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After 7 years of living in the PDX area, I finally have the opportunity to share my Pet Portraits with the public during my reception for First Thursday at Murray's Coffee Bar, where my work will be hanging for the entire month of July.
I've been a spectator for several years during PDX First Thursdays, it's really a dream come true to finally have a show of my own during that event! My husband Justin works at Murray's and was able to help me get a show there, and helped me prepare and hang the frames. The process would have been more stressful without his help, and I wouldn't have even had a show in the first place had it not been for him. Since being the coordinator for multiple bands that he was in, he has always been good with that sort of thing and was able to book several tours along the east coast and south east. Needless to say, he's always quietly operating behind the scenes.
I haven't had a show since my show in Hattiesburg, MS before I moved, which featured some of my graphic novel drawings, so I was a little anxious/ rusty, but I just tried to keep the process of making business cards, preparing the files, finding the frames, putting them together, hanging, etc...simple.
Behind everything going on was a rush project in another area of my life as a graphic designer that I was trying not to think about during the show. Thankfully, the CBD water helped me take a break. Ha!
During my reception @thecheerychef made some amazing gluten-free sugar cookies with paw prints on the icing. She makes amazing treats every day at Murray's, so there is still time to go see my work, have a few healthy snacks, and drink some amazing coffee.
The reception itself was really low key and relaxed. Murray's isn't usually open when my reception was taking place, but as a result some new customers came in to check it out. One customer was talking with us and said it was nice to see someone bringing culture to that part of town, which I loved hearing! Sometimes, all it takes it shaking things up a little or doing things a little differently to start building a buzz or creating more opportunity.
Another lady shared her story of how her cat was reacting to her declining medical state at one point in her life. She had taken her cat to a pet psychic and learned that the cat wanted to die after seeing her owners side effects from treatment : ( It was a sad but sweet story.
Among others that came in were one of Justin's coworkers from another job, who I was able to meet for the first time, and a younger couple eventually came in. The girl asked for a hug, and I was kinda nervous mainly because my hugs usually trigger the neurotic side of me where I overthink it and end up leaning in the same way as them or stepping on the other person's foot. But fortunately, that didn't happen this time. Whew!
But before any work was ever hung, I got a message from a nice lady from the Beaverton Chamber of Commerce, requesting that I attend their festival called Concert in the Rounds. I'm super excited but super anxious because I will be drawing in front of people, and I never do that. I may wear headphones but there's that part of me that doesn't want to be completely antisocial. I've never drawn in that sort of environment, usually because my work is so finely detailed that it requires a lot of concentration, which is sometimes challenging for my ADD brain. Then there's the anxiety that if something gets on the paper, the drawing gets messed up. Oh well I guess I have time to overthink about it xD.
You know, I recently watched an interview with my favorite band The Pillows and they talked about how it was kinda a turn off for them whenever the director of the anime FLCL reached out to them asking to score the anime. They almost didn't take the opportunity because it made them a little uncomfortable but because they took the opportunity, they became more well known than they ever imagined.
So sometimes being pushed outside our comfort zones especially as artists is hard but can be worth the risk. It's hard sometimes because your art is your baby and you want to do it justice with whatever you get involved in, so there's always a little bit of ego at play, but at the same time artists depend on new opportunities and taking risks to be able to share our work with others. It's quite the paradox.
