It’s been a busy week.

To begin with, I photographed and cataloged a series of 12 small paintings. They’re part of a series of 8″ x 8″ studies in preparation for the massive paintings I need to create for my museum exhibition in 2010-2011. They’re all multiple layers of acrylic on paper mounted on 1/2″ thick wood. I plan to finish as many as I can over the next year using the entire range of hues. There’s a small chamber within the exhibition space which will feature a selection chosen by the curator.

Here are a few of them in the Green / Blue / Violet range.

It was also time to begin preparing for an Encaustic Solo show coming up in October. I stained 18 float frames which I had my carpenter build for me. Once that was done it was time to attach them to 18 encaustic works on wood, each measuring 12″ x 12″. Of course that meant adding hardware and wiring for hanging. Those are now finished, photographed, and ready to go.

I always prefer to get things done in batches and out of the way. The next step for this October show will be to prepare frames for a series of  30 miniature encaustics. These are between 5″ x 5″ and 8″ x 8″ each. I’m not quite sure the best way to present these yet and I’m still looking into different options.

This morning I was really pleased to have collectors from Dallas, visit my studio. I met them at my recent show at Alan Barnes Fine Art.  At the Opening they bought the 20″ x 20″ painting featured on the cover of my catalog. They’re visiting Detroit for a wedding this weekend and took the time to cross the border to come see me. I was thrilled to be able to show them around.

During these unsettling times, it’s challenging to make it through a day without being bombarded with negative, gloomy news. For artists it can be even more challenging.

In talking to other artists and reading Blogs online, I repeatedly hear the anguish and self-doubt. As most people focus on merely coping with their lives, art and culture becomes the first thing to be deemed unnecessary. Many professional artists are faced with few sales plus the added pressure of having the galleries which represent them closing altogether. As a result many artists are so disillusioned they  are giving up completely. Their tender, creative souls have been crushed.

It is very sad to see this happen. Yet at the same time there are also many artists who thankfully see these times as an opportunity for rebirth and renewal. - a time to go into the studio and get back in touch with their innermost creative selves. - to experiment - to question - to seek and to find themselves anew.

That’s how I’ve chosen to approach these times. Yes, I do have doubts at times. That little voice in my head that says “Why bother?”. But then the other voice booms even louder, “Because it’s who you are and it’s your destiny to create art.”

Usually at this point a third voice enters into my thoughts that says, “Show me a sign I’m on the right path.” Here is where it gets kind of weird and wonderful.

Over the 20 years since I made the decision to make art as my full-time career, I’ve had this little exchange with the “Universe” several times. Each time I do, something shifts and the phone rings, or an opportunity walks through my door. I instantly receive a batch of tangible signs in the form of sales or an invitation to show my work. I’m absolutely not making this up.

2 weeks ago, I was at a bit of a low ebb and that inner conversation came up in my head. Boom !!! Within days, I’d sold 2 paintings and been invited to have a 2-person show in late October.

Yesterday, a friend recommended someone to me and he ended up buying a small series of 8″ x 8″ works on paper mounted on wood. Someone else email this morning and they want a painting from my website. It may be coincidence, but to me it’s definitely a sign.

Red Vibe - series 8" x 8" each (16" x 16" overall) (c) 2007

My theory is that it all comes down to faith. We must all have faith in ourselves. And we must all have faith that when we are on the right path, doors will open. We will receive everything we need.

Keep the faith !!

Wow ! I just can’t believe it’s been 6 whole weeks since I’ve blogged. My most humble apologies to all of you who read this. You know how it it is. Life gets busy, and Blogging is one of those things on the to-do list that always seems like it can wait another day.

The past month has been intense in the studio. Yet when I look around, I almost wonder what I’ve accomplished. Most of my time has been spent doing prep work for my museum show next year. It’s involved going through my sketchbooks and doing small 8″ x 8″ color studies for the larger canvases. Now I’m itching to start painting large again.

This past week was quite fun. I had a studio visit by someone referred to me by our local Arts Council. They ended up buying a large 48″ x 48″ canvases called Green Horizon, which I only finished painting a few months ago. I went to the collector’s home to hang it for them and it looks stunning in their family room with the light shining in through the large window. They told me the painting makes them feel very tranquil.

Green Horizon C-0902, 48" x 48" Copyright 2009

On Wednesday I was invited to an awesome luncheon at the beautiful home of one of my collectors. There were only 8 of us which included the Director of a public museum, 2 museum curators of contemporary art, and other museum staff. Before an exquisite catered lunch we were treated to a tour of this collectors’  museum quality print collection of 10 Warhol Soup Cans,  6 Sol LeWitts, 15 Ad Reinhardts, 2 Jasper Johns, a Robert Motherwell, Roy Lichentstein and Jim Dine  to name only a few. Our jaws were nearly on the floor. There were so many beautiful works that it all went by in a blur.

In the midst of that fabulous iconic blue chip art were two of my paintings. As an artist it was a strange experience. Both very humbling and surreal to be hanging with all these legends of modern art.

Here are 2 new paintings on canvas I finished last week which I’ve been working on for about a month.

They’re both 24″ x 24″ and could probably hang together although they’re not specifically a diptych.  C-0907 is primarily an exploration of cool reds with blue undertones. In C-0908 I was exploring warm reds with orange undertones.

It’s always so interesting to me to see how the same color can convey such different emotional content simply through temperature and tone.

Red Horizon # C-0907

Red Horizon, # C-0908

In Canada they call public museums Galleries for some reason. Perhaps it’s a holdover from the British system, but it does cause confusion at times because commercial spaces are called galleries also.

The exhibition dates for my first solo museum show at the Art Gallery of Windsor have been finalized at last.  December 4, 2010 - Feb 6, 2011

You might think that’s awfully far ahead. Although it may seem that way, believe it or not,  I need to begin preparing now.

The Curator of Contemporary Art,  James Patten has asked me to paint an entirely new body of work for this exhibition. The space is gorgeous but cavernous with several smaller nooks for more intimate work. At about 2000 square feet with ceilings of about 18 feet, it’s daunting task.

The paintings on the top photo, which are not mine by the way, are actually about 10 feet x 12 feet. They’re just swallowed up by the space. For the exhibition to have any impact at all requires massive paintings. Massive paintings require a lot of pre-planning, and major work to create.

Shipping is also a huge issue when you’ve got paintings that large. This week, I’ve been researching specially built stretchers which can be assembled and disassembled easily. I found a quality supplier right in my own Canadian backyard about 200 miles from my studio which supplies artists all over the world, called Upper Canada Stretchers.

This will allow me to remove  finished paintings, roll them, and ship along with the disassemble stretcher. Then the whole thing gets reassembled at the other end. Pure genious !

Last week, an artist friend of mine told me a sad story.
This artist felt very fortunate to have a consistent group of collectors who always bought at her monthly Open Studios. To document her work she was in the habit of simply taking a quick snapshot with her phone. She couldn’t see the point of spending a lot of time taking quality photographs and creating digital images in various formats since she doesn’t submit to galleries or competitions. Snapshots were good enough for her needs.

Well two weeks ago this sad artist realized how wrong she had been.
Late in the afternoon on a Monday she got a call from an interior designer who had an unexpected, important meeting with the owner of a hotel the next morning. He wanted to look at photos of various artists’ work and make his choices before he headed out of town. The art budget was $20,000.

Unfortunately, this artist wasn’t ready. She couldn’t possibly meet the needs and deadline of the designer or the client. She lost out on what would most likely have been a huge sale. She’s been kicking herself ever since.

Artists ! Don’t let this happen to you.  Make sure you’re ready for any unexpected opportunity.

➢    For photographs and print media opportunities, have a color-corrected large digital image in TIFF format ready for every artwork you ever hope to sell.

➢    For email requests and submissions on disc, have each image ready as a small JPG image file.

➢    For online submissions and free promo sites, be sure to compress your images especially for the web, so no one can copy or steal them.

➢    Create a naming / folder / filing system on your computer so you can find any image quickly.

If you’re an artist and are confused about how to create these files, don’t worry, I was too. 7 years ago, I spent a year researching the easiest, least expensive methods of documenting artwork.

Check out my  e-Book for a step-by step guide Stand out in a Crowd with Dazzling Photos.

It’s been a few years since I’ve had the chance to exhibit my paintings locally. Mostly, it’s because shows take a long time to create and I’ve been busy with Toronto and Dallas commitments.

Windsor has a population of about 200,000 people and is right across the river from Detroit with another million people. With many of my loyal collectors close by, I’ve been feeling a little guilty about neglecting them.

Although I do have a Museum Exhibition planned locally at the Art Gallery of Windsor, it isn’t until winter of 2010. Those paintings are going to be massive. Besides, that’s not exactly a venue for people who want to buy.

This morning, out of the blue, the director of the Arts Council of Windsor Region called to invite me to have a Solo Exhibition this fall. ACWR is a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening and promoting the arts in our community. Their dynamic new director is a powerhouse who has made some wonderful changes during the past year.

The Arts Council has a lovely gallery space of 570 square feet called Artspeak Gallery. The gallery serves as a wonderful non-juried venue for local artists in the community.

They’ve invited me to exhibit as part of their Selected Artist Program which aims to raise ACWR’s profile and heighten awareness of their committment to excellence in the arts. In addition to myself, I know they’ve chosen 1 other artist, also a painter who exhibits internationally, for this year. I admit I was quite surprised and feel very honored.

The dates will be October 4 - October 18th. The small space will give me the chance to exhibit  more intimately scaled pieces and to reconnect with lots of people I haven’t seen in awhile.

Since the 1980’s, the high-end art-world has been gripped my a feverish madness. As the number of millionaires and billionaires grew exponentially in the world economy,  so too did the demand for contemporary art. This created a feeding frenzy which spawned overnight art stars with millions of dollars being thrown at them by frenzied collectors.

By 2008, art had become a silly side-show. Even the current art darling Damien Hirst, who gets many million dollars for cutting cows in half and floating them in formaldehyde, has admitted his art is overpriced.

Top artists, galleries and collectors began chasing the money on a grand scale. It all became a shallow exercise in greed. To get collectors’ attention, artists needed to shock. And once an artist succeeded in gaining public attention, the global marketplace demanded mass production.

It’s always astonished me for example, that an artist such as Jeff Koons never touches a painting. He employs a creative staff of 50 assistants who literally paint by number his massive paintings. All Jeff Koons does is supply an abstract doodle he’s done on his laptop by appropriating found imagery online, and they do the rest. I doubt his assistants get too many of the several million dollars he sells these paintings for.

All this self-important posturing about what was relevant in the arts has been like the emperor’s new clothes. There really hasn’t been much substance there. The whole notion of art as a vehicle for lifting the human spirit has been lost. To use another metaphor, some of our most sought-after artists have sold their souls to the devil in return for fame and fortune.

Although 99% of artists in the world do not command astronomical prices, it’s the top artists who set the trends and the dealers who are gatekeepers to an artist’s career. Every artist is measured against the current standard of what is considered “good art”. When “good art” means painting a Black Virgin Mary in elephant dung,  such as Chris Ofili did to win England’s prestigious Turner Prize, all artists have a problem.

So to me, this global economic contraction may actually be a good thing in the long run. Perhaps artists and the art world will take a moment of critical self-reflection. Without the hype to sustain them, the shallow will disappear from sight. This will make room for real talent to shine again because truly good art will always be in demand.

Yes, I came kicking and screaming. But finally after much gnashing of teeth, I came around to the conclusion that social networking is here to stay, and I’d better jump on this fast moving train.

The minute I made my mind up to give it a serious try, something strange happened. - It started to be fun !!!! Now I’m hooked - meeting and re-connecting with wonderful people online and loving it.

As an artist, my impression of social networking has always been that …………

1. it’s for kids
2. I don’t have time
3. why do I want to know what someone had for dinner
4. serious art doesn’t get sold on social networks

One of the advantages to being a speaker on this year’s SmARTist telesummit, was the opportunity to connect with the other panelists. 2 of them, Mari Smith and Nancy Mamolejo spoke about social networking and totally opened my eyes to the potential.

Through Facebook, after only 2 weeks, I’ve already re-connected to an art dealer who moved out to Vancouver and wants to buy several pieces for clients. I also was put in touch with a friend of a friend who has had her eye on one of my paintings but never knew how to reach me.

In addition to the purely business potential, it’s also a great way to post photos of my paintings for people who’ve never seen them, and to feed my blog to a whole new network of people.

Yes, there is an aspect of Facebook which is frivolous. But what I came to realize is that you can choose how you want to use it - business or purely fun and games.

Personally, I like my fun and games more one on one. So I choose to use it for social / business networking. However you choose to use social networking one thing I will admit. It’s very addictive !!!

Check out my Public Fan Page “Shirley Williams Art - Contemporary Abstract Landscapes” Be sure to register as a Fan for updates and news.

My solo exhibition called “VISTAS” at Alan Barnes Fine Art in Dallas which ran from January 12th, closed this past Thursday, March 12th.

Alan Barnes will keep some of the unsold paintings to continue to show clients, as is normal with gallery representation. The balance of the unsold work is now being crated to be shipped back to me. Getting art back after an exhibition is always like having your kids come home to live with you after college. It’s always such an odd feeling. My paintings are like my children who haven’t found a home yet.

Considering the economy, it was a wonderful show. They sold a fair number of paintings and the Opening on Feb 12th was extremely well attended with about 150 people. Alan Barnes even arranged an interview by Brendan Higgins of NBC, Dallas. I’m so very blessed to be represented by Alan Barnes Fine Art. They do an exceptional job and are one of the most professional and galleries I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. Alan and his assistant Karin are also lots of fun to be around and I’d love to live closer to see them more often.

So now the cycle begins again with another exhibition probably a year from now. In addition to painting new work for them, I’m also creating a series of large canvases in preparation for a museum show in 2010 / 2011.