I don’t really celebrate Christmas. I worked all day if you want to really know what I did on Thursday. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excitedly prepared to set up my video installation in my backyard for a test run. So that’s what I did.

The Up to Now Camp, as I call it, fell into place by the end of the day on Thursday, which is when I took these pictures. The very last sliver of the sun had just slipped down below the horizon when I started furiously snapping shots between the last of the day’s wind gusts. It was a particularly windy day. At least  probably too windy to pitch a tent with a hanging piece of fabric that included a bunch of papers pinned to it, but that’s the day I picked.

I’ve been wanting to set up the installation once before the actual time I’m doing it for real, just to make sure of a few things. For one thing, it is going to save me on time the second time around since I now know the direction everything goes. There’s a long way and a short way and they are only slightly different. The instructions that came with the tent were good for nothing on telling me which side the door was supposed to be on, etc. And I don’t want to be in the project room at the gallery fussing with all that in a restricted area like that – blah blah blah.

I needed to see if I cut the carpet the right size, and various other things too. Lots of stuff I needed to see would work before I just brought it all to the gallery in hopes it would all come together without testing it first.

The whole bed didn’t fit, so I had to just make a little bedroll pile in the corner instead. That was kind of a bummer, but if I had the whole bed out and made, I would have been squeezing the chairs in too much and no one would be comfortable watching the movie.

I’m not sure what else to say about some of the items that might be visible in these shots, but they have to do with the movie, and this isn’t quite the entire installation. There will be a few more items in the tent, but they will be small pieces that hang around in various places. Nothing major because the main focus is about watching the movie. I didn’t want to go crazy with “props” in the tent.

I did think that my “ephemera” wall was going to be a lot more massive because I got different measurements from The North Face – another reason it was a good idea to set this thing up once before the actual installation. Because the area here was not a flat surface, I had to find another piece of fabric to hang it straight. It’s the only way it worked out, so there you have it.

Besides all this tent business, I’ve been otherwise working my tail off, as I seem to always say and probably hardly mean. Ha! Not really. I do mean it. I just don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about it because there’s really nothing I love more than working. I’m not just a workaholic. I really love what I do, but maybe that’s what workaholics say? I’ll have to look into that.

I really don’t have much time left before the show. It might seem like it, but I don’t. I still have six paintings to finish, all of them started but one small one. I just decided what I was going to do on that small one and it’s kind of complex. I really didn’t mean to do that, but it’s just the way the idea came to me. It’s only a 10 x 10 inch panel, but I want to build it up with teeny tiny rectangles. Oh well.

And there is a big possibility that I may not finish one of the landscape paintings until after the show is already hung! It might just be a piece for the back room, after the fact. I just don’t see it being done in time. I still have to finish the movie too.

I’ve also been applying for a couple of residencies. I am applying for Yaddo again and one at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. I already sent in my Yaddo application and I’ve been working hard on my cover letter for Chinati.

I will also find out the results about the Wynn Newhouse award sometime in January. I was one of 19 artists nominated for that and they give about around four or five awards, but that means around 15 artists do not win and I have to consider that more so than me possibly receiving the award. I’m really trying not to get my hopes up. I am actually just honored to be nominated. That’s a big deal! One of 19 is a huge big deal! But I will let you all know either way – my successes and my failures. Remember it doesn’t matter as long as you keep looking forward and keep trying. That’s all you can do.