Karen Hyams Photography

A Peek into a Day in the Studio

admin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 23:55:56 +0000

It’s been a busy, creative month for me. Unfortunately, most of that creativity has taken place outside of the studio. I spent a few weeks scrounging Craigslist and architectural salvage yards for supplies for renovating the barn/studio, a project that is moving at a snail’s pace due to lack of resources. Some wonderful friends came [...]

What a Great Month

admin — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:11:55 +0000

It’s been a crazy month, full of more good things than I could hope for. The Bemis show was terrific, with a gallery owner and an artwalk coordinator expressing interest in having me show. I got reviewed. And I just booked a show after a business owner saw the work I submitted to the Ballard [...]

Really New Big Goals

admin — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:05:08 +0000

I just read my previous to-do list, and wow, was I thinking small. I’ve just been/am still going through a weird mind-expanding phase, something I sought and am a little overwhelmed by. I got accepted into a bigger show than I realized I’d applied for. I have a long stretch of wall space at the [...]

Minor Disaster

admin — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:12:03 +0000

I have the best glass painting palette in the world. It’s an old, very thick piece of bulletproof glass from the teller’s window of an old bank in Boston – I got it for free when I was working at a restaurant that was in the old bank. It’s got a green cast and a [...]

What Matters Most to an Artist?

admin — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:00:13 +0000

While I’ve been working on my “Monet” assignment, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions. Do I care about fame? For years I have said “no”, I do not. I have no illusions about the longevity of my work when my life is over. People love things in part because they love the stories [...]

Working my way out of a creative block

admin — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:33:23 +0000

I’ve been stuck for a few weeks, which has not felt good. I went back to the first post in a series of articles on overcoming artist’s block and took my own advice; I started copying a painter I like, in this case Claude Monet. I wouldn’t have picked him when I was painting, but [...]

I’m a Contrarian

admin — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:59:43 +0000

I decided to take a little break from photography and think for a while. Just a year or so ago, that would not have been hard. And I couldn’t do it. I’ve been feeling a fair amount of angst about my work and its direction (or lack of it). It’s such a cliché, but real [...]

Looking for artists who have lost all of their work

admin — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:10:33 +0000

Have you or someone you know lost most or all of their own artwork due to some disaster, natural or man-made? I’m interested in how that has informed you and your work going forward. In talking to someone else who has been through this, I saw that the guy’s attitude to impermanence and attachment seemed [...]

The Path of Least Resistance

admin — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 05:37:13 +0000

It happens sometimes – I’ll look up at the board above my work table and crack up. It has ideas, things I’ve started and not gotten around to finishing. Sometimes “start” just means get an idea and make something rough to remind myself. Here it is right now. One of the things you need to [...]

deluge

admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:22:34 +0000

Here’s another Turner ripoff, another version of a photo I did a while ago. (I’m not linking to it because I’ve gotten better since I took it, and I wouldn’t post it now.) The painting is “Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps“, also known as “The Snowstorm”. I learned a lot from Turner. I [...]