"alphabet scraps #2" Digital Collage (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker

Seems like my life has been consumed with letters, words, sentences and paragraphs this week.  It’s exhausting!  After my stay as guest artist at The Tin Shop in Breckenridge, CO this past April I moved “applying for residency programs” up on my list of priorities.  I would be delighted if I could get accepted to one each year or two!  The time to dedicate to my art and explore new surroundings is such a blessing to me! The downside of making that a priority is all the thinking, writing and paperwork required for each submission.  Some are more detailed than others (multiple, collated copies or specific required information) but they all take quite a bit of time and effort for me to prepare.  Although I can chat on my blog, Facebook or Twitter quite easily (often more frequently than I should!) I struggle to perfect my formal writing tasks.  It is usually a multi-day process, with several revisions, before I am pleased enough with my efforts to set them forth into the world for others to read.  I try to make my proposals specific to the location and facility that I am applying to so that each seems thoughtful and unique instead of submitting a plain, generic request.  Add to that there is the selection process of what media I will apply for and what images to submit as samples of my work to consider.  If you’ve followed this blog at all you know I skip around from one media to another on a frequent basis.  Trying to narrow the focus of a submission is tough!   I am always second guessing myself on what they might be looking for, what media would stand out best and how to present it.  Frequently you need to include one or more public programs during your stay as well – another decision to make! I guess the upside of sending out several applications each year is that I can vary the proposals enough that I cover everything I’d like to do at one location or another.  As I was looking through some of my images for the submission I mailed out today, I ran across these two images.  I had posted some similar work when I was in Breckenridge but didn’t include these.  Since it seems all I’ve done is look at words & letters lately they were a natural choice to include in this post!

"alphabet soup, close up #1" Digital Collage (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker

I had just read somewhere a few days ago that visual expression and verbal/written expression come from totally different parts of the brain and many people are dominate in one area but not the other.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one comes more easily to me than the other!  My secondary goal with these submissions is to actually get them sent BEFORE the postmark deadline, I tend to procrastinate and frequently make last-minute trips to the post office on the very last possible day.  This time I was three whole days early, so progress is being made!  I am looking forward to a month-long break before beginning on the next round of submissions (Three!!) that I’ll start working on in September.  Hey, maybe now I can make some art instead of just writing about it!

Lynne