Day 70: Feeling like a Slacker.

I just woke up at the ripe hour of 12:03 pm after a long night of heated domestic disputes, followed by reconciliation. That might sound like a drag to the majority of you, but it wasn't so bad. I have a slight proclivity towards the dramatic, so flare ups in my relationship, although emotionally draining, are to an extent welcome. Of course, discussing the nature of the altercation would be in poor taste... so I won't give you a play by play, but I will say that things are better now than they were twenty four hours ago. I have praise anyone who has the guts to be with someone as temperamental and obsessive as me. The good thing is, it doesn't get boring.

Anyway, whats going on in the art world, you ask?

I'm working on a larger painting that is in the style of the last, a blurry painting focusing on colors, light, and composition more than subject matter. Its a picture of a city street on a rainy day in the early morning. The image is taken in the minutes before dawn. All the lights are still on in the businesses in the streets, and are reflecting off of sidewalks. It's quite beautiful in my mind's eye, and I hope that I can make it such on the canvas.

Yesterday, however, I spent the day touching up paintings that I am showing tonight at Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk. My work is in the Annex Gallery on the corner of Main and Fourth Street in downtown Los Angeles. I think I have nine pieces up. I priced them ridiculously low in hopes that I'll be able to sell something, and maybe even enough to get to China.

All the letters I sent out to the different travel agencies bore no fruit, just slightly irked responses telling me in colorful tones of condescension that my request of buying a race bid by itself was fanciful and of course, impossible. How stupid of me to think that I could just go to China and run without all the superfluous bells and whistles!

I did get one nice response from someone named Sue, who admitted that she at least enjoyed reading my letter. She offered me a tour package at $1200, not including airfare... which I would have to sign up for by March Fifteenth. That gives me four days to come up with the money. She did tell me a way that I could earn the money. Apparently she works with an organization called "ORGANS R US".
They are running low on functioning kidneys, and she says that I can "raise money" for my trip by working with them. Bathtub full of ice included free of charge. She didn't explicitly tell me that she wanted to harvest my organs in return for a six day/five night adventure in China, but one might read between the lines and interpret her words that way. After watching "Dirty Pretty Things" with Audrey Tatou, I'm weary of working with any organ dealers, especially one that names their organization after a toy store.

Maybe I'll be able to sell a few paintings tonight, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. I don't know if I've already described the high level of anxiety I get at art shows, but let me just say...it's bad. REAL bad. Unless I am inebriated to the point of incoherent speech, all night I feel like one of those windup toy robots that vibrate and spin in circles, that is to say completely out of my f***ing gourd.

Wish me luck. I'm going for a long run now during which I will creatively visualize Mr. Daddy Warbucks Art Collector coming to my show and buying everything.