One Year Anniversary March 2005

Dear Art of Day Club (or as I like to imagine when combing my hair looking at myself in the mirror - my Fan Club):



I'm a few days early with my one-year as an artist newsletter, but I wanted to send this out just in case I got hit by an asteroid or a refrigerator falling from an airplane.

I began my career as an full time artist one year ago on March 1, 2004. It's hard to believe a year has gone by already. Time flies when you are having fun, and yet I remain optimistic in a "whistling past the graveyard" sort of way. One year is the paper anniversary. If anyone can tell my why paper is significant, let me know, and hand me a tissue please, my nose is running.

When I started this project, I told many of my friends that this was either the smartest thing I have ever done or the dumbest thing I have ever done. Which is it? It is still too close to call. But smartest or dumbest, it has been a good year. I apparently reached a threshhold at which I have to report sales from my art to the IRS. An art gallery sent me a Form 1099 regarding my sales there. Great. But I've had fun.

And having had fun for about a year now, I am pleased to report that I am still feeling the creative juices flowing and am looking for financial ways to continue. If anyone would like to send me money, I will send you a SASE.

My son thinks it's pretty cool to have an artist for a dad. He's at the age, 10, where he still likes me. But he's beginning to want to look "cool" at school - which means having his underwear ride about two inches higher than his pants. Thank god my generation never did things to attempt to be "cool." Things like rebellion against authority, long hair, flowers embroidered on jeans, smoking po.... you get the picture. But my son is also at the age where he still likes to play hide and seek under the bed covers in the morning before heading off to school. "Come and find me, dad." This while I am standing in the same room.

So for the most part my life is pretty good right now. However, on the down side, a woman I actually worked up the nerve to ask out for a date declined, and I am falling behind the work pace I had set for myself. This was to be a get rich quick scheme: I'd paint a thousand pictures per day for a thousand days, sell them for a dollar each and be a millionaire! This is not going to happen. I've had to adjust. Now I think I'll get to the million paintings in approximately 2738 years, and 8 months, longer if I take Saturdays and/or Sundays off. But I will get there.

I have done more than 200 paintings this last year most of which are posted at my website. The "stats" page of my website tells me that my website has been visited by people in 12 states, the District of Columbia, and 6 countries including France and South Korea. But the internet being what it is it is also possible that viewers living in Ralston or York or South Sioux City have their internet communication channeled through Kuwait or the Netherlands or the Antarctic before landing in Colorado where my website lives. For a while, I thought I was the most popular artist in Utah but then noticed that whenever I added new pictures to my site, the visit registered as coming from Utah. Now I appear to be very popular in Virginia. Nevertheless, I received 680 visits to my web site in January and over 800 in Febuary. And if I subtract the 500 times I looked in January, it still was pretty good in February.

I have noted that I have gravitated toward some of the 2nd generation abstract expressionists who included a bit more representational attitude in their works. Lee Krasner and Karl Appel come to mind. Among the artists whose work I have admired, studied, and incorporated into my own work this year are not only abstract expressionists but also pre abstract expressionists and post a.e. including Raoul Dufy, Jean Dubuffet, Kandinsky, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hoffman, Jack Tworkov, Mark Rothko, de Kooning, Gorky, Franz Kline, Motherwell, Karl Appel, Asger Jorn, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, and others.

Whatever happens next, this has been a great year.


Thanks. Later.

Bud Cassiday
www.artbycassiday.com