The Art and the Party

This last week was full of Marriage Equality show openings for us in our art communities art colony and it all went well. Not as well as hoped selling art, but It was successful in bringing people out and them seeing the softer side of what maybe some don't quite get a grip on. The real side, the loving side of humanity and nonjudgmental. It opened some eyes and softened some hearts and raised some money for AIDS walk.

My piece did sell which was fortunate. But only for about half of the retail price because I put it up for silent auction and not that many people were bidding. I was one out of several that sold and that was fortunate. It's going to an awesome cause and I'm good with that.

I think that having an agenda art show such as this and the subject matter used in many different forms is really not a big seller. It's more getting a point across....if that makes sense. Most straight people(or at least not many) aren;t going to put gay art in their bedroom or over their couch. Not that it's wrong, just maybe not their genre.
Then the gay people which it is pointed at, well the work itself needs to speak to them. I know my love for art and not every gallery I go into, even if I appreciate the work isn't going to have me breaking out my wallet to spend several hundred or thousand dollars on a piece. It really has to speak to me.
A straight person bought my piece, but my piece is more a political statement and done in a subtle manner. So it had more opportunity to hit gay or straight. I didn't plan on it doing that, it just happened to be what I wanted to paint.

The openings left us 2 nights in a row with an after party at a local restaurant bar until 2am. I think I'm still recovering. LOL
Saturday night was interesting. There have been these two girls in the past months thatI know kind of ?They are fighting for my attention. I know that sounds funny . They are almost trying to one up each other, sexy dancing around and with me, dedicating karaoke songs to me, one even was biting my shoulders and neck, grabbing my boobs and it's all very surreal. (not complaining) I've never experienced this with anyone before! Hello I'm in a wheelchair and their are plenty of sex goddesses in their high heels and miniskirts around to choose me??! WTF? Of course it feels good and weird and, I'm going with it. LOL

It ended Saturday late night with sitting arrangement at the restaurant as this:
One of the girls Boyfriend ~ ME ~ Girl ~ Hubby    sitting in a row.
Girl started with her hand on my thigh moving it up and I did the same to her. ( I made eye contact with hubby showing him what she was doing, as we both smiled). She turned to me and being silly bit my lower lip. She then had her hand on Hubbies upper thigh and said in white girl wasted fashion "I'm rubbing his dick", I said "good," and I proceeded to put my hand on her boyfriends thigh.She whispers "he's hard" and starts rubbing away through hubbies jeans. At one point she tried to bite my lip again and I said "stop!", if you want to kiss me just do it, and she did. At that moment I kind of lost track of where I was and reality.( ihad 3-4 whiskeys) I'm in my little downtown and these aren't " lifestyle" people and about 30% of the people in this place know us. A girl friend of mine walked up at the crucial time and was a bit shocked, mouth dropped and she shook her finger at me like, no I didn't just see what I saw. (she also was a little tipsy)
It ended up in a drunken mess with the kissy grabby girl and nothing else happened, except just making sure everyone was getting home safely.

It was pretty fun and sexy. I'm kind of at a point anymore where I don't care if people see, but there is still a part of me that does care because most people wouldn't understand where we stand and what we've gone through to get to where we are. They would just dub us as swingers and that is pretty much not the case. The stigma behind that is not what we embrace. Not that its bad for others, but not where we see ourselves.

Tah Dah.

It's done. (I'm guessing around 85 hours put into it) It's submitted.

It's going up for silent auction. 

%50 goes to the cause and %50 goes to me.

Min. bid I started way lower than my normal pricing to get interest.

Who knows how it will go? It might not even sell. It's always up in the air with things like this. 

Show doesn't open until May. 

Its been on FB getting lots of love. It's been chosen by our local paper to promote the show.

It will be in print and on the racks this next Monday.

It's already gotten good response.

It feels good.

On to thinking about my next piece. I'm not going to bore you with the steps of that one though. I'm entering my colleges student show in the next week with some recent paintings and painting towards upcoming shows in June and in October. Hopefully I will find some others that I want to be involved in also. 

Marriage Equality Painting Day 13

Yesterday I noodled around with the scenery. I  made it have contrast in the very closest seats to bring them forward. I added some values to the cake but not nearly enough yet. Today I will draw on the couple and get them started a bit and I still want to lighten those back side window panels. They bug me. Or at least get more highlights into them. Add reflected light of the green onto the cake.

So much to do, now so little time before it's turned in.

Marriage Equality Painting Day 10

Worked today mostly on the ceiling and a little bit on the cake.

I think its finally starting to come into its own.

It will probably be done at the end of next week.