2001: Everything is Beautiful

As I had vowed the previous June after my very first ever solo exhibit, I did have an exhibit the following June, deciding on an easy setup at a local Borders book store. I would have the walls in the cafe for all of June, setting up early morning on June 1. I focused on the new art I would do, even measured the walls, and started with the ones I most wanted to do.

EverythingIsBeautiful-postcard

But it wasn’t to be as I’d planned. My brother continued traveling through the system after his brain trauma ending up in a nursing home though he was ambulatory and able to care for himself; he had years of healing ahead and needed a safe place that would care for him after seizures and with piles of medications. But through the months, as I drove our mother to visit him, I noticed she was changing somehow…and I knew something was wrong. After pestering her doctor we began blood tests and x-rays and discovered she had lung cancer, and in May 2001 she had surgery, had complications and nearly died, moving from hospital to a critical care facility. I decided to go through with the exhibit, not knowing how her health would turn out. I was self-employed, this was my income and I’d taken so much time away already I felt I had to follow through.

Program cover for my second solo exhibit.

Program cover for my second solo exhibit.

I hadn’t done most of the art I’d wanted to do, but when does that ever happen? I had done a few, including “Birches 1: Autumn Showers” and “Birches 2: Radiance”, two pieces where I’d experimented with new styles and media as I’d intended the exhibit to be all about experimentation, but that was good enough along with a few new smaller sketches. I did cull through the art I had on hand, much of which had been in my exhibit in 2000, and chose the pieces I thought worked together in color and style, and still mixed the content.

“Pepper in Bowl” was a sketch I’d done of just that, a pepper that somehow was left in the enamel bowl on the deck after I’d washed them. Why not sketch it? I designed the post cards to be printed on my own color printer, on photo paper gloss-coated on one side I’d won in a contest, and I had to use big margins because my printer was just that way. But it was still fun, and people liked the theme.

Back of post card for my second solo exhibit.

Back of post card for my second solo exhibit.

It all cheered me up too. I also printed out the program on paper at home on my laser printer; the front is above, here is the art list and the back page. The gallery of actual images is at the end.

Art list for my second solo exhibit.

Art list for my second solo exhibit.

Back cover for my second solo exhibit.

I met some wonderful people during that exhibit, even while managing my mother’s and brother’s health. I sold a dozen works, important for my income in the slower months of the year, and still keep in touch with some of those customers today. My mother recovered and went home at the end of the summer, though she ended up in personal care, very much weakened. My brother slowly recovered and I found a program that could help him rehabilitate over the long term.

I decided an annual exhibit was an important way for me to encourage myself to focus on creating new work, experimenting with different media whether new or familiar, and finding out where my aesthetic senses were at that point so I wouldn’t stagnate. I did have solo exhibits of some sort each year in all the other years since I’ve been working at home. You can find links to all the shows on the main Exhibits page.


Images in this exhibit

It was almost like my first exhibit the year before, a kitchen-sink kind of a thing, but with quite a few newer things from my first year working at home. Two are missing; one of these days I’ll have to search my photo prints from film and find those.

Other items with the same art or design To find all items on this site with the same art or design, use the search box for the name of the artwork and you'll find all that's available.

Flourish-darkgray-100Don’t miss any new items or opportunities!

“Follow” the Portraits of Animals blog with the link in the upper left. Sign up to receive posts in email, or in your favorite reader using the links in the right-hand column.

Sign up for e-newsletters

You can also sign up for my monthly e-newsletters to receive special discounts and find out where I’ll be with my artwork.

Click here for the Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter, for feline and animal-specific products and information.

Click here for the Art & Merchandise E-newsletter, for landscapes, nature, urban scenes and more.

For art, photos and writing as I develop it, visit my blogs.

See feline art and photos as they happen on The Creative Cat, along with feline news, health, welfare, rescue stories and more.

See daily photos as I post them on Today.

Read poetry, short stories, essays and more on Paths I Have Walked.

. . . . . . .

© 2022 | www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.