rainn
Dreams, Death, and Near-death
Thank you for a very good year.
I realized a lot of dreams. I did everything this year I could dream up. This list below is to help future versions of me to remember what happened this year, and see what’s possible.
Dreams
Most importanty, I helped my wife raise our now 14 month-old.
I also landed a job I’d been chasing for two years.
Now for the art stuff.
I had a goal this year to be in a gallery show. This actually came up last year as I was getting prepared to be a dad. I imagined my future son finding a closet full of my paintings, asking me if I had ever done anything with my skills. In an effort to show him by example he could do anything he wants, I decided to get a show.
I wound up in six shows (two solo, four group), and invited to be in four others.
Also to set a good example for my boy, I decided I wanted to start regularly donating portraits of celebrities to charities. To start it off, I was able to donate a painting of a portrait of Amanda Palmer to raise $950 for RAINN.
I also donated another painting to Pinups for Pitbulls and a painted umbrella to raise money for the Philly Mural Arts program.
Because I suspect that my audience has the same budget as me, I wanted to make my art affordable. I got lucky and found a class on photographing artwork and with my friend, photographer Jeff Smith, I was able to make some affordable options for people to get copies of the paintings. These include prints from my paintings, a book of my work, and at the end of the year, I got my work on a t-shirt. Soon you’ll be able to get those if you’re interested. Here’s some of the prints available:
I wound up in a couple of articles this year, one for the City Paper blog, one for City’s Best, and I’ll be in one next year in HAHAMag. I should note that Amber of Amberella gallery got great press for the shows in Livingproof Mag, 5150, and Out of Print mag.
To finish things up, I got hired to storyboard a feature film and illustrate a comicbook for the movie, Sufferance, from Eventide Productions. I’ve wanted to do both of these things for years.
Death
At the beginning of the year, my wife and I took over Dr. Sketchy’s Philly and hosted seven sessions. Including one at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and another with the legendary Stoya as Neil Gaiman‘s Death.
Near-death
I also had viral meningitis and was in September I was in the hospital for three days and in bed for about two weeks. I’m fully recovered, and was able to get in another couple of Dr. Sketchy’s and a show afterwards. Shortly after I got out of the hospital I tried a new style of painting I had thought of, specifically because I knew this new style would test out my brain and I was very pleased with how it turned out. What you see are seven round canvases of various sizes all hung together to make one image. One reason I like it is because it involves the viewer, as your mind has to fill in the blanks. I’ve got about 20 variations of this I want to do next year.
The painting served another purpose too – it was this year’s Halloween painting. You can see the Halloween paintings at MakeitBleed.com. I do the paintings every year for our annual Halloween party. This year’s party evidence:
Finally, I worked on daily sketches again this year. I started in 2006. I drew daily for most of the year, with breaks when I was painting daily and when I was sick. Highlights from the daily sketches:
Thank You
Special thanks to my wife Tricia for making every day a dream come true, to my son Patrick for being the inspiration that got me to do all this stuff this year, to Stoya for being a great friend and muse, to Amber Lynn for letting me have my first solo show, to JL Schnabel and Tanya Dakin for advice. Thanks to Candy Mayhem for helping to run Dr. Sketchy’s Philly and to Miss D’Arcy D’Lux and Little Darling for all of their help with Dr. Sketchy’s Philly. If I got nothing else out of the experience, I got the benefit of meeting you all!
Thanks to everyone who came to my shows and thank you very much to the people who purchased paintings and prints, it means a lot.
Thanks to Gary Irwin for shooting and editing this amazing video:
Thanks to Eventide Productions for hiring me to storyboard and illustrate.
Thanks to Susan and Tom at Comcast for hiring me and to everyone at CIM for dealing with my time out with meningitis.
Thanks also to everyone on Twitter who supported me throughout the year, especially Jamie Berry, Kat Ostrow, Jerry Shawback, Ken Powers, Spyros Heniadis, Warren, and @BlueGumboArt.
Thanks to LisaLou McKnuckles, Michelle Hengeveld, and Sean Saunders for their support. Thanks to the Fall Studios and Tina and Linda at Topstitch for letting me show.
Thanks to Amanda Palmer and her management team, to Chelsea at RAINN, to Neil Gaiman, and to Stoya for helping me to give back. Together we helped 180 people get crisis counseling.
Thanks to Ginger, Leigh, and Lilly at HAHAMag, and to the folks at Paradigm Gallery for helping me raise money for the Mural Arts Program. Thanks to Little Darling for helping me raise awareness for Pitbulls for Pinups.
I love all you guys and you keep me going.
Next year? I have to chill a little. I have some big paintings ideas, we’ll see how many I can get to. Please keep checking.
Here’s the paintings I was able to do this year. Enjoy.
Oh yeah, I tried out using social media to support my paintings. I did sell a painting through twitter and met a lot of cool people. This next picture is my highlight though. I don’t know who these other three people are, but I’ll take being compared to Maynard.
Happy New Year!
Amanda Palmer Painting up for Auction. Proceeds to go to RAINN.org
I’ve donated a painting of Amanda Palmer (who’s also promoting this sale) to help raise awareness for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. http://bit.ly/afpRAINN All proceeds from the sale of this painting go directly to RAINN. Stop by AMBERELLA sugary & sweet GALLERY & BOUTIQUE to see the painting. If you want to help, please share, tweet, or bid.
Here’s an photo of the painting. It’s based on a photo by Brian Viglione
If you’re coming here from the auction page and you want to know more about how the auction came to be, here’s the short version.
I wanted to start donating portraits of celebrities to charities regularly to be a proper role model for my new son.
I was inspired by a painting of Tori Amos done by one of my favorite artists, David Mack that was done for a RAINN calendar.
I contacted Amanda Palmer’s people through her website and then emailed my contact at RAINN and because both of those groups are amazing, we set it up very quickly.
As of this writing, we’ve raised some awareness of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention month and we’ve raised about $930 promised dollars.
If you’re an artist, go paint something and donate it to your favorite charity.
A friend of mine has agreed to be the next portrait and we’re in the process of selecting the charity. If you’re a celebrity, (or can rustle up a lot of interest) and want to participate, let me know. My plan is to do this about twice a year.
If you just want to help, please bid, tweet, or share this info.
Thank so much!
Steve
Donating a painting to raise money for RAINN
In April I’m putting a painting of singer/composer Amanda Palmer up for auction on eBay to raise money for RAINN. April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month and RAINN is the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE and the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline at rainn.org
I will post details about the auction and how you can help promote it or make a bid in early April. Check back here, at my Facebook page, or on Twitter.
Here’s an iPhone photo of the painting. It’s based on a Photo by Brian Viglione
[SinglePic not found]I’ll announce when the auction is live.
You’ll be able to see the painting in person at the Amberella Gallery in Philadelphia from April 10th to May 1st.
I plan to create paintings every few months and auction them to raise money for RAINN and other non-profits (like Breastcancer.org who I worked with for several years).