First Friday Opening Reception, THIS Friday!

My art and the art of 20 other artists has been hung at the New Mexico Cancer Center for the Gallery With A Cause show, “Movers and Shakers”. There is some really amazing art at this show! I’m so grateful to be included in such an awesome group of artists!

This Friday, March 2nd, 5:30-8:30pm is the First Friday opening reception. Located within the NM Cancer Center at 4901 Lang Ave NE, the Gallery With A Cause raises money to help lower income patients financially. 40% of every sale goes to the NM Cancer Center Foundation. Having lost family members and friends to cancer, this is an important cause to me personally as well.

“Believe”, 30×30″ oil on canvas, one of the “reworked” paintings for the NMCCG show

I have 19 pieces hanging in the show, 6 paintings on canvas, 3 guitar paintings and 10 vinyl record paintings. I hope you will join me at the reception to see the art and potentially support the cause with a purchase. There will be a People’s Choice Award, so I would really appreciate the support and your vote!

“Ecstatic”, 20×20″ oil on canvas, one of the two brand new paintings I did for the NMCCG show

There will be a “Walk and Talk” event on Wednesday, April 18th, 6-7:30pm. If you are unable to attend either of these days, the gallery is open by appointment only. Call 505-828-3791 for more information or to schedule an appointment. All events are free to attend, and your support is greatly appreciated! See you there!

In Limbo…

Two of my painted guitars showing at the NMCCG March-May!

A couple of small details to complete and I am ready for hanging my art at the New Mexico Cancer Center Gallery this Saturday.

We’ve had home inspections taking up our time and thoughts the past couple of days and I am so ready to be done with the  whole selling/buying process! In the meantime, we have 2 1/2 weeks left before closing on our house on March 13th. At which point, we will hopefully have our RV ready to live in while we wait the extra two weeks for the closing on our new house.

Until then, most of my studio is packed and in limbo, waiting to get to the new studio. I so look forward to getting back to my regular studio routine and I cannot wait to share photos with you all!

I’m working on staying positive and relaxed, but anyone who knows me personally, knows this is very difficult for me during stressful times. Just another lesson from the Universe I guess! My patience and positive outlook have definitely been put to the test the last 3 weeks. May the next few weeks pass quickly and smoothly!

 

NM Cancer Center Gallery for a Cause

“Ecstatic”, 20×20″ oil on canvas, one of the two brand new paintings I did for the NMCCG show

I’m baaack! My work is basically done for the upcoming show at the NM Cancer Center Gallery for a Cause. I still have to paint a few sides and put hanging wires on the backs. Hanging day is Saturday, February 24th, which is under 2 weeks away! I’m really excited about this show. I’m showing with some great Albuquerque artists and I’m so humbled to be included in a show titled “Movers and Shakers: Works by artists who teach, lead and inspire”. I’m extremely grateful to be included in this truly great group of artists! The show opens with a reception during March First Friday Artscrawl, March 2nd, 5:30-8:30pm. The show is at the NM Cancer Center near Paseo del Norte and I-25.

“Believe”, 30×30″ oil on canvas, one of the “reworked” paintings for the NMCCG show

I ended up finishing five paintings on canvas for the NMCCG show, three were “reworked” older paintings I never did like. UNTIL I reworked them! Thanks to a critique from the curator, it turned out they were never quite finished in the first place. Now that they are finished, I’m really pleased! I also painted two completely new canvases. I’m deliberately getting into the layering and letting earlier layers show through. It’s exciting to see the evolution of my work. I feel like my style is seriously taking shape over the past year.

“Eternal Love”, 30×30″ oil on canvas, one of the reworked paintings for the NMCCG show.

Even more exciting to me, is that I get to show my guitar and record paintings in this show! Though I didn’t get my final guitar painted in time for this show, I will have two others hanging. Below is the guitar I’m currently working on. Hoping to have it finished in the next week or so.

Guitar painting in progress, acrylics on wood

Hoping is the key word in that last sentence. I’m not going to have a ton of time for painting over the next month because, we sold our house! Our closing is set for March 13th. We are getting close to making an offer on our next house and I promise to share all the details once that is done and accepted. Either way, we have to move out of our house of 17 years by the 13th, which leaves us just over 3 weeks. Luckily, we packed most of our stuff before we put it up for sale. We have very little left to pack, just the last few boxes of things we use daily, and a few pieces of art (give or take 100!).

“Cosmic Love”, 20×20″ oil on canvas, one of the two brand new paintings for the NMCCG show.

My goal is to get the show hung and finish up a few projects before we have to pack and move. Hopefully, there will only be a few days with everything in storage before we can move into our new house. Either way, we are taking a short vacation during the lag time! I would love to be moved in and working in my new studio by April, but we shall see!

 

Busy, Busy!

In painting mode, getting ready for a show in March. No time to write a blog post, but I can share some progress pics of what I’ve been up to in the studio recently!

“Light of Love”, 30 x 30″ oil on canvas, almost done!

20 x 20″ oil on canvas, work in progress

Detail from “Eternal Love”, 30 x 30″ oil on canvas, work in progress. This is one of my older pieces that I’m reworking into a new painting.

“Eternal Love”, 30 x 30″ oil on canvas, work in progress

Putting the base coat on my next guitar painting!

Almost Mural Time!

I’m excited to share that I am getting ready to paint another mural! This one will be out of town, I’m going to Las Cruces (my hometown) to paint a mural for my brother and his wife. Needless to say, I will be filming another time lapse video for this one, so stay tuned.  I’m going to paint this one the weekend of October 7th. Below is the design sketch. The drawing isn’t to scale as I don’t have the exact measurements of the wall just yet. If you live in Las Cruces, you will be able to drive by to see it as this one is being painted on a wall in their driveway. I will share the address once I’m down there working on it. I’d love to have you stop by for a visit and you can watch me paint if you want. 🙂

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This weekend I am showing some of my art at the Healing Winds Psychic Fair!  I will be there for sure all day Sunday, 10-6, at The Source, 1111 Carlisle Blvd SE. I will mainly have prints with a few originals available. My prints make great gifts! Prices start at $15! Come by and say hi! It should be a fun and enlightening time!

This is the last week of my show at the Sierra Club office here in Albuquerque. I pick up my work on Thursday afternoon. You can see the pieces from the show on my website.

“Be”, Acrylic on 12″ vinyl record, available in August/September at my Sierra Club show, $200

Summer Sale! 50% off!

“Touched by Love”, 9 x 19″ oil on canvas, 50% off! Only $140! Regularly – $275

My Summer Sale recently opened to the public after a month of exclusive access for my email subscribers. What this means for you is 50% off selected original paintings and prints. This sale will run through Friday, September 22nd. There are over 60 items available in this massive studio clearance sale! After the 22nd, they will all go back to regular price. So, what are you waiting for? Head over to my website PaulaManningLewis.com, the sale is currently on the home page.

Green Spiral Abstract, watercolor giclee print available for $15, retail price $30

You can also get a 20% off coupon for regularly priced paintings and prints by signing up for my email list. The sign up form will pop up automatically when you get to the site. All of the photos in this post are images of sale items available in my Summer Sale. 🙂 Click on the images/captions to go directly to the sale page for that image.

“Storm”, Acrylic painting on vinyl record, On sale for $75, retail price $160

You can still see all of my newer and regularly priced paintings and prints on my website too. Just look for the “home” drop down menu at the top of the page.

You get to Paint All the time, right?

It’s one of the biggest misconceptions about artists. Unfortunately, unless you have some type of career manager or assistant, artists do NOT get to paint/create all the time. Unless of course, you aren’t concerned with actually selling your work. Being a full time artist, this is a pretty important part of the career.

Hanging my show at the Sierra Club office

This has been one of those weeks. I always struggle during these weeks to know what to blog about. There is no time lapse video of a painting in progress or progress photos to share.

This week I’m working. Business stuff, ie paying bills, making painting labels and hanging art for a show, sending lists of pieces for consignment forms, twisting wire on hanging hooks so my records will hang right, creating and sending out promotional emails and facebook events and posts.

Hanging my show at the Sierra Club office

Editing some older writing for the “Paula Beck Prints” art book I’m working on. I didn’t realize how negative my outlook was until I reread my blog posts from 12 years ago! Time to change the story up a bit so I am accepting my responsibility for my life. I was such a victim in the past! No more.

I will admit, we took our dogs for an afternoon hike yesterday. We have been promising them a hike for at least a month! It was a beautiful, cool day in the San Pedro Wilderness, west of the Jemez. We did happen to stop by a tree with a bee hive in it, and I got stung 3 times! Boy do those stings itch today!

In other news, Monday I meet with the clients for my next mural commission! I’m so excited to get started on another mural! Updates coming soon!

 

Where have you been?

Varnished, whole and ready to show! “Burning up for your love”, acrylic on solid Fender body, Available “as is” for $1,000. Price will go up once all the parts are added.

My solo show at the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club opens this Friday, 6-8pm. Tomorrow morning the show will be hung and ready to go! Today I took the guitar and neck to the guitar shop for connection. I’m excited about finishing up my first playable art guitar! It will be shown this month, as is, but after the August show comes down this guitar will get all it’s pick ups, tuning pegs and knobs, wiring, etc. Then it will be ready to be PLAYED! Until then, I had Aaron model the guitar for me, he’s a natural! 😉

My guitar playing husband modeling the new guitar for me! 😉

We went camping last week, in case you were wondering why there were no blog posts. We spent a few days with my brother and sister in law at the lake. They just got their boat up and running for the first time in YEARS, so we had to take it out for a test run! I had forgotten how much I love to swim! It was hotter than hell, but the water was PERFECT!

Me with (l to r), my brother Travis, Aaron and our SIL, Charlene.

After 3 days at the lake, I came home to a request from a local architect friend of ours. His firm, Design Group, is building a playhouse for Parade of Playhouses, an auction gala to benefit local non profit, NM Appleseed. His request was for my contribution to their playhouse project, in the form of painting a set of wooden gears that will be on the wall of the playhouse. The theme of the house is Dr. Suess. I was given the gears, a color scheme and the theme and this is what I ended up with. I am always happy to contribute my art work to good causes and NM Appleseed is a good one. From their website, “Focusing on issues like hunger, education and homelessness, New Mexico Appleseed’s goal is to make systemic change that yields permanent or long term improvement for the poor and under served.”

Gears for the Cat in the Hat Playhouse

Doing my part to Save the Planet!

“The Awakening”, Acrylic on 12″ vinyl record, work in progress

So close! I am currently working on the final vinyl record painting(above) for my August show at the Sierra Club Offices. At the beginning of the Summer, I wasn’t sure I would make it. I really like to have all new work for new shows. For the NM Cancer Center show this was impossible. I was asked to show as many paintings as I could, up to 25 if I had them. I ended up with 22, about 6 were new paintings that hadn’t been shown before. The Sierra Club show however, will be ALL NEW work! Plus, ALL the art work is recycled art. I always feel better about recycled art. Something about making something out of a piece of trash, always makes me feel good. Not that these pieces were LITERALLY picked out of the trash. More like SAVED from going into the trash! Either way, I’m doing my little bit to save the planet. 30% of all sales at the Sierra Club show will benefit our local chapter of the Sierra Club!

“Be”, Acrylic on 12″ vinyl record, available in August at my Sierra Club show, $200

In all, I am showing my latest guitar painting, along with 8 brand new vinyl record paintings. I will hang the show at the end of next week and the opening reception will be during the First Friday Artscrawl. I will share more info on all the particulars next week as the opening gets closer.

“The Best of Everything”, Acrylic on 12″ vinyl record, available in August at my Sierra Club show, $200

These vinyl record paintings SEEM simple and like they wouldn’t take very long to create, but the truth is, each brush stroke must be layered 3-4 times. The vinyl surface is very slippery, so it takes a few layers to make the paint opaque. At one point, I used paint markers for my record paintings, but the fumes were too much! I had to go back to using acrylic paints again. One of the things I like most about painting on vinyl is the way the matte finish of the paint looks with the shiny surface of the record peeking through. This is difficult to capture in the photos, these pieces must be seen in person to fully appreciate!

What are you so angry about?

I usually like to keep my posts about the art, but I recently had an epiphany and felt the need to share. I have been angry most of my adult life. Not that I ran around angry all the time, but it was always there, boiling just beneath the surface. I always blamed it on other people and their behavior. My ex, my family, people in traffic, etc, etc.

Since 2007, I’ve been on a search for inner peace. It’s been a long decade of reading tons of self help books, learning to meditate daily, creating art from my soul and self care. I’ve lost several friends along the way. Mainly because they weren’t comfortable with my changes and the fact that I was now standing up for myself. They didn’t like the “healthy” Paula.

I once had a shaman tell me that some people are like rocks in a backpack. Sometimes on the trail of life, we have to empty the rocks out of our backpack so we can lighten our load and be happy. Let’s just say my backpack was HEAVY with rocks. Not just people, but situations, memories and regrets. However, even after I dropped the rocks on the side of the trail, the anger was still there.

It’s been a long road and I finally feel like I’m moving on to the next decade of my life. The epiphany happened recently, after watching a video on facebook, of all places! Here’s the link: I highly recommend you WATCH this video!
https://www.facebook.com/comedien.voix.doublage/videos/10206832718043784/?hc_ref=OTHER&pnref=story

After I watched it, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s so crazy obvious to me now! I have been angry at my 15 year old self for DECADES! I have been mad at myself for all the stupid choices I made, for not just saying NO to that 17 year old boy who got me pregnant. First of all, NO to sex, and then later, NO to marriage.

Don’t get me wrong, everything that happened in my life HAD to happen. If not, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. That said, I’ve been carrying this anger around all this time. All the resentment for how my life “could’ve” been or “should’ve” been.

It is what it is.

How can I still be angry at that young girl who was just looking for love and attention? I can’t. The fire has been extinguished. The anger is now sadness. Not a depressed sadness, but a melancholy sadness for all the anger I inflicted on my family and friends and everyone around me.

BUT, it’s OK! I finally GET IT! Now I move on to forgiveness. I have often wondered why, after forgiving literally EVERYONE who ever did me wrong, why was I STILL angry? It’s time to forgive myself. It’s time to tell that 15 year old girl that still lives within me, you’re ok, you’re loved, you’re FORGIVEN.

I will leave you with a work in progress, “The Best of Everything”.

“The Best of Everything”, acrylic on 12″ vinyl record, work in progress