Do it

   I was thinking recently about a pattern that sometimes emerges  of people resenting me when I'm rewarded for my talents....

   I'm not unique in this regard, it happens to everyone....and for a short while it made me fear success....it was like anytime something good happened to me a friend would voice their resentments.

   When I first made the push to get my artwork seen and I was befriending curators and even started dating one. This curator who I was seeing decided to have an after party at a neighborhood gay bar that I frequented and they happened to be showing some small paintings of mine at the time. Someone came up to me at the party and said to me "It must be so great to be dating this curator and having shows like this...." I was speechless....It's pretty easy to have a show of your artworks in a bar you frequent....you really only have to be mildly talented and just ask.....so to think that this person assumed that the only way I could have a show in a bar was by dating a famous curator sowed a little seed of doubt in me.

   Then there was the time I was awarded a residency at Cite des Arts in Paris, it was a gift that fell into my lap. The French government was giving me a place to live and work in Paris for my choice of 3 or 6 months. All of my friends were thrilled for me, congratulatory and I was ecstatic....my boyfriend though felt differently......so I chose the shorter option to appease him.....it didn't work and he never got over his resentments. I learned a lot from this experience and other ones like it which caused me to be a little fearful when on the verge of success or when ever anything good happened to me.....

   I've learned to just own it, accept and be glad for my talents....these are Luxury Problems  and part of growing up and being who I am....thank god for lessons like this...

   My talents aren't really "Mine" to own....they're just kind of on loan from my creator and I'm the vessel.....I'd really be doing my creator a disservice to not use them to my fullest potential......thank you

Valentine's Days of Yore....

   I'm reminded of a time a few years ago when I had a f**k buddy in the neighborhood, he came over around valentine's day and brought me a chocolate heart. So we ate some candy and then he wanted me to piss on him......it could have been romantic, but it wasn't.

   Then there was the year when a friend invited me to his post opening dinner on Feb 14. This was his first solo show with a great gallery he had just joined and that gallery had a custom of renting out a restaurant and feting the artist with a nice dinner filled with collectors and friends, I was really happy for my friend and glad he invited me. My boyfriend at the time was none too happy with me but a few years later he broke up with me in Paris, on Valentine's day.

   In high school, my algebra/pe teacher, Arnie Femrite, had a Valentine's Day tradition involving a bag of those little heart candies that had slogans on them. He would stand up in front of the class and say things like "Erik says to Amanda.....(and then he'd pull out a candy and read from it....) Be Mine" etc etc......