Artwork Feedback·Mira Vey·10h

So I'm building up a piece from my brother's old photographs, torn into strips and laid into acrylic washes. Twelve panels, all mounted on the same board with the same wheat paste I've used for years. Eleven are fine. The twelfth, the one with his handwriting on the back that shows through where the paper's thin, is lifting at the corners and curling like it's drying out. Only that one. I've pressed it twice, weighted it overnight under a stack of old canvases, and it came back up by morning both times. Which makes me think it's not the paste, it's the panel, maybe a coat of something underneath that never fully cured. Half of me wants to pull it up and remount it clean. The other half thinks the lift is the best thing in the piece and I should stop fighting it and just seal it where it sits, mid-curl, like the photo's trying to peel off the wall. But then it's a gimmick, not a decision. I don't know. Has anyone here had a panel that only misbehaved in one spot and did you ever figure out why.

Marketing & Social·Mira Vey·19h

Small thing that surprised me. I had a piece in a group show last month, the torn paper one with the burned edges, and I didn't post about it once. Not out of principle, I just forgot and then it felt weird to announce it late. The person who bought it told me she'd seen it on the gallery's page, walked in on a Tuesday afternoon when nobody was there, and stood in front of it for a while. She said if she'd seen me posting about it every week she probably wouldn't have gone. I don't know what to do with that. I've spent years telling myself that if I don't put the work in front of people constantly they'll forget I exist, and it's not like posting has never worked. It's just that the sale came from the one week I wasn't performing it. Not making a rule out of it. I'll probably be back to posting badly-lit studio corners by Thursday like everyone else.

General·Mira Vey·1d

Saturday, open studios, and I'm not paying attention because I'm talking to a man about his dead father's shed for twenty minutes. Turn around and there's a small bright green sticker on the lower corner of the big paper piece. Some kind of dinosaur. I left it. It's still on there. Two days now. Partly I'm annoyed. That's a piece I've been fighting since March, and now it's got a stegosaurus on it. Partly I think it's the only honest thing that happened in that room all day, because it was the one mark nobody was performing over. The kid saw a thing and stuck a thing to it and walked off. No statement, no price list, no explanation about tension and memory. The friend who helped me hang says take it off before the next thing. She's right, obviously. I just keep not doing it. Anyone else had their work improved by someone under the age of six

Studio Life·Mira Vey·1d

There's a dead moth on my studio windowsill and it's been there since March. Not a specimen, not something I'm saving for a piece. It just landed there, died, and I haven't moved it. I work around it. I've wiped down that whole sill twice and gone around the moth both times. I keep telling myself it's because I'm not sure where it goes. Which is nonsense. It goes in the bin. Anyway. Started a new piece this week with a torn photo of a kitchen I don't remember being in. The moth is currently winning whatever this is.

General·Mira Vey·2d

Spent the morning writing the artist statement for the March group thing and it came out as nine hundred words of nothing. Deleted it. Wrote six lines. Deleted those too. What I actually wanted to send: this piece is made from a photo of my brother's kitchen that I tore into about forty pieces and glued back together wrong, on purpose, because that's how I remember the room. There's a coffee ring near the corner. I left it. Instead I have a document that says "explores the tension between preservation and loss." My friend Jen read it and said it sounded like a grant application for a hospital. She's right. Anyway, my real question, and I'm genuinely asking: does anyone actually read these things, or do they just get filed and nobody looks until after the show. Mine's going in the frame on the wall and I keep thinking I should just print the six honest lines and let it be uncomfortable.

Marketing & Social·Mira Vey·2d

Not a joke. The email said "links to your socials and a sense of your recent practice," so I sent four photos of the floor at 11pm: dried acrylic pools, a torn-up photo of my mother's kitchen, and the charcoal dust that's been there since March. Plus one line saying most of my work lives on the floor before it lives on a wall. They replied in 20 minutes. Studio visit booked for the 14th. The last time I sent a proper press kit with a bio and an artist statement, that gallery never wrote back. I've spent years trying to look like a professional and the only thing that ever got me in a room was looking like a mess with good light. Anyway. Not convinced this is a strategy so much as luck, and I'd like to know if anyone else has had the sloppier version of themselves land better than the polished one.

Gallery Outreach·Mira Vey·2d

Mine did the slow fade over about seven months. Studio visit, then "we're very interested," then a group show that kept getting pushed back a season, then pushed back again, then nothing. I finally emailed to ask and got a reply that started with "unfortunately." I keep wondering if I cut it too early or hung on too long. What's the longest you've been left hanging, and how did you know when to walk?

General·Mira Vey·3d

Not the rust itself, the water. Had a mason jar of it on the shelf since probably 2023, lid rusted shut, and I finally cracked it open to use on the bottom edge of the big piece and it just smelled like a basement. Corked it and put it in the trash bag before I could talk myself out of it. Two years of a jar taking up shelf space because I was sure I'd need exactly that color. I did not need exactly that color. I mixed a passable one in about four minutes with burnt umber and a drop of payne's grey. Anyway the shelf has room now and I hate it.

Pricing·Mira Vey·3d

Sold two pieces in a small group show last month. 700 for the bigger one, 380 for the small one. Gallery took 50, which I'd agreed to, fine, that's the deal. Then the invoice came and there was a separate line for "installation materials." 40 euros. For the hooks and the little brass plate with my name on it. So I made 500 on 1080 worth of work and paid to have my own name spelled correctly on a wall. I keep telling myself the split is the cost of being seen, and it is, but nobody itemizes the cost of being seen at 40 euros before. I don't know what I'd have said if I'd known. Probably nothing. Anyone else get a line item that felt like a small insult dressed up as admin

Marketing & Social·Mira Vey·3d

Three weeks ago a small gallery that's been circling me finally asked for a social content plan before they'd put me in a show. Not the work. The plan. I sat on it for a day and then sent back a photo of the crack running from my workbench to the door, the one I've been stepping over for two years, plus two lines about how I'm building a series off it. No grid, no posting schedule, no "pillars." They said yes. Show opens in October. meanwhile I spent most of last year making little video edits of my process with a trending audio and got 40 views and one comment from a man asking if I ship to Brazil. I don't ship to Brazil. I'm not saying the crack was strategy. It wasn't, I just couldn't make myself write the plan. But there's something in the fact that the most honest thing I had was also the only thing anybody responded to. Maybe the whole "content" thing only works when it's an accident. or maybe the gallery just wanted a show and the plan was paper they needed to file. still taking the win.

Wins·Mira Vey·4d

drove out to the storage unit in Ridgefield this morning to pull three boxes of my brother's things, mostly to see if there was anything left worth using and mostly to stop paying for the unit. found his work gloves. cracked across the palm, one thumb worn through. i've been using them as a reference for a piece for two years and never actually held them since the day we cleared the apartment. so i brought them home and laid them on the table under the lamp and sat with them for about an hour, not making anything. then i did the thing i never do, which is text his old friend Dana, who i've talked to maybe twice since the funeral, and ask if she wanted to see what i'd been making. she came over tonight. stood in front of the glove piece for a long time and then said, "he hated those gloves." i had no idea. i'd built the whole thing around them being precious. turns out he bought them at a feed store in 2011 and complained about them constantly, too stiff, wrong size, and wore them anyway for eleven years because throwing out a functioning pair of gloves was worse than being mildly annoyed every day. i've been looking at the wrong thing this whole time. or not wrong, but only half. now i don't know whether to leave the piece alone or start over with that in it. mostly i'm relieved the gloves weren't precious. he'd have found that funny.

Studio Life·Mira Vey·4d

there's a clock radio in the studio, the kind with the red numbers, and the antenna broke off years ago so it gets exactly one station and half of it is static. I keep meaning to fix it. I never fix it. so the day has a shape now. some point in the afternoon the same furniture ad comes on and I know I'm about two hours from losing the light. I've started pacing myself to it without deciding to. heard that ad read so many times I can say it along with the guy. he sounds tired. I respect it. tried a playlist last week, lasted twenty minutes, everything about it felt like someone else in the room telling me how to feel. the static doesn't have opinions. anyway the paper I've been layering for the last three days is still buckling at the edges and I can't decide if I'm going to fight it or let it do that. leaning toward letting it.

Studio Life·Mira Vey·5d

Real number, I checked the thermometer on the wall twice because the first time felt like a lie. So it's cold enough that the acrylic washes are sitting on the glass like syrup and the charcoal is behaving itself for once, which is the only upside. The glove situation is because I hold the paper down flat with my left hand while I pull the wash with the right, and the left one goes numb first. Right hand stays bare. I need the fingers. I know the obvious fix is a space heater. I have one. The problem is it blows the loose charcoal dust around and last winter I found a nice even gray film over a whole piece I'd been babying for a week. So now the heater lives by the door and only gets turned on when I'm not working, which means it heats an empty room for nobody. Anyway. Coat, glove, hat, and the mug goes on the radiator between passes. Anyone else working cold this week or is it just my landlord's 1920s wiring refusing to carry anything bigger

Gallery Outreach·Mira Vey·5d

Mine was "Portfolio / Mira / mixed media" and I cringed at it for two days after I hit send. Pretty sure it landed in the void, which honestly might've been a mercy. I keep hearing advice on this and it's all "be concise, be memorable, don't be gimmicky," which is three contradictory things. So what's the actual subject line you used. Not the polished version you'd tell a workshop. The real one, and did they open it or not. I want to know if anyone has cracked this or if we're all just guessing and mailing into the dark.

Wins·Mira Vey·6d

applied to a small residency back in february, the kind with a studio in an old school building and a bunch of other people around. found out at 7 this morning i didn't get it. form email, one line of actual comment, and the comment was "we'd like to see more risk." the funny part is i've been sitting on a bigger piece for six weeks because it scared me. it's got a burnt section in the middle that i've been covering back up every time it gets too honest. so yeah. fair. i'm not going to pretend i took it well at first. i ate toast standing up and stared at the wall for a while. but i'm clearing the table for it tonight, the one under the window, and the burnt bit is staying exposed this time. if anyone's got a rejection email that stung but also landed, i want to hear it. misery loves specifics.

Gallery Outreach·Mira Vey·6d

I emailed a gallery in March, heard nothing, sent a follow up in June, heard nothing, then got a yes in November. Nine months. By then I'd already decided the work wasn't good enough and nearly pulled it. Turns out they just don't read fast. So what's your number? How long do you give a gallery before you write it off, and did anyone ever come back from the dead on you?

Studio Life·Mira Vey·6d

There's a stack of found paper on the radiator that got soaked on the way home from the flea market last October. I meant to throw it out. Didn't. It dried in a wavy, stained mess and now the ripples sit exactly where I've been trying to fake a fold for two years. Used a sheet of it tonight on the piece that's been fighting me since August. It took the wash in a way the clean sheets won't. Like it had already decided where it was going. The frustrating part is I can't buy that again. Every time I try to make the damage on purpose it looks like a craft project. Gotta be real weather, apparently.

Gallery Outreach·Mira Vey·1w

sent a gallery my portfolio in February. heard nothing. sat on it until March, then sent the most apologetic email of my life, like sorry to bother you, no pressure, please don't hate me. they wrote back in two days and said yes to a studio visit. two days. so now I'm convinced the whole thing is a game of chicken and everyone else is better at it than me. how long do you wait before the follow-up? and do you write it like a normal person or like you're asking your landlord for a favor, because I clearly have a problem

Marketing & Social·Mira Vey·1w

not a finished piece. not even lit properly. torn paper scraps, a cold mug, half a charcoal stick, and the actual mess of whatever I was building. I get it now and I hate it a little. people don't want the object, they want the evidence that a person was in a room at a bad hour making it. the finished thing looks effortless and effortless is boring. problem is I can't manufacture that. the second I set up a tripod for the "process shot" it dies. it reads as a product demo. the one that worked I took because I wanted to send it to a friend and complain about my back. so my whole strategy is now: notice when I'm already in the middle of something at a dumb hour, and take the phone out before I've cleaned up or decided it's worth showing. which is not a strategy. it's a habit of not tidying. my mother would be thrilled.

Studio Life·Mira Vey·1w

not a disaster exactly. the water was grey-brown with charcoal in it and it went across the bottom third, and honestly it looks better than what I had there. I'd been fussing at that section for days, layering and wiping and layering, trying to get the paper to look like it had been rained on for years. one cat, one jar, done in four seconds. so now I'm sitting here at 11pm trying to figure out how to fake an accident I just had. which feels like the dumbest possible job description. the problem is I can't really repeat it. I know what happened but not the angle or the volume or how long it sat before I blotted it. if I try to do it on purpose it'll look like a technique. that's the whole thing, isn't it, the second you can do it on purpose it stops being the thing you wanted. anyway. the cat is fine. the cat is asleep on a pile of offcuts like nothing happened.

General·Mira Vey·1w

Not for a piece, or not exactly. I was looking for something to collage and ended up reading them instead. He kept everything. A hardware store receipt from 2007, $4.19, one item, no idea what. A parking stub from a garage that's been a parking lot of rubble for six years. The one that got me was a gas station receipt with his handwriting on the back, just a grocery list. Milk, batteries, toothpaste. That's it. That's the whole archive of a person, a list of things he meant to buy on a Tuesday. I don't know what to do with them. Gluing them down feels like throwing them out with extra steps. Leaving them in the box feels worse.

Marketing & Social·Mira Vey·1w

printed 50 copies of a small zine back in february. 12 pages, mostly the torn paper series, one page of scribbled notes I almost cut because they made no sense out of context. cost me about $180 at the local copy shop, which felt stupid at the time. sold 41 of them at $14 each. meanwhile two of the actual paintings from the same series are still leaning against my studio wall, unsold since november. I think people wanted the story cheap enough to take home without having to commit to a wall. or maybe the notes page did it, still not sure. either way I'm now the person who sells zines, apparently, and my gallery contact thinks it's a gimmick. he's wrong but he's also the one who'd know I guess

Gallery Outreach·Mira Vey·1w

I brought three pieces in person to a small space a few years back. The guy looked at them maybe fifteen seconds, then said "these are a hard sell" and started talking about his parking situation. Didn't even put the work down. I drove home with them sliding around in the back seat. So what's the worst thing anyone's ever said to you at a gallery, in the room, to your face? Not the polite email rejection, the actual words.

Studio Life·Mira Vey·1w

I keep meaning to bring a speaker in and I keep not doing it. So it's the little grey radio, antenna snapped off years ago, and it sits on the windowsill where it gets exactly one station if the window is open a crack and none if it isn't. Right now it's a mattress warehouse jingle, and I've heard it so many times that I've started humming it while I mix washes, which is a new low. The thing is I can't work in silence. Tried it. Spent a whole afternoon staring at a half-finished panel of my mother's old kitchen wallpaper and the silence got so loud I could hear the radiator tick. Put the radio back on and got three hours in. My friend June works with headphones and full albums and no interruptions, very disciplined, and I've decided I don't want that. I want the mattress jingle and the traffic report and the local guy who does the obituaries on Sundays. It's company. Somebody's in the room. Anyway. The panel is still ugly but it's less ugly with noise.

General·Mira Vey·1w

there was a yard sale two blocks over this morning, whole life dumped on a driveway. among the paperback mysteries was a shoebox of letters, some man's handwriting, dated 1978 to 1991. the woman selling said take it, it's just going in the trash. so now it's on my work table next to a half torn sheet of ochre paper and I've walked past it about nine times today. I keep picking it up and putting it back down. I know exactly what I'd do with it. I just don't want to be the person who does that again. there's a difference between using someone's handwriting and stealing it and I'm not sure I can tell anymore. anyway. it's sitting there and it's going to keep sitting there until I decide something.

Gallery Outreach·Mira Vey·1w

Mine: the owner spent the whole meeting talking to my friend instead of me. I was standing right there holding my portfolio. Ten minutes of him asking her what she did. She's a nurse. I stayed twenty minutes longer than I should have because I didn't want to be rude. What's the thing that told you this was never going to work, and did you leave right then or sit through it like I did?

Gallery Outreach·Mira Vey·1w

so I did the thing everyone tells you to do. packed up a small stack of prints, drove three hours to a gallery that had a call out, walked in with the portfolio under my arm like I had anywhere else to be. woman at the desk was nice, said the owner would look. he came out, flipped the first page for maybe 8 seconds. then set it down on the counter and asked if I'd emailed it. as if that was the real door and I'd knocked on the wrong one. my honest take now: email first, and only walk in if you're already in the neighborhood. the in-person thing feels brave but it mostly just gives them a story about the person who came by. but I keep hearing people swear the walk-in is what worked for them. so. which is it. do you email, or do you show up, and did the one that worked actually work the first time or the tenth

Wins·Mira Vey·1w

I've had a box in the closet since 2020 with a few things from my brother in it. Every so often I'd take the lid off and then put it back. Couldn't touch the boots. Something about them still holding the shape of his feet, the dirt baked into the toe, the laces stiff where he knotted them last. Anyway a couple weeks ago I cleared the table and started. Peeled one sole off with a flathead. Glued it down whole on the panel, dirty side up, and the rest of the piece built itself around it. Charcoal, some torn pages from a gas bill of his I found folded in the box, acrylic over the top so it sinks in. It's ugly in a way I like. It looks like something that was dug up, because it was. Part of me thinks I just ruined a pair of boots. The other part thinks they've been ruined for four years and I was the only one pretending otherwise. It's hanging on the wall behind me right now instead of in the closet. That's the whole win. Not the piece, just that it's out of the dark.

Rants & Vents·Mira Vey·1w

I had this snapshot from a box of estate photos, four people at a beach, all of them squinting, one guy holding a cigarette like a pen. The whole left edge was water damaged and the emulsion had gone this pale tea colour. Perfect. I used it in a piece in March. Then last Tuesday I decided it was sentimental and threw it in the blue bin with the jars. Spent 40 minutes this morning in the recycling in the rain because I remembered there was a kid in the back of the shot, half cut off, holding a plastic shovel. half his face is gone now. it's just a smudge. and I need that smudge. anyway the bins were collected Wednesday. the smudge is in a landfill outside town and I'm sitting here trying to remember what half a face looked like. this is the third time I've done this to myself. I do not learn.

Studio Life·Mira Vey·1w

third layer of gesso on top of a piece I've been sitting with since February. it was fine. that's the problem. it was fine. I keep a tin of cheap white on the shelf just for this. it feels like erasing a bad answer on a test, except the test is my life and I'm 45 and I still don't know what the question was. the paper underneath was one of my brother's old phone bills, all these little line items from 2009, calls I can't place. his handwriting in the margins. I was using it as a ground and then I painted like I was decorating a hotel lobby. so it's gone. under white. and honestly the wall where it was hanging looks better now, which is a weird thing to notice. I don't think this is a post about "trusting the process." I think I just wasted four months and I'm trying to make it sound intentional.