January 2025
Montology
I came into Darmera early on a Saturday morning to box up a piece and deliver it locally to a buyer. When I pulled up to the entrance there were a few guys peeking in the window. I opened and invited them in. One of the guys really wanted one of the sold pieces still hanging on the wall. I said it was not for sale. He said what about for cash over asking price? I said yes of course! I boxed it up for him and off he went back to SF. The original buyer was a local and we had a handshake deal. I explained the situation to him, he congratulated me, and then I agreed to make him a new one at the original price as a commission. 5 pieces total sold from my show. :). Late in the month, I received a text message from one of the art buyers that the piece had arrived and a photo of my piece hanging in her living room in Philadelphia. I have sold art before, but I felt very proud of how far I have come as an artist in that moment. My art is on stranger’s walls in Philly and SF. Crazy!
I finished up the layouts for the next three issues of my graphical essay series on exploring fire landscapes. The plan is to have these done and printed for an art opening in November. A non-profit reached out after hearing about this project. They have funding for these types of projects so I am going to be paid to do a series of lectures, field trips, and nature journaling classes that will proceed the gallery show.
I spent a lot of time this month on gouache value studies. I am working on originals for the Pyroscapes project and to be displayed for the November opening. These also overlap with a near future gallery show that my business partner and I will do on small format plein air paintings.
Darmera
I had 5 new students this month between the two classes I teach. We have been break even for the past 3 months and we will be profitable from February going forward after paying yearly business fees, insurance, and digital fees.
We are making some mini-painting kits out of old cigar boxes for small format plein air paintings. We have a list of sites picked out that we will start taking clients, but first we will paint at these locations and create marketing content for upcoming retreats. The paintings will make up a small format gallery show to have a pure profit summer show to shovel back into the business.
We had an art opening of student work from another art studio in town, Art Roster. It was fun to co-mingle the groups and make additional connections in the art community.
Movement
I completed the second 4 week training block that was co-designed by my coach (heading into the end of the rest week this weekend). I spent more days sleeping 9-10 hours a night and eating more protein (mostly supplemental pea protein shake). Going into this block I was well rested, but the last day of my rest week I went a little too hard. I paid for it immediately. I do not need coaching to go harder. I need coaching to go easier on rest and recovery days. The top of my Zone 2 is between 155-160 (nose breathing) depending how warmed up I am and accumulated fatigue. He keeps me in check because many hours of Zone 2 is too hard for me to recover from effectively. Everything clicked this training block. I skate skied 501 km and made massive deposits to the Zone1/Zone2 base bank. The block had increasingly big days at the end of the week. My last day I skied 100km in Zone1/Zone 2 in 6:45:30 with 1850 m gain/loss. I balanced this with ridiculously easy recovery days on the stationary bike (i.e. 90 bpm average). I have gotten way faster and efficient for a given heart rate. I look forward to harvesting some of these gains in early March at the end of the ski season. The game has completely changed for me because these past two blocks unlocked the mental discipline to go easier and put in the boring time for recovery days.
Community
I volunteered for a local Ascension ski-mo race (up and down on skis). A friend and I lead the food prep for the post race party. It was fun to work in a large commercial kitchen at the venue and to see how willing various food vendors were to give out donations to support the event.