Up before the sun

Good morning.

I slept like crap last night. I got to sleep by midnight but woke up at 4am with a racing mind. I admitted defeat at 5, and instead of going for a walk (I imagine only the crazies are out walking around at 5am) I took a shower and worked on the painting. And because I'm still suffering with this damn cough I'll be staying in tonight and will likely work on it some more.

I went to an artist's salon yesterday after work. An artist's salon is where you get together with a bunch of artists and check out eachother's work. It was held at one of the galleries in the gallery district and moderated by the gallery owner.

There were about twenty of us. I was the youngest artist there (er, at least by looks. It always surprises me how old looking some young people can look), as well as the least "known". Many were art world heavy-weights - the woman beside me mentioned that the Art Institute of Chicago had just recently acquired some of her work. Another woman has an exhibition in Dusseldorf right now.

And we went through the slides. Although none of the work really blew me away, it was great to see what other people were doing and how they went about things. Of course I was a little nervous when it came time to review my work, but the feedback was positive. People responded to the Berlin Welder the most, especially the gallery owner, who seemed really enthusiastic about it and encouraged me to keep taking photos of Things I See and painting them.

Hm. Looks like it's time to put on my makeup and trek to work. I wonder what I should wear. Fuck - it's going to get up to 90 today. Aaaareehhahhg

Things I see

The GREAT CICADA INVASION OF 2007:

This lone cicada looked very lost all by himself out on the sidewalk. He must have hitched a ride into the city on some car from the suburbs - they actually DO have them out there. No cicadas here in the city to speak of, though, and from what I've read there likely won't be. Okay, yeah so I am a *little* disappointed. It would have been sorta neat to have the city swarming with cicadas. OH WELL.

Don't worry, he was melting little blue plastic soldiers, not cicadas.


And now I must walk past THIS every day - the new window display at Urban Outfitters. This is the couch that should have been mine, and even WAS mine for a very brief moment in time. Alas, it was not meant to be.