What is My October Residency and the Reason Behind It.

October Residency

Today I start my residency.

Hmm?

Well, you see for the last year I've been developing my cyanotype creative practice along side my leather work. It has been enlightening to see how they are influencing each other as I explore the possibilities in both.

You also might have noticed that I haven't been talking much about my cyanotype work and that as of today (Oct. 1st) I don't have any listed for sale in the shop. Which is strange on my end because I've been putting more than half of all my effort into something I'm not really talking about or sharing.

I've been struggling to establish my cyanotype work as a functioning practice. It’s like starting a second business. The creative parts of the two different mediums (leather and cyano) play well together. But the practical parts are completely separate.

Once the making the art part is done I have to do something with them. I have to figure out how to talk about them. How to share what I'm doing intelligently. Do I try to find some gallery space? How? What do I mail them in when they sell? What about getting reproductions made?

There is also an elephant in the room.

Why am I doing this at all? Is the leather working not going so well? It's doing just fine. There are a lot of good reasons to branch out in new directions. I'm going to write a whole separate post about it. Part of running a successful art practice is imagining what kind of future you are working towards while acknowledging that future is always going to be changing as you learn more.

So I've spent the last few months making extra leather work every time I put out a new collection. At this point I have enough saved up that I'm able to take the entire month of October off from leather. I'll have a whole month to not only try out all the ideas I've come up with over the past year, but also sort out the nitty gritty of how to run a cyanotype business.

It feels stupid to admit, but I'm not even sure how to describe myself at this point when people ask me what I do for a living. So October is going to be for answering big questions and little ones. After a lifetime of turning away from being an artist I'm finally going to lean into it. The leaves are ready and calling to be printed. It's time.