Progress Report!

Progress Report!

Mar 26, 2024

Nearing completion, one of the paintings of my Irish Series. My goal is to have a showing of them in Door County, Wisconsin, this summer.

A lot of progress and good news to report.  A successful exhibition of Facing West in Woodstock ended this month. I have began to turn my attention toward the next opportunity to display my art.  One such opportunity is from the Illinois Arts Council, in which the College of Lake County is looking for art for a permanent display.  My hope is that they will consider the found art I have made with the jackets, which would be visually perfect there at the college.   This of course has no guarantee, and, in the meantime, I am working on an Irish Art series of scenes from photos I have taken over the years in Ireland.   My goal is to have them displayed in Door County at an Irish shop of a friend in Fish Creek.  If that happens, it will be my second exposition for this year.  My overall goal for the art is to achieve two more expositions for a total of three in 2024, and a sale of a canvas to a stranger! Yep, someone I don't know buying my art would be pretty cool.  

I still have a book ready to go and it may well be that self-publishing is the route as opposed to the minor miracle of finding a publisher willing to take the risk and publish.  Time and money are the two culprits here in getting “Rose Farm Road” off the ground.  Anybody who has a connection in that world or is willing to help me self-publish, I am happy to discuss. 

With Switchback’s Red or Blue album now nearly complete, I can now give some attention to the next album of MartyMusic that is about fifty percent complete.  These songs, recorded during the pandemic, have been waiting for the process of engineering, editing and mastering.  All was suspended to concentrate on getting our Switchback album to the finish line. There is also a Christmas album that has slowly been worked upon in the past year.  Two pieces for the album have been scored for the Evanston Children’s Choir, with the idea of recording them for the album.  That album is now about three songs shy of being a complete project of all original, new Christmas songs.  Having sheet music of the songs for the choir is a new direction and kudos to the director of the Children’s Choir, Gary Geiger in having these songs scored.  Time and money again are the challenge to get these projects completed.

As always, the podcast and Mr. Marty Shows continue.  The effort to obtain guests for the podcast and encourage the volunteer contributors of the MMS to tap others on the shoulder to help expand contributors, viewers and the overall online community the MMS provides is ongoing.  My pledge here is to get the MMS to the point where it may outgrow my own constant contributions. That would be fun to see it get bigger than all of us! It is an online experimental art community that has been very satisfying to be a part of.

Unfortunately, efforts thus far this year to obtain some grants for the visual art and the media arts have been rejected twice now by the Illinois Arts Council and Chicago DCASE grants. Competition for such grants can be pretty tough.  I am deeply indebted to Katherine Vogel, for her enthusiastic support in spearheading the immense effort in submitting these grants applications. It is no small feat. With no success thus far from such applications, as always, the financial support for all the endeavors by you, my supporters, is deeply appreciated and needed. 

I can’t underscore the vote of confidence that happens when someone decides to create a gift of financial support for the art and projects that fall under the umbrella that is MartyFineArt.  It is a direct effort to allow me to impact the world in a positive fashion. Like all artists, I stand on the shoulders of those who believe in what I do and how I do it.  It costs real money to make all of these projects become viable.  Money on hand creates the time to make each effort become reality.   The old adage Time=Money and Money=Time is very true when it comes to the arts.

Thank you for your support. It is my deepest wish that each of you enjoy the results of our collective actions.  I would be remiss to not plead to those of you who can contribute more, to please do so! Please spread the word about my artwork, music, writing, podcasting and the experimental creative community that is The Mr. Marty Show. Perhaps we can more folks who too, will want to be part of joy being created. We may not be able to change the world, but we can touch souls and that is truly important.

MARTIN'S OTHER BLOG IS HERE.


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