Jeanne and I welcomed 2008 at Regina and Jheri's house in Houston. We were drinking wine coolers and playing Nintendo when the clock struck twelve. My resolution was to not be working at Texas Art Supply by New Year's Eve, 2008 (and I've kept it!).
Jeanne began her final semester of graduate school at U of H, and we mostly hung out with her fellow MFA candidates. We had fun much of the time, even if not all friendships would survive by the middle of the year.
This is a good example of the phase I was going through a month after our show at the Joanna Gallery. I hated my art, and the art world in general and this sketchbook page was a way of venting and trying to sort things out.
Above is a picture of Jeanne, who had just been crowned as head of the Department of Glitterology at U of H. Despite how we might have felt about the Joanna show, great paintings and drawings were still being made in Jeanne's studio.
February:
My attention was turned more toward drawing in my sketchbooks, especially Out, C.K. than to painting.
It was also around this time that the combination of crack- head waiters and rancid marinara sauce caused us to stop eating at the 59 Diner in Houston. There was a very delicious banana split that we didn't expect to be so enormous, though:
We were accompanied on our outings by Regina and Jheri quite often. Here they are, amused at the idea of us consuming so much ice cream.
March:
Easter came early that year, and I paid tribute to the Holy Easter Bunny in my own very special way:
This was around the time I was going back to my roots, and busting out the 64 box of Crayolas as well as using Blo-Pens for the first time. Meanwhile, Jeanne was presenting her spectacular installation piece called "You Are The We of Me" at the small projects gallery in the U of H Fine Arts building; an installation which even the famous critic Raphael Rubinstein admitted was a superb and progressive piece of art. Below is a panoramic shot of the installation:
The opening for the show was a lot of fun! We went to the big Spec's in mid town Houston with Regina and Jheri to get snacks and booze the night before, and Jeanne had purchased a snow cone machine at Arnie's Party Supply with which to make snow ball daiquiris for opening night.
April:
April was the month of Grimace. It was here that we discovered the unwholesome truth: the former purple mascot of McDonald's restaurants was a monstrous serial killer!
May:
Jeanne and I officially get engaged! Five years after meeting her, I am sure that I have found the perfect companion with whom I want to share the rest of my life!
Here we are at the MFA show standing in front of one of Jeanne's hottest paintings, "Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise". It was then that we knew the inevitable changes that 2008 would bring were just around the corner...
June:
We went to Dallas to install "Playing With Fire", Jeanne's new video/installation piece at Central Track.
July:
The month where change became something very real and scary. Early on, there was serious talk about moving back to the New Orleans area now that Jeanne had finished graduate school. By the middle of July, Jeanne was not feeling well at all and she did not begin to feel better until the end of the month. Then, on the last day of July, we got the news that her dad, John Cassanova, had fallen down in his house and was suffering from sub-dural hematoma. Suddenly, moving back to New Orleans was not just conjecture anymore- it was a plan.
August:
I spent most of the month alone in Houston because Jeanne was with her family in Metairie and I had to work. It was also necessary for me to pack up Jeanne's studio at U of H and move out all of her stuff. By the end of the month, John Cassanova was in stable enough condition for us to commence with the move. I quit the job I held for three years at Texas Art Supply and immediately began looking for work in The New Orleans area to be met with little success. (As of this writing, I still do not have a full time job.)
Hurricane Gustav loomed in the Gulf as a potential Katrina-type threat, and our move back was complicated by it. But we made it back, and managed to find a nice house for rent in a quiet neighborhood for less than $1000 a month. Fortunately, New Orleans dodged the bullet this time.
September:
Still in the throes of hurricane season, Ike destroyed Galveston and damaged much of Houston.
For once, we were on the safe side of the Mississippi River. Meanwhile, we were settling in to our new home, even though Jeanne was looking after her dad during the day. Thankfully, his recovery was rapid and his spirit was strong.
I did find temporary employment as an art instructor for The LA Artworks Saturday Academy, but this would only last for seven weeks and I would be paid a stipend of $600. Still, it was good because it gave me a chance to get reaquainted with New Orleans every weekend.
October:
I set a goal for doing one drawing for every day in October, and I met that goal. By the end of the month, Mr. Cassanova was walking on his own again and feeling the mental and physical benefits of therapy.
November:
We watched as Obama won the presidency! It was also in November that the Saturday Academy ended and I was truly jobless. There were only a couple of paychecks and my savings to go through. Meanwhile, Jeanne was working two jobs, the first as an adjunct drawing instructor at UNO, the second as an elementary school teacher in Metairie.
December:
Snow fell on New Orleans for the first time in four years!
Above is my most recent attempt at a self portrait along with a donkey cut out that I painted for a live nativity scene. Daisy is also in the picture to make the works look much larger than they really are.
For Christmas 2008, Jeanne gave me a new bike! For the first time since before Katrina, I can ride a bike again! Thank you so much, Jeanne!
January 2009:
My new year's resolution: to stop getting angry about things that I cannot change or control.
Happy New Year!
