Is it Better to Be Respected or to Be Rich?

Well OBVIOUSLY by my appearance, you can see I am not rich! My shoes have holes in them and are eighteen years old and my overalls are covered in paint, tattered and are just about the same age...but does that mean I am not rich? Remember adjectives can be deceptive. Appearances can be quite deceptive. Perceptions are most often wrong.
In my case, I am not money rich by any stretch but I am quite 'rich' in many other regards.
I have great friends that I value highly have managed to cultivate over the years. Most of my good friends I have made because of paint and that's been a genuine blessing to me. Along with my true friends I also recognize those false friends. I see right through them. True friends are genuine and stand by you when your down and lift you up when you've been emotionally beaten. This is the type of person I try to be and I don't ask anything in return because that is not the nature of true friendship. True friendship comes with no strings or ulterior motives attached.

True friends: myself, David Naylor and Jerome Borris

Why am I mentioning this? Its simple, half of the people we meet are false friends. Those people do NOT have your best interest at heart. They will walk on your back or stab you in the back in order to  to get ahead in this imaginary race called life.
A local business man (I can't use the word artist, thief is a more appropriate word) I personally know, worked side by side with and saw a fellow artist demonstrate her talents.
He in turn deliberately undermined her to artistic achievement, something she had worked years to build, and self proclaimed that he is 'King of the Mountain'. This has generated a whole lot of ruffled feathers in the airbrush industry. The irony is, it doesn't take long for word to travel around the world, it literally only takes minutes. He made a grievous mistake.
The web has literally made our world such a small place. So small in that what goes around, comes around that much faster!
This man, is one of those I spoke of. Pe is a peacock. Peacocks have no actual money but they sure can posture! Lesson here, never assume the peacock is 'rich' because of his fancy plumage. This man is far from that in all regards...
For me, I would much rather be respected than to be 'rich'. I think it's far more important be 'rich with dignity and respect' because after all...the only thing you win in the end is dirt!

....What's cookin....

So I've been a little squirrel this Christmas. When my Mom and Mother-in-law asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I did what I always do and asked for things I need...for the most part.

I mean in addition to the usual white cotton socks and random colored sweatshirts, I also asked for a six foot folding table, four metal folding chairs, table top easels, gift cards for Menards, Jerry's Artarama and Hobby Lobby. I am trying to outfit the studio(on a tight budget) for some art classes I am hoping to build. I am hoping this is an investment in the future.

I am following that voice Ray heard in 'Feild of Dreams', "if you build it, they will come." So, I am trying to build it, that dream I have had all these years to be a working artist and do what I love to do the most, paint for a living. I know it's a far fetched dream and will be difficult but I have never been a lazy person. I KNOW I can do this and I know I will do it well.

My goals are to offer a few different classes in TRADITIONAL painting...NOT airbrush like all my airbrush friends are 'assuming'. Why not airbrush? Simple,  because everyone and their brother is doing it! I want to do my own thing and not just follow the herd. Not saying I won't offer that locally as an advanced technique in painting, I might but the place to start, is with well grounded basics.

I want to teach the true reason to paint and that should be for joy, not the lure of money. I want to get people excited about painting! I want to show people that the rewards in painting are most often NOT monetary but are very rich in many more ways...the fellowship is payment enough!

So stay tuned to my FaceBook page The Art of Kathy Leib ,website www.kathyleib.com  and of course here for updates.

...Art being worked on....

So I have a funky, weird, dark painting I am working on that I am calling 'The Man'(which I won't show much). This concept has been in my head for about 3 years now and I finally decided to let it out on a large canvas I had made. Not sure how long I will keep the work once it's complete. Once I have the high res image for my portfolio, I may well just recycle the canvas but we'll see.

The Man is a conceptual piece full of symbolism. It's not meant to be super realistic or even be 'realism' at all. I am mainly painting it to purge my head of this idea and to lock it down for ever how long the painting decides to stick around. I have some paintings that I have sanded and gessoed over in the past because I don't like looking at them. This quite probably will be one of those pieces as time goes on, we'll just have to see.

I am currently prepping a bunch of small panels (as you see in the first picture) in hopes that I will do one small still life per week, perhaps two. I want these to be quick and loose so that I can hone my skills even further and grow more as an artist. These will be artistic exercise works and ones I will quite probably list up for sale once they are ready. They will be primarily works in acrylic and oils but I might throw in the odd watercolor.

Speaking of oils, I finished my first full oil painting from a still life about three weeks back. I gave it a gloss coat of varnish yesterday so now it will sit to dry for several more weeks. This one I will frame and hang in my studio kitchen because I love it! :)

The still was set up from items I collect and love. The coffee percolator is a vintage Farberware percolator I found on Ebay about 1-2 years back. The coffee tin is part of a four piece set I found in an antique store. I hand picked them specifically for the studio kitchen. The mug is a set of four that I purchased many years ago at an auction. I use one of these everyday(using one right now in fact). I have two at home and two at the studio, they are my most favorite coffee mugs! I LOVE coffee!! So this little piece was fun to paint! My good friends know I enjoy coffee so much that I might be persuaded to sell my soul for it but I'm not there yet! ;)

So with that...I bid you a good day! I need to actually get to the studio and make some time to paint! I've been sitting here for a few hours updating website, FaceBook and now my blog. I have gotten this far on my new class flier's 'start new project'! LOL! Tomorrow is another day so I'll sit and work on those then.

Have a great day whoever reads this! :)

Kath