Yeah I know, I'm writing about myself. It's not the royal "we" but rather trying to stay unbiased. Back in February of this year I was approached by Studio 23 to be one of the 6 artists that would be featured in their "A Perfect Pairing" event this year. The idea is simple but really fun. What they do is have wine experts look at the artwork submissions before then picking a wine they think would match the artwork.
The concept is simple but excellent. Wine and fine art go together like...well wine and fine art. The two are ubiquitous When I was approached I instantly accepted and I submitted my art.
Studio 23 promoted me on their social media and while it was sort of shocking seeing myself out there on the internet with someone else's account name, it was also really cool.
When the event actually happened I was really surprised to see my name on stuff. I hadn't even seen how my artwork was going to be displayed which is also sort of nerve-wracking since I'm going to unveil something I haven't seen in a month. I wondered how this was going to go.
It went well though. I was really surprised by how many people were there, especially how many people said they were fans of my work. I HAVE FANS??? I also discovered that hardly anyone there knew about this website either which made me sad because I do both. I'll have to figure out how to promote that.
The way the event worked is that I had to give a shpeel about my artwork to a group of people, then answer questions until they were moved along and the next group would come by. Really this is a new form of public speaking to anybody, but I did ok. I think I need to explore writing a how-to on that like I did with writing an artist statement. It's really not a subject that comes up in photography but it can make or break your artistic career with how you handle this sort of event. This was sort of terrifying.
But I got to talk to some really cool people, drink some awesome wine, and hang out with people who appreciate art, so that's really awesome.
Studio 23 really did a lot for me with this. I really enjoyed this and It was a really cool event. The photo you see behind me is below. It's an infared shot taken with my DSLR.
It printed a bit purple but that's ok. I gave up trying to print with ICC profiles and curves years ago because I realized that I'd never be happy with the results. I had two Canon PRO-100's that were supposedly both identical with identical color profiles. I could tell the difference in print between photos. So I just let the print company have my .jpg and if they print it nicely I'll use them again, and if they don't have the common sense to help manifest the vision I have laid out in my file and use their skills and equipment to make a print, then I'll find a more competent company. Really printing it it's own art form away from photography and I leave it to the experts.