Well this is a drag. My friends over at Bar Max on Colfax in Denver are temporarily closed. For years I’ve been dropping by when I can on Thursday nights for Denver Figure Drawing Club, hosted by the homie Kayla. It is the highlight of my week every time I go. The life drawing group is great. And every other night it is a nice place to get a cocktail and chill, write, draw and chat. Everyone that works there is cool as hell.
They’re having air conditioner issues and it sounds like they are going to take the opportunity to do some other improvements. I am very much hoping that Marshall and the crew are able to reopen soon with no issues. Denver can’t afford to lose a place like Bar Max. It’s a special spot. I’m also hoping that all the great people who work there are getting by okay in the meantime. With luck, we’ll be celebrating their return soon.
Here are some of my drawings from Figure Drawing Club at Bar Max this year…
Those are not unrelated. The seasons have been seasoning hard here at Quebec Qottage. A foot of snow and then 90 degree weather. A temperamental rollercoaster. Que sera sera.
Itās Spring, so Iāve been invited to participate in several of the graduation shows and portfolio reviews at the various animation & illustration programs around town. Thatās always fun, and it makes an old man feel useful. RMCAD put on a nice show. I was really impressed by an animator Iāve met there before named Atlas Fuson, who is really going places. (Iāll have to try to find a link to their stuffā¦) They had a piece that I thought was surely a senior thesis thing; turns out theyāve still got another semester or two left and plan on making a whole other project. AI just aināt got nothinā on the human drive to create.
AIMS College out in Greeley always has a fresh take and punches well above their weight. They just did a cool thing over the weekend where pros could offer asynchronous remote portfolio reviews. Itās a great idea – even though I was pretty busy I got to take my time with each portfolio whenever I had a spare moment. And it was only the weekend, so it didnāt feel like an endless daunting thing. CU Denver is having their show this week at the Sie Film Center, an old haunt of mine. All the wee babe artists and animators are emerging starry-eyed from their nests. Awww.
Oh also my friend June is running for city council. Iāve nearly resigned myself to abject cynicism on national politics and instead a while back I decided to pin the hopes of a nation on Juneās (then nonexistent) political career. No pressure girlie.
It would be kind of me to actually link to all of these wonderful people and orgs Iāve mentioned, but Iām sitting on my back porch and I am tired. Also no one reads this or even knows it exists. Nonetheless, Iāll try to improve that.
The flower buds are opening, the birds are chirping, the squirrels are fighting tooth and claw in the rafters. Springtime. Lifestyle Research is afoot.
I took a flower arranging workshop over the weekend with the brilliant and mighty folks at Beet & Yarrow down Baker way in Denver. When I say brilliantā¦Corrine is so good at what she does it is kind of scary. Sheās an incredible designer and an excellent teacher.
Iām really glad I did it and I think you should try it too. Yes, you, specifically.
It was fun and relaxing and I learned stuff. All of my previous attempts at flower arranging have been pretty frustrating and now I know why. Iād look up a YouTube video and follow along. Everything ended up stuffy and suffocated. It wasnāt fun. I was never able to achieve the naturalistic flow we are always searching for in, well, everything.
During the course I heard a thing that made me realize I had probably seen content rooted in traditional French floral arranging – āthe ice cream cone style.ā That clicked and the previous disconnect made sense.
My wonderful and talented partner has worked in fine dining kitchens. They’ve told me stories about fussy chefs torturing employees to emulate stilted French kitchen traditions. As far as I can tell that mostly centers around abuse – cycles of degradation, screaming, and pushing yourself and everyone else to the limit in pursuit of ill-conceived and ill-defined perfectionism. Tortured artist bullshit. Iām too old for that. Iāve also done enough therapy to see it for what it is: debilitating self-doubt and chronic low self-esteem projected onto any poor bastard unlucky enough to be lower in the pecking order.
That doesnāt result in great art in any sustainable way. Pushing yourself is natural to some extent. But in order to make anything of beauty (without giving yourself a stroke) the push has to come from fuel in the tank, not the cracking of a whip.
The point is, donāt be a tortured artist. Donāt push yourself to the brink. Donāt force perfection. Whatever youāre doing will look worse and no one, including yourself, will like working with you. Be like Corinne – try to find what the universe is doing right here, right nowā¦and go with it. If you can. Or at least take a step back, breathe, and be part of it unfolding.
And take a flower arranging class at Beet & Yarrow in Denver. Buy some flowers from them. It will make your life more beautiful. It will make you a better artist. Those things go together, ya know.
Over the last few months weāve been doing our first experiments with Winter Sowing native perennials here at Quebec Qottage. Weāre getting some germination. Lots of prairie dropseed, blanketflower, winter fat, penstemon, little blue stem, side oats grama, agastacheā¦
The process involves sowing seeds outdoors where they endure the harsh winter conditions for which they have evolved. The brutality of their ancestral environment softens the hard shells so that they are better prepared for the warmth of the spring sun. The roots grow stronger, the seedlings better prepared for the place in which they will live. There is much we can learn from plants.
Updates will ensue as the spring progresses – if the birds and squirrels donāt get to seedlings or the sower. Iāll be potting up some of these into plug trays and others will be transplanted directly into terra firma. If youād like a seedling or two, just ask. They are meant to be spread around. Also, Barbās allium bulbs are starting to bloom. Spring is about potential, potency, vitality. Planting seeds is good. Itās okay if we donāt feel energy arising as soon as weād like, or if things donāt emerge as planned. Late bloomers are often uniquely appreciated and beloved.
