Given that I've recently moved again and have done so a couple times over the last few years, I had a couple requests from folks that I talk a bit about relocating my studio. It's as good a topic as any, and while I'm not much of an expert, I figured I'd give it a try. Hopefully there will be something in here that proves useful to one or two of you.
Not surprisingly, I've found that moving my art studio isn't all that different from moving the rest of my house. I mean, there's furniture in my studio and oftentimes there's stuff inside that furniture, just as there is in my living room. Like the stuff in my living room, some of the studio's stuff can be crammed hastily into a box and some of it is breakable and should be handled delicately. If you're moving yourself then you should know what's what and how to handle it. Seriously. I mean, you bought or borrowed or stole all that stuff. Treat it as you will. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (I should know as I'm not one, myself) to successfully move your own stuff from one place to another.
If you've got pals who can lend a hand and you all have the time to do it, then clearly moving your own studio is the best option. It's cheap and you are in control. Much of my experience over the last few years, however, has required me to relinquish control and hire someone else. With that in mind, I've created a list of rules that I've applied to my moves in order to make things a little easier on myself.
This is that list:
Rule #1: Get rid of as much as possible.
This is a hard one, but it's a little easier for someone like me who is not afraid of throwing stuff out and destroying old work. That's right, I'm now callous enough to toss things willy-nilly should they be even remotely questionable. The reasons for this are many and varied, but the most important one is that I come from a clan of pack rats. Left unchecked, my piles of stuff become overwhelming and make my studio largely unusable. Over the years, however, I've forced myself to become more self-disciplined about policing the clutter and I bin just about everything I can.
In preparations for the three relocations made over the past few years, I've gotten rid of all but a few pieces of high school work, kept about 20 pieces from college, and saved only the professional work that I'm not ashamed to show anyone. As a result, I have a pretty streamlined collection of my own work.
Also culled has been the collection of materials I don't use. During college, I was encouraged to experiment with all kinds of mediums that I'd never used before (or since). As a result, for a long time I had a wide range of art supplies in stock that would put most high school art departments to shame. Trouble is, I kind of settled on oils for the majority of my work with occasional dabbles in only a few other mediums and a lot of things just stayed in drawers or unpacked boxes. So, I went through and sorted what I actually use from what I was keeping out of some bizarre sense of obligation. Pastels? Not my thing. Don't need 'em. Air brush stuff? Yeah, gone. Gouache? Good-bye. Print-making supplies? I don't own a press, soooo....
Before any of you environment-minded folks put together the fact that a lot of art supplies are toxic and likely shouldn't be tossed into normal garbage, let me assure you that wasn't an issue. Most of my stuff was in pretty good condition so I found a place to donate it. Turns out that there are a lot of locations that accept art supply donations, and I was happy to gain the space, get rid of some clutter, and give to some folks who needed the supplies more than I did. Win/win.
The bottom line is that the less you have to move, the easier the move becomes. That being said, I still have a lot of stuff and several pieces of large furniture in my studio (like a set of flat files and a large, wooden taboret). You know who could help with that?
Rule #2: Hire good movers.
For me, there is no alternative. The last few moves I've made were a minimum of four hours each way per trip and the most recent one was across the North American continent. That's why I hire insured professionals with excellent reputations. I know it can be really expensive, but I've never regretted it once. First of all, moving your business is oftentimes a tax deductible expense (keep your receipts and consult your accountant). Second of all, with pros moving my stuff I don't run the risk of injuring myself trying to carry studio furniture that weighs more than I do down a flight of stairs. Third, movers are faster than I ever could be at the job. Seriously. It's amazing what they're able to do in a very short period of time.
Speaking of time, as much as we've tried to plan the moves well, invariably an assignment has gotten caught up in the whirlwind of each move. Speed is of the essence and having the move completed quickly is a huge benefit to my work (not to mention sanity). And not to harp on the injury thing, but a crushed hand or a busted back could wreak havoc with deadlines.
Personally, Amy and I have either hired movers who have moved people we know or movers who have an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau. It's pretty much a common sense thing, but it's worth stating that we didn't just pick someone at random from the yellow pages or go with the lowest bidder. The movers are moving my livelihood and we needed to feel good about the company and be sure the knew what they were doing.
But even if they do know what they're doing, there's some pretty specialized stuff to be handled here, so the best course of action is to...
Rule #3: Explain everything thoroughly.
It's extremely likely that weird pieces of furniture and valuable artwork will not be foreign to your movers. All the same, I explain to them how everything comes apart if that's necessary and even do it myself wherever I can. For those instances I could not (like pulling my flat files apart, for example, which is a two man job), I carefully showed the movers exactly what needed to be done and answered any questions they had.
Before they began to pack stuff up, I did a walk through with them to point out what was fragile and what wasn't, what was potentially dangerous and what they could toss around casually. Usually they could tell, but going over everything with the movers at least increased the chances of us all being on the same page. Plus, it just might have saved a piece of furniture from getting damaged or kept a box of art supplies from being crushed by piles of book boxes.
Still, all that being said, there is one thing I try and do myself every time...
Rule #4: Handle your own artwork.
I don't like having movers move all of my artwork. They don't seem to like it either. While the stuff I've got framed and hanging on the walls seems to travel okay, it's hardly the bulk of what I've got. Most of the work I've done or own is without a frame and stored in my flat files. If at all possible, this vast majority comes with me in my car to my studio's new location. The way I see it, if anything gets damaged, at least it was by my hands or crappy packing abilities. Somehow, it makes damaged work easier to bear. Fortunately, I've never damaged my work during any of the moves, so that's really more of a theory thing. Still, my work is important and easily fits into my car. Of course, being willing to toss out old work helps keep that possible.
An opposing point of view is that if a company is insured, you should be covered. Yeah. I suppose. But the fact is that artwork isn't like an easel or my flat files. I can replace those. Some of the artwork I have can't be replaced or repaired. Some has been done by folks who aren't even alive to repair it should it need fixing. All things being equal, under these circumstances I'd rather have the artwork than its cash value.
If there is no other alternative to having the movers relocate your expensive, irreplaceable art collection, don't be surprised if it's dealt with differently both handling-wise and insurance-wise. It'll depend on the company, but it's best to be up front about everything and go over things thoroughly.
Aside from the artwork, you know what else is expensive to replace?
Rule #5: Don't ask the movers to move your chemicals.
One of the biggest things I've learned over the past few moves is that movers don't typically like to deal with chemicals. Being an oil painter, I happen to have a lot of these and the last thing I want is for a container of turp to suddenly start leaking in a box. First, it exposes the crew to harmful fumes. Second, it could potentially damage a lot of my own property stacked up around it. Third, it's flammable and fire tends to be the enemy of one's belongings. Obviously these are all bad scenarios that I'd like to avoid. Oddly enough, most moving companies are looking to avoid all that too, which is why they typically don't want to move that kind of stuff. In fact, the last move I made was done with a company that refused to move any of it. Heck — they even refused to move batteries.
So what did I do? Well, I got rid of as much as possible (see rule number 1), and I moved it all myself. Not in the same boxes as the artwork, of course, but I did transport it personally. Not exactly the most optimal thing having a box of chemicals packed in one's car, but everything got sealed, put in plastic bags, packed with copious amounts of packing materials and stowed safely in transit. Between the much higher flash point of the painting chemicals and the amount of packing involved, a box full of painting supplies is safer than the gas in the tank of the car. It honestly wasn't a problem, and was no more dangerous than driving the newly purchased oils and turp home from the store.
Like I said, though, I tried to pack all that stuff thoroughly. In fact, I did that with the artwork too. How?
Rule #6: If you're going to hoard something, hoard packing materials.
I know this kind of contradicts rule number one, but hear me out. If you're going to be packing your studio and the artwork in it, it helps to have something to put it all in. Every time I buy a frame? I keep the box. A large order of hardboard gets shipped to me? I keep the box. Large pieces of furniture get delivered? I keep the box. Why? Because the boxes tend to be good ones and tend to be perfect for dragging my artwork around.
Sure, there are excellent boxes you can order from ULine or Masterpak that are top shelf for this kind of thing, and many folks have been known to build their own crates. But you might not have the money or time to do that for every piece you've ever done. My solution is to hoard the aforementioned packing materials.
Now, I'm not saying that you have to keep everything. I certainly don't. I keep the stuff that's in the best condition and reasonably fits either framed or unframed work. Generally, I tend to keep enough of this kind of thing on hand so that I could ship the amount of work I'd need for a show like IlluxCon or Spectrum Live, plus a little extra — just in case. When not being used for shipping or moving, these boxes tend to contain work that I've done or own that I don't currently want up on the wall. So, they're always serving some sort of purpose.
Besides that, such materials are good for shipping pieces you've sold out to the locations of their new owners. Places like Florida. Or Toronto. You know, exotic places.
So... yeah.
That's pretty much all I have to say about moving a studio. Obviously things might be different if you work completely digitally, but computers and hard drives are no less delicate than jars of chemicals and stretched canvases. They just tend to come in their own packaging that makes them easier to move. You do keep those, right? Right? I'm not the only one?
Well, there's something else I hoard, I guess. Styrofoam inserts and all. But I gotta tell you, nothing protects a piece of equipment quite like the box that was designed for it in the first place. Seriously, they're really helpful for moving your stuff.
Anyway, hopefully this has been... helpful. Most of it seems obvious and stupid, and it's not exactly the most entertaining thing I've ever written, but maybe years from now you'll be prepping for a move and it'll occur to you that you'd seen an article on this old blog of mine about relocating all your precious art stuff. Until then, this is just something else for you to skim the first couple of paragraphs of before going back to whatever it was you were doing before you bothered to click your way here in the first place.
The Work and Musings of Illustrator Steven Belledin
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Monday, January 27, 2014
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Where I've Been...Sorta
I'll open this post with the obligatory apology for my absence. I have not posted anything for over a month and I'm not super happy with myself over the fact. If nothing else, it nags at me that the entire month of August will be unrepresented in my blog archive.
June, July...September. Fail.
I also apologize in advance for the amorphous nature of this post and it's total uselessness. If anything, it exists purely to assure anyone curious enough that I am, in fact, still quite alive, and have not given up on the blog.
Still, in my defense, a lot has happened since July 29th, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to give you all a bit of a rundown to bring you all up to current events.
First, we completed the move from New Jersey to Seattle. This involved two stays at two different temporary housing facilities, two stays at two different hotels, and finally an apartment. It also required a tractor trailer with a driver called Virgil, and about six weeks of time total to get us and our stuff out of the Garden State and deposit it in the Evergreen State (which over the summer took on a brownish color in Seattle).
Second, we managed to completely unpack. Normally, this would have been a slightly more leisurely event, but I kind of needed to get my stuff squared away before the 19th of August for reasons I will get to in a moment. I also had painting to do and apparently have an inability to think clearly when all our worldly possessions are crammed into boxes. Rather than painting, I felt the need to help our stuff escape its respective corrugated prisons so that I might create chaos from order only to enstate a new order, which allowed me to finally start painting on a "Blue Monday" with a clear mind.
See what I did there?
The short version is that we got moved in and settled. We even managed to take the time to clean the mystery stains out of the basement carpet.
Mmmmm... mystery stains.
Third, as mentioned above, on August 19th, I started a two week stint as a concept artist. It was a short burst and it was intense. But it was also awesome. During that two weeks, I did lots of stuff I can't talk about. Some of the stuff I did was with a pencil. Some other stuff was digital. And when I was finished doing stuff I can't tell you about during the daytime, I would come home each night and paint more stuff I can't talk about.
Funny how secretive I must be about what it is that I supposedly do all day. I mean, I'm not exactly starting coups and unseating dictators. Not exactly. Steve Belledin: art spy.
Anyway, with those three big events, time became a very precious commodity. I was busy. Really busy. Too busy, even, to get stressed about any of it. I had so much on my plate that all I could do was focus on one small thing at a time and ignore the bigger picture. I just had to trust that the bigger stuff would fall into place while I slowly completed things on a checklist. Fortunately, my faith in things working out was well founded because they did, in fact, work out. Plus I got all the things done I needed to do.
Except write anything for this blog, of course.
Now, I do have some false starts of posts begun over the last month that I'll be looking over again — mostly to do with moving one's studio and the kind of people you deal with when you move (people who tell you you're wrong for liking cities you like and such). If they're worth something, I'll try and bang them into shape. They just won't be particularly timely anymore. But, there might at least be enough useful information or entertainment value to excuse their existence.
Of course, all this depends on how the coming months go. I've got a few art posts that need writing and IlluxCon to prepare for. Then there's the painting that I need to turn in before the con. And then it's off to do more concepting once I'm home from the con, plus more painting. I'm sure I could afford to skip a meal or lose a few hours of sleep to make a post or two happen. No one will notice. Right?
How did I get so busy? And why am I so happy about it?
June, July...September. Fail.
I also apologize in advance for the amorphous nature of this post and it's total uselessness. If anything, it exists purely to assure anyone curious enough that I am, in fact, still quite alive, and have not given up on the blog.
Still, in my defense, a lot has happened since July 29th, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to give you all a bit of a rundown to bring you all up to current events.
First, we completed the move from New Jersey to Seattle. This involved two stays at two different temporary housing facilities, two stays at two different hotels, and finally an apartment. It also required a tractor trailer with a driver called Virgil, and about six weeks of time total to get us and our stuff out of the Garden State and deposit it in the Evergreen State (which over the summer took on a brownish color in Seattle).
Second, we managed to completely unpack. Normally, this would have been a slightly more leisurely event, but I kind of needed to get my stuff squared away before the 19th of August for reasons I will get to in a moment. I also had painting to do and apparently have an inability to think clearly when all our worldly possessions are crammed into boxes. Rather than painting, I felt the need to help our stuff escape its respective corrugated prisons so that I might create chaos from order only to enstate a new order, which allowed me to finally start painting on a "Blue Monday" with a clear mind.
See what I did there?
The short version is that we got moved in and settled. We even managed to take the time to clean the mystery stains out of the basement carpet.
Mmmmm... mystery stains.
Third, as mentioned above, on August 19th, I started a two week stint as a concept artist. It was a short burst and it was intense. But it was also awesome. During that two weeks, I did lots of stuff I can't talk about. Some of the stuff I did was with a pencil. Some other stuff was digital. And when I was finished doing stuff I can't tell you about during the daytime, I would come home each night and paint more stuff I can't talk about.
Funny how secretive I must be about what it is that I supposedly do all day. I mean, I'm not exactly starting coups and unseating dictators. Not exactly. Steve Belledin: art spy.
Anyway, with those three big events, time became a very precious commodity. I was busy. Really busy. Too busy, even, to get stressed about any of it. I had so much on my plate that all I could do was focus on one small thing at a time and ignore the bigger picture. I just had to trust that the bigger stuff would fall into place while I slowly completed things on a checklist. Fortunately, my faith in things working out was well founded because they did, in fact, work out. Plus I got all the things done I needed to do.
Except write anything for this blog, of course.
Now, I do have some false starts of posts begun over the last month that I'll be looking over again — mostly to do with moving one's studio and the kind of people you deal with when you move (people who tell you you're wrong for liking cities you like and such). If they're worth something, I'll try and bang them into shape. They just won't be particularly timely anymore. But, there might at least be enough useful information or entertainment value to excuse their existence.
Of course, all this depends on how the coming months go. I've got a few art posts that need writing and IlluxCon to prepare for. Then there's the painting that I need to turn in before the con. And then it's off to do more concepting once I'm home from the con, plus more painting. I'm sure I could afford to skip a meal or lose a few hours of sleep to make a post or two happen. No one will notice. Right?
How did I get so busy? And why am I so happy about it?
Thursday, July 11, 2013
The Fun Stresses of Relocation
Moving across a continent, it turns out, is a difficult thing. Though I've not completed the task as yet, I'm at least deep enough into the process that I can safely tell you that I'd do things differently if I had to do it all again in the future. If there is a next time (and there won't be), I'd likely just pile my worldly belongings in the front yard and set it all on fire. Then I'd be free to move with ease and have the ability to start from scratch at our final destination. Fortunately, despite the inherent stresses of this particular move, Amy and I have somehow managed to keep our cool.
Mostly.
The issues we have had were mostly due to timing. First off, while Amy's new job was the stuff of dreams, it carried with it a need to be in Seattle very shortly after accepting the position. As a result, we were left with just enough time to once more sort through our worldly belongings (which after several previous moves had been thoroughly picked through), make several trips to the local donation bins, and for me to get a couple days of painting done on an assignment that I'd already committed to before the job offer even came along.
What we didn't have time for was the little things like getting our stuff packed up and moved out to Seattle. However, even if we had the time to get all that squared away, we'd have had no address to give the movers as we didn't have a new apartment lined up. And so the moving dates got kicked down the road to relatively arbitrary dates which would hopefully result in our stuff arriving in Seattle on or about August 1st. In the meantime, we would temporarily relocate to Seattle with whatever would fit in two suitcases (mine was mostly art supplies), with the mission to find a new place while Amy began her new job.
Having gone through a couple moves in the last three years, we thought we were pretty prepared — in fact, Amy managed to get most of the ducks in a row. And though it seemed as though we were on top of things, it turned out that what we simply were not prepared for was the rental housing market in Seattle. Previous experiences in shopping for a place to live in the Boston and greater New York Metro areas yielded multiple viable options in very short periods of time. This was not to be so in the Emerald City.
Initially, we did what we'd done before: call some realtors. Unlike in previous cases, realtors turned out not to be particularly helpful. Not only did the realtors rarely get back to us, but it turned out they were actually an obstacle to finding a place to live. Why? Simple. Involving them lost precious time in reacting to opportunities. This is extremely important in the current rental climate because apartments and houses are being snatched up within minutes of being listed. Several times we arrived to see properties that had been listed a mere day before only to be presented with stacks of completed applications from other potential renters. Other times we dealt with the gauntlet of open houses for rental properties where dozens of people were crowded into spaces not fit to hold them as they all vied for a chance to live in the place.
The net result of the extreme competition in the current rental market in Seattle is that the easiest places to get to see were the places that most folks would not want to live in. Places that smelled of cat urine or wet dog. Apartments completely devoid of light. Houses with mother-in-law suites where the mother-in-law just might be stuffed into the crawl space or boarded up behind one of the walls. Places completely wrecked by previous tenants or kept by seemingly indifferent landlords. And then there were the many decent dwellings that were in less than optimal neighborhoods.
For the most part, visiting many of these places was like being thrown into a pit to fight it out with other potential renters. While some of property owners were likely just attempting to ferret out bad candidates, I'm certain that many of the tactics involved were attempts to start bidding wars. Either way, we figured that you could tell a lot about potential landlords by how they treated their potential renters. Folks that created situations that encouraged passive aggressive behavior or open hostility between strangers were not the kind of folks we wanted to write checks to every month. It's no surprise, either, that there turned out to be a correlation between the level of class displayed by landlords when dealing with potential renters and the quality of the dwellings themselves.
To say that our first few days searching here were disheartening would be an understatement. While I attempted to stay optimistic about it all (something that is quite out of character), Amy began to have her doubts and I could tell she was starting to get a little stressed. Nevertheless, each morning we got up early and went through the listings, making phone call after phone call, just hoping for a place to come along that we could snatch up and make our own.
I'm happy to say that after many days of searching, we finally did find a place with promise. Within five minutes of the house being listed, Amy had already sent an email. Not long after, we got a call to come look at the place. A tour was given, an application was filled out, some references were checked, and the place was ours.
There was much rejoicing.
Now, I realize that I've made it sound as though we've done all this ourselves. The truth is that we've had a lot of assistance. Amy's new employer has been incredibly helpful in trying to smooth out the logistics of relocating cross-country. They've answered a lot of questions and have bent over backwards to make the compressed timeline easier to deal with.
Our biggest thanks, however, have to go to Franz and Imelda Vohwinkel who have given generously of their time to help us find a place, advise us on neighborhoods, and send us more listings than we could count. Their aid was key to our finding our new home and I simply cannot thank them enough. A new place to live was easily the biggest variable we had to solve for and was probably the most stressful.
Securing an apartment here in Seattle meant that the remaining big puzzle pieces were finally ready to be put into place, and for the most part we've managed to get everything figured out. Next week, we'll return to New Jersey, pack a few things, close up shop, and supervise the move. Then we'll fly back here and wait for everything to show up. And while waiting in some ways will be the most difficult part of this process, I must confess it'll also somehow be the least stressful. There will be no decisions to make after all, and at least I'll be able to do some prep work at the new place to bide my time.
The end of this journey may not be in sight, but I'm happy to say we've got a pretty good map to help us get there.
Mostly.
The issues we have had were mostly due to timing. First off, while Amy's new job was the stuff of dreams, it carried with it a need to be in Seattle very shortly after accepting the position. As a result, we were left with just enough time to once more sort through our worldly belongings (which after several previous moves had been thoroughly picked through), make several trips to the local donation bins, and for me to get a couple days of painting done on an assignment that I'd already committed to before the job offer even came along.
What we didn't have time for was the little things like getting our stuff packed up and moved out to Seattle. However, even if we had the time to get all that squared away, we'd have had no address to give the movers as we didn't have a new apartment lined up. And so the moving dates got kicked down the road to relatively arbitrary dates which would hopefully result in our stuff arriving in Seattle on or about August 1st. In the meantime, we would temporarily relocate to Seattle with whatever would fit in two suitcases (mine was mostly art supplies), with the mission to find a new place while Amy began her new job.
Having gone through a couple moves in the last three years, we thought we were pretty prepared — in fact, Amy managed to get most of the ducks in a row. And though it seemed as though we were on top of things, it turned out that what we simply were not prepared for was the rental housing market in Seattle. Previous experiences in shopping for a place to live in the Boston and greater New York Metro areas yielded multiple viable options in very short periods of time. This was not to be so in the Emerald City.
Initially, we did what we'd done before: call some realtors. Unlike in previous cases, realtors turned out not to be particularly helpful. Not only did the realtors rarely get back to us, but it turned out they were actually an obstacle to finding a place to live. Why? Simple. Involving them lost precious time in reacting to opportunities. This is extremely important in the current rental climate because apartments and houses are being snatched up within minutes of being listed. Several times we arrived to see properties that had been listed a mere day before only to be presented with stacks of completed applications from other potential renters. Other times we dealt with the gauntlet of open houses for rental properties where dozens of people were crowded into spaces not fit to hold them as they all vied for a chance to live in the place.
The net result of the extreme competition in the current rental market in Seattle is that the easiest places to get to see were the places that most folks would not want to live in. Places that smelled of cat urine or wet dog. Apartments completely devoid of light. Houses with mother-in-law suites where the mother-in-law just might be stuffed into the crawl space or boarded up behind one of the walls. Places completely wrecked by previous tenants or kept by seemingly indifferent landlords. And then there were the many decent dwellings that were in less than optimal neighborhoods.
For the most part, visiting many of these places was like being thrown into a pit to fight it out with other potential renters. While some of property owners were likely just attempting to ferret out bad candidates, I'm certain that many of the tactics involved were attempts to start bidding wars. Either way, we figured that you could tell a lot about potential landlords by how they treated their potential renters. Folks that created situations that encouraged passive aggressive behavior or open hostility between strangers were not the kind of folks we wanted to write checks to every month. It's no surprise, either, that there turned out to be a correlation between the level of class displayed by landlords when dealing with potential renters and the quality of the dwellings themselves.
To say that our first few days searching here were disheartening would be an understatement. While I attempted to stay optimistic about it all (something that is quite out of character), Amy began to have her doubts and I could tell she was starting to get a little stressed. Nevertheless, each morning we got up early and went through the listings, making phone call after phone call, just hoping for a place to come along that we could snatch up and make our own.
I'm happy to say that after many days of searching, we finally did find a place with promise. Within five minutes of the house being listed, Amy had already sent an email. Not long after, we got a call to come look at the place. A tour was given, an application was filled out, some references were checked, and the place was ours.
There was much rejoicing.
Now, I realize that I've made it sound as though we've done all this ourselves. The truth is that we've had a lot of assistance. Amy's new employer has been incredibly helpful in trying to smooth out the logistics of relocating cross-country. They've answered a lot of questions and have bent over backwards to make the compressed timeline easier to deal with.
Our biggest thanks, however, have to go to Franz and Imelda Vohwinkel who have given generously of their time to help us find a place, advise us on neighborhoods, and send us more listings than we could count. Their aid was key to our finding our new home and I simply cannot thank them enough. A new place to live was easily the biggest variable we had to solve for and was probably the most stressful.
Securing an apartment here in Seattle meant that the remaining big puzzle pieces were finally ready to be put into place, and for the most part we've managed to get everything figured out. Next week, we'll return to New Jersey, pack a few things, close up shop, and supervise the move. Then we'll fly back here and wait for everything to show up. And while waiting in some ways will be the most difficult part of this process, I must confess it'll also somehow be the least stressful. There will be no decisions to make after all, and at least I'll be able to do some prep work at the new place to bide my time.
The end of this journey may not be in sight, but I'm happy to say we've got a pretty good map to help us get there.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Breaking Radio Silence
I have not contributed anything to this blog in a long time. Too long, in fact. But I've been doing stuff. Lots of stuff. There's been fretting stuff and logistical stuff. Rummaging stuff and sorting stuff. Just not so much art stuff.
What have I really been up to? Preparation. Finally, after hinting at big changes to come for quite some time now, I can finally reveal the news:
We're moving. Again.
Big deal, you must be saying. You've already moved twice since this blog's inception. This is not interesting!
True. All true. But for us, it is a big deal. Sure we're not strangers to relocating, but this time is a little different. This time we'll be moving far away from our families and the areas we've grown so familiar with. This time we're finally moving out of the Northeast Corridor. This time, we're headed West.
You know, I think if Amy and I could go back in our mutual past and do one thing differently, we would have spent some time traveling the United States after college in order to make a real decision as to where we wanted to live. Instead, we took the safest route and stayed right where we were at the time: New York City. After all, our stuff was there, and I had a job in a public relations firm. What quickly happened, however, was that we got stuck in New York. Like so much quicksand, every bit of struggle just sucked us in deeper. We could never seem to get ahead, and before we knew it we were incapable of comfortably making an exit, and so we put our heads down and continued doing what we were doing, all the while hoping something might come along.
Miraculously, a few years ago something did. We got the opportunity to move to Boston and we were finally able to begin breaking ties with New York City. Not completely, of course, as only fourteen months after leaving for Boston we once again found ourselves in the New York area. However, this go around, we managed to orbit the city from New Jersey, thus keeping us from being totally sucked in all over again. Of course, we were immediately and constantly reminded of why we wanted to leave in the first place, and so we began to hope anew.
As you can tell, we spent a lot of our time together waiting for something to happen to us. We knew we didn't want to live around the city anymore, but we didn't take any action to alter our course. But over the last year, that began to change. We began to talk. And that talk began to evolve into a plan. We made a short list of cities we'd potentially like to move to and started doing some research. We were determined to move, it was just a matter of where.
Coincidentally, as our plan coalesced, the possibility of new work for Amy came out of the city at the top of that short list. The possibility, over time, became a reality. And so we're moving to Seattle.
So what does this all mean?
For the blog? Well, you'll probably get to bear witness to my summer being consumed by all the things that come with moving. Hopefully there'll be some art stuff in here, but I'm sad to say that much of my work will be in boxes for much of the coming months. That being said, there's still a possibility that I'll be able to pull something together, but right now it looks like you'll actually have to read rather than look at the pictures.
For my work? In the short term, it'll mean less work getting done, but some semblance of normalcy once the dust clears. I have, after all, been partially hobbled with the knowledge that much of my situation of late was temporary. That type of thing makes me anxious and I'm less productive when I'm anxious.
But all that's in the short term. As regards the long term, the plan (if it proves viable) is that I'll be taking the time to do more personal work. I will try, once and for all, to find my voice and my passion. It's something I've struggled with for a while now, and it's Amy's biggest wish for me. The heart of that journey, when it finally begins, might just be my ultimate reward for rolling with all the moves as they've come by. I look forward to seeing how this new move plays out and where (aside from Seattle) it takes me.
What have I really been up to? Preparation. Finally, after hinting at big changes to come for quite some time now, I can finally reveal the news:
We're moving. Again.
Big deal, you must be saying. You've already moved twice since this blog's inception. This is not interesting!
True. All true. But for us, it is a big deal. Sure we're not strangers to relocating, but this time is a little different. This time we'll be moving far away from our families and the areas we've grown so familiar with. This time we're finally moving out of the Northeast Corridor. This time, we're headed West.
You know, I think if Amy and I could go back in our mutual past and do one thing differently, we would have spent some time traveling the United States after college in order to make a real decision as to where we wanted to live. Instead, we took the safest route and stayed right where we were at the time: New York City. After all, our stuff was there, and I had a job in a public relations firm. What quickly happened, however, was that we got stuck in New York. Like so much quicksand, every bit of struggle just sucked us in deeper. We could never seem to get ahead, and before we knew it we were incapable of comfortably making an exit, and so we put our heads down and continued doing what we were doing, all the while hoping something might come along.
Miraculously, a few years ago something did. We got the opportunity to move to Boston and we were finally able to begin breaking ties with New York City. Not completely, of course, as only fourteen months after leaving for Boston we once again found ourselves in the New York area. However, this go around, we managed to orbit the city from New Jersey, thus keeping us from being totally sucked in all over again. Of course, we were immediately and constantly reminded of why we wanted to leave in the first place, and so we began to hope anew.
As you can tell, we spent a lot of our time together waiting for something to happen to us. We knew we didn't want to live around the city anymore, but we didn't take any action to alter our course. But over the last year, that began to change. We began to talk. And that talk began to evolve into a plan. We made a short list of cities we'd potentially like to move to and started doing some research. We were determined to move, it was just a matter of where.
Coincidentally, as our plan coalesced, the possibility of new work for Amy came out of the city at the top of that short list. The possibility, over time, became a reality. And so we're moving to Seattle.
So what does this all mean?
For the blog? Well, you'll probably get to bear witness to my summer being consumed by all the things that come with moving. Hopefully there'll be some art stuff in here, but I'm sad to say that much of my work will be in boxes for much of the coming months. That being said, there's still a possibility that I'll be able to pull something together, but right now it looks like you'll actually have to read rather than look at the pictures.
For my work? In the short term, it'll mean less work getting done, but some semblance of normalcy once the dust clears. I have, after all, been partially hobbled with the knowledge that much of my situation of late was temporary. That type of thing makes me anxious and I'm less productive when I'm anxious.
But all that's in the short term. As regards the long term, the plan (if it proves viable) is that I'll be taking the time to do more personal work. I will try, once and for all, to find my voice and my passion. It's something I've struggled with for a while now, and it's Amy's biggest wish for me. The heart of that journey, when it finally begins, might just be my ultimate reward for rolling with all the moves as they've come by. I look forward to seeing how this new move plays out and where (aside from Seattle) it takes me.
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Lunarch
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| ©Wizards of the Coast |
What can I say about Mikaeus, The Lunarch? Well, I'll start by paraphrasing the art description. Now, normally I'd just give it to you straight, but there are story points in the description that I really don't want to get nailed for spoiling, so I'm playing it safe this time. Anyway, the description basically says this:
White Legendary Creature. Shown inside a cathedral. Guy in his fifties with long flowing robes gesturing dramatically to an off-camera audience and surrounded by dozens upon dozens of silver candles. He should look important and should reference designs on a certain page of the style guide (something about which I will discuss at a later date).
Pretty straightforward, right? I decided that this guy was kind of like the Pope and I extrapolated from and cannibalized many designs on the pages of the style guide as requested, all while sprinkling in a good helping of my own sensibilities. I handed in my sketch and waited to see what happened.
I got a reply back requesting that I push things a little further — you know, make him fancier and such. Okay, no problem. I gaudied him up some, then resubmitted. Another reply, another request for more pieces of flare. I pushed it further still and finally they were pleased, though looking back on the sketch I don't know why.
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| ©Wizards of the Coast |
I can't say I'm exactly proud of the sketch. It gets the point across, sure, but it's at the expense of any artistic value. In fact, I can't believe I'm sharing this with you all (though, I guess it's actually worse that I shared it with the Art Director). Be that as it may, I got approval to move forward.
I painted it up and it came out looking like this:
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| ©Wizards of the Coast |
So, it's an oil painting on hardboard and it measures 16" x 12". Obviously they cropped in a bit for the purposes of readability on the card, something with which I'm perfectly cool.
Given that the description actually requested he be surrounded by candles, I decided that they would be the lighting source. So, he's lit up from below in all his robe flowing glory. Of course, since being spoiled yesterday, many of the comments I've seen online question the flammability of his robes as well as his proximity to the flames (and yes I'm aware that the vast majority of these comments are meant to be tongue in cheek). While I'd agree that these are potential concerns, I always fall back on the fact that the game itself is called "Magic," and is part of a genre full of axes that would be impossible to wield, armor that would never function in real life, spells being cast, creatures that don't exist, and women who make supermodels look ugly and fat. I think we can all agree that a minor fire hazard which would at worst result in a most excellent YouTube video can be forgiven. In fact, I'd like to see that YouTube video! But I digress.
Obviously I never anticipated these comments, and I find it somehow humorous that what I did next would only exacerbate the imagined issue. Truth be told, this piece could not have been assigned at a worse time for me. I was moving from New York to Boston and the piece, as well as the means to paint it were packed away in boxes during much of the time that I had to work on it. A full two weeks of the three, in fact. Fortunately, the Art Director was sympathetic to my plight and gave me an extension. Originally due just before Christmas, I ended up working on it over the holidays and it was delivered after the New Year, though even then was handed in only because it was due, not because I felt it was completely finished.
Almost immediately after turning it in, I began to finish the piece off to a level that I found satisfying. As I was pretty happy with him, the Lunarch's design remained the same. The changes were primarily to the lighting and the number of candles. While being lit by candles is cool and all, he was lit far too brightly for the number of candles in the image. So, I glazed him back a bit and added some more candles. A lot more, in fact. Enough to make those so concerned for the Lunarch's well-being shout with mock outrage. I assure you that outrage is unnecessary. He's the Lunarch. Folks like him have magically imbued robes. Or something. Besides, even if he didn't he wouldn't be nearly as cool if he was put off by open flames. Seriously. Fonzie would never freak out over some scented candles, and while the Lunarch's coolness level may not be on par with Fonzie's, I believe the Lunarch's overall power within his society evens up the score, so clearly the Lunarch wouldn't freak out either.
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| ©Wizards of the Coast |
I think this version makes for a better piece, overall. I like the sea of candles better, and I find the lighting far more believable. However, it's probably best the this piece was not submitted to Wizards in this final form. You see, the face ended up becoming darker, murkier, and thus less clear when shrunk down. Clarity is important for reduction, and so it's best that the events unfolded as they did. So, while the original version is crisper, this revision makes for a far moodier, and more menacing image. Plus, given the added candles, there's that extra level of danger!
Finally, for your viewing pleasure, a sweet animation showing the before and after...then the before again...followed by the after.... Or, I suppose it's a video displaying the Lunarch's mighty ability both to summon candles, while also simultaneously diminishing light.
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| ©Wizards of the Coast |
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