Ramble Ramble

Shameless plug time:

N.C. has Christmas cards up for sale in his etsy shop again this year.

10 cards, 12 envelopes, free shipping until December 14th. You get some kick ass cards and the knowledge of supporting independent artists. There are 3 different designs for your holiday pleasure. Even if you don’t buy, enjoy!

I may have mentioned before that it can be tough being married to an artist. Once or twice, perhaps. He spends a lot of time with his art, there’s the whole money thing, not to mention the weird ego/self-worth thing that happens with artists (and that I’m sure artist’s wives throughout history have had to combat). It’s bizarre at times, hard a lot of the time, and can be tough to deal with at times for those of us who aren’t possessed by that kind of passion.

However, occasionally the stars begin to align and things all seem to work out and it can be amazing to watch all the good things that befall the husband/artist.

Like when a tweet from a real-life celebrity said this last week:

gonna buy this NC Winters piece. for the fam- this is exactly how it feels to be gone from everyone.

(referencing this piece, created for a group show in LA). True enough, come to find out that piece did sell to said celebrity, not to mention the publicity that N.C. got from said celebrities 1 million plus twitter followers plus however many follow his blog.

Or when, the night of the show, N.C. was interviewed for a show on a cable network available nationally.

Or when, a few days later, someone contacted him wanting to buy the other piece he had in the group show.

Or when we found out that a piece in another gallery sold.

Or when he picked up another two comic strips, bringing his weekly total to 5 separate strips (one of his key gigs).

Or when he got invitations to 3 more shows in the next 6 months.

I don’t say all this to brag–because really, I know that this is a feast portion for the feast/famine part of an art career–but to say that the last 2 1/2 weeks have been really inspiring to watch. It’s not about the money (though, with a baby on the way, of course that’s a great and helpful thing). Instead it’s about seeing these moments where my husband’s star shines a little brighter than it did the day before. About living in the moments where my husband comes one step closer to his goals and dreams. In THOSE moments, it’s a reminder that I believe in him for a reason–not just because I’m his wife, but because I believe he’s talented and destined for great things. And while it can be tough a lot of the time to be married to an artist, watching him as he gets closer to his dreams is pretty damn inspiring.

Sometimes I feel like my husband’s art is the other woman in our relationship. He comes home late after being with her all night, long after I go to bed. He sheepishly hides receipts for the things he’s bought her. He makes plans with her whenever he has free time. Sometimes he’s too tired from being with her to do things with me. I occasionally get jealous and force him to choose me over her, but he always goes back.

Other times, I feel like his art is our child. Our time revolves around it. We spend more money on it than we do on ourselves at times. We’re constantly running all over creation for its events (talk about an over scheduled child). We put all our energy into making sure it has a better chance of making it big. Work, friends, and private time for our marriage can be secondary to its immediate needs.

Either way, his art definitely puts our lives into a  vice grip at times. Deadlines and events and jobs have a way of taking over. I’ve learned over the years of being with him, it’s part of what I got when I said I would accept him and his career. But I’ve also learned over the years that I can: make him take breaks, give me a day (or evening) free from art, schedule better to allow us time off (like this past weekend), work differently so that he doesn’t end up in the studio until 4am 7 nights in a row. I can exert my influence over him as his wife to help him make LIFE and not just art a priority.

And when things get really bad, and he really can’t break away from the art, I do what wives have done throughout history when their husbands aren’t paying enough attention to them–I break out the lingerie.

One of the really cool things about my husband’s art career is that it gives us the opportunity to support charities and causes we believe in. We like to give back where we can, and my husband’s art allows us an outlet for that even when our financial situation may not.

On Saturday night, we got to attend the celebration event for one of these charities, Keep A Breast, and in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I thought I’d share with you guys. Here’s a blurb about KAB, courtesy of SocialVibe:

Keep A Breast is an amazing organization on a mission to eliminate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support. Through art events, educational programs and fundraising efforts, KAB seeks to increase breast cancer awareness among young people so they are better equipped to make choices and develop habits that will benefit their long-term health and well-being.

To do this, they partner with bands, artists, and events to try and make breast health awareness more than just a stuffy flier (that to be honest, many of us don’t read) about how to do a self exam. What I love about the organization is that they are focused on early detection, prevention and awareness, before we all get to the “mandatory mammogram” stage–which for so many women, is too late. I also love that they are trying to educate both women and men, since breast cancer is not solely a female occurrence.

One of the things they do is create one-of-a-kind plaster forms of the female torso that are customized by artists which are then auctioned off to raise consciousness and funding for breast cancer research and treatment. The casts are of young women, old women, pregnant women, women who have lost one breast to cancer, women who have lost both breasts to cancer…and even, occasionally, men. Over the last 8 years, they’ve had artists from all over the globe help in the cause, and this time around, N.C. was asked to participate.

As you can imagine, he was honored to do one of these casts (which made a guest appearance here a few weeks ago) for their 8th anniversary fundraiser. Here’s the finished piece:

Pretty spectacular huh? (I might be biased, but I think it’s a great piece). N.C. was one of around 50 artists to contribute to this particular event–KAB does multiple events throughout the year at multiple locations around the globe–and I know he was thrilled to be able to support such a worthy cause.

N.C.’s cast, along with those of the other artists, are being auctioned off from now until October 28th. If you’re interested, you can click here to check out the ebay auction. And with the exception of the casts by Iggy Pop, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, all the casts start at a $25 bid. Not too shabby for an amazing work of art that also supports a worthy cause.

We may bid on a cast ourselves but in the meantime, we added support to the cause with perhaps the best shirt ever.

Cuz, in the end, don’t we all love boobies? 

P.S. I can’t WAIT to see what happens with my google keywords with this post.

I have spent the weekend mired in webby work. Which, considering that I’m teaching myself all of this, is kind of strange.  Here’s what I’ve accomplished:

• Moved my blogroll/links out of my sidebar, and onto a links page. Yay!
• Added an about me bit to the sidebar. Those of you who read on the site and not a reader, does it overwhelm up there at the top? I’ve lost all perspective.
• Fixed some backend issues. Blech, I’m so not a code monkey. I very much feel like I need a blog mentor (anyone skilled with their self-hosted wordpress blog who wants to volunteer?).
• Cleaned out about 200 Russian spam emails from my rambleramble account. Why they’re all in Russian is beyond me, but it does make it very very easy to see what’s spam!

In addition to the work I did on my own site, here’s where the bulk of my weekend has gone:

N.C.’s Etsy shop: I basically set up this whole thing. N.C. did the banner (and, of course, all the actual stuff in the shop), but other than that…all me. I figure there will be some trial and error with the policies, writeups, etc., but my darling husband has wanted a shop for some time now, and this seemed like a logical place to start. It’s all a bit of an experiment, but hopefully it will have a good outcome.

N.C.’s blog: Somehow, since I’ve got my blog up and running, I’ve become the webmaster in the house. So, I spent a large portion of the weekend helping N.C. get his blog going with a theme, some widgets, some specialization, etc. I think his–way, way more than mine–will require lots of tweaking in the design stuff, but I think we’re on a good track. Now, if I could just figure out the gallery plugin for Wordpress, I think he’s be mostly set on the technical stuff.

Of course, working on all that technical stuff meant there wasn’t much time for writing actual posts, or taking actual pictures…which bums me out, since that’s what I like about blogging. But, I’m going to get back to that this week, I promise. I’ve already got 3 posts planned, and some pictures I’m hoping to get and share with you all. Let the good times resume!

P.S. Has anyone out there used BookMooch, or other book swapping sites? I’m intrigued but wonder how many good books you might actually get out of it?