a lot of BS to chug. But it’s getting there.

I’m still feeling pretty high off of the success of the lecture last week. That was another big huge obligation that was hanging over me — and no joke, it was huge. But it’s done. Not perfect, not even really complete — but I could poke at the materials endlessly. It’s done. And best of all, I can come back to it later when I need it, and the parts I want are accessible now. *whew!*

On the coattails of that — it was another episode of being in the right place at the right time, and things have just worked out for me to get in with some other Metals Guild people to go to the national metalsmithing conference in Houston, in March. It’s expensive. It’s also exactly what I should be doing, so I’m going. Whee, bandwagon!

And in looking more closely at the conference programming: they have a portfolio review. Totally optional. Totally another thing that I absolutely should do. Ulp.

So I put in a request to be in line for review. I was just saying earlier today that I really need to just start applying to shows and exhibitions, even if it’s just to get rejected, so that I get into practice and get my mind more focused on exhibiting. No time like the present??

The opportunity to have your portfolio reviewed is first-come-first serve. I might get a slot, I might not. But if I DO get reviewed… ah, that’s the anxiety part. I’ve been pretty focused on trying to make production work — stuff that I can replicate and sell. This, I think, is about the ART side. The side I’d really rather be working on. Perhaps, the stuff I really SHOULD be focusing on. Looking at the work of some of the reviewers — ie the ones I didn’t recognize by name — oh fucking hell. Would you want to have your heroes review your work and tell you what they really thought?

The answer is, of course, yes — and I’d be a fool to turn it down. And I know that I’m not bad at what I do. But I’m IN NO WAY on the same level as these guys. I have no idea how I stack up to what they think is good, even for an “emerging artist.”

I DO know that if Tim McCreight* said unkind things about my work, I would cry. Ah, the masochism that is studio art.

*That there is the first metalsmithing textbook I had in college. For grins, go here and see what else he’s published.