What was it Oscar Wilde said...

Actually it was Blaise Pascal:
I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

But he wrote it in French.

I spent most of the today working on grant proposals. The thing about writing a grant is that you have to distill the entirety of your artistic self into 200 words. Often fewer. (For reference, this blog post is at least double that.) You might notice that I'm a bit on the verbose side*, so it can be time consuming for me to get all of what I'm trying to say into 2 or 3 paragraphs. But it's necessary to keep things brief & clear so as to avoid turning the grant committee's brains into jelly. Commonly, grant committees require dynamic language, entire words, & very little by way of swear words. Not even the occasional "fuck" for emphasis.

It's good practice tho. Being able to talk about your work in an exceptionally precise manner is a pretty rare skill - & I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that I am frequently annoyed by people who use more words than necessary to talk about their work. I even annoy myself when I do it.

The internal editor is a powerful figure, & I don't think she has great enough sway in general discourse. I like being able to babble with a close friend about an idea we share**, but if I'm talking to people I don't know there's very little that throws me off my game more than not having my words under me. I hate faking it. I hate using buzzwords. And the only time I'm okay quoting Shakespeare is when I'm putting someone in their place.

Consequently, this type of writing is very emotionally taxing for me. It's a good thing I've spent more than half my life trying to get my deepest feelings out of my head & into some kind of comprehensible prose.

I would usually prefer to be painting tho.

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*I blame Tolkien.
**I've even watched someone fall in love with me while talking about art. It was incredible. I won't be able to tell you if it stuck tho... not yet.

The Book of Rainbows & Other News of Late April

Here's what's new this week!

• The Book of Rainbows!
• FibroShark now with greater computing power!
• Map Lotuses
• Exciting images of the inside of my face
• And a long conversation with the Director of Alumni Relations at Cornish

As per usual, you can find me & all my wonderful insanity on Facebook & Instagram. You can also find FibroShark on Facebook & keep up with the progress on the book from there.

❤❤Rachel

Remarkably little time-travel this week...

Now, this face I can draw.

I spent today watching the X-Files & trying to draw myself as a comic character.

I've never really been much for figure-drawing, but I'm getting a little more into it since I'm illustrating a book with humanoid figures in it. (Humanoid in the sense of two-arms-two-legs-one-head.)

Yesterday, tho, someone asked what I do... "I'm an illustrator right now," I said, a little bit of pride welling up. Being self-employed & making my own money is one thing, but holy moses, making money doing art is new. 

But this week wasn't just for making work, I also went to a couple of show openings to see recent work from a few of my EDGE colleagues.

cARTtography at Ryan James Fine Arts in Kirkland - featuring work from Erika Norris & Vikram Madan - is a collection of work that explores narrative thru map-making. As a Timelord, I'm a big fan of maps & I enjoyed a lot of the work I saw. Especially a piece the title of which implied that even the most logical among us flips to the horoscope section of The Stranger.

And Saturday saw the opening of Black Lives Matter: Humanity Not Negotiable at Columbia City Gallery. This show was a huge hit (at least, if the mob out front of the door was any indication), due in no small part to the pieces from my good friend Lisa Myers-Bulmash. All in all, the show is a well-curated collection of works from Seattle's often-neglected artists of color, and is well worth your time if you end up wandering thru Columbia City.

I wish I could write more about these shows, but it's fairly difficult for me to spend sufficient time in a gallery. Instead of taking my word for it, tho, you should get out & visit these shows while they're up.

Real. Working. Artist.

Here's what's going on in the Setzer Studio:

• FibroShark! FibroShark! Does whatever a FibroShark does!
• The ongoing quest for paper
• Relative Time & Space
• 6x6 Encaustic Series
• interval/tempo

Stay tuned to this blog for art rants & various updates. Also, provide me with some much-deserved emotional validation on Facebook & Instagram.