Jean Fitz’s Weblog

My long awaited prints are now available on-line at my etsy shop: (jeanfitz.etsy.com.) I’m so excited that I can finally share my original paintings in a form that is nearly like the real thing…but at an affordable price. A $500 painting can be experienced for $40 now! They make you want to touch them and feel the textured paint strokes.  I know I sound like a brochure, but, seriously, I am currently amazed at technology. The level of detail is unbelievable. I think these prints give me the same awe and wonder that a recording of good music can do. You see the concert live and in person, but the magic happens in the CD you take home. Sometimes that little gap between the original and the imitation adds some intangible value to something. You know it’s not really there but it makes you activate your imagination even more. May I be so bold as to say that, perhaps, these prints are that visual equivalent?   I am able to make these digital prints at home now, using a fancy inkjet printer and sell them through another technological wonder, the Internet!

I could talk about how great etsy.com is all day. This on-line venue lets independent artisans sell their handmade wares easily to the world! Type in anything, like “yellow dangling earrings” or “turquoise ceramic bowls,” and hundreds of artists from all over pop up with their products. Support the local handmade artists around you. I mean, cheap plastic crap from China is always at your fingertips, too. I believe in your right to choose.

I’d also like to point out that I have made special strides to ensure that one particular painting was available in print. I call it my “doomed painting.” (Picture here at left.) It has been sought after by several potential buyers but for some reason or another, it’s never found a real home. This painting’s wandering spirit can now wander much more affordably and widespread. I hope those fond of this quintessential Chicago neighborhood scene learn of this most recent manifestation: The $40 digital print. Please note these pictures uploaded on this blog are very small files and if you tried to enlarge the picture on your screen, you would see big ugly pixels. Buy a print, and see uninterrupted strokes of paint and almost too-real-to-be-true texture. These prints are selling at 13″x19″. Other sizes will be offered soon and any requests for specific dimensions are welcomed!

Your local artist,

Jean “I did not major in Marketing” Fitzgerald

P.S I almost forgot. Save the cost of shipping the print. Come to the Artwalk Ravenswood and pick one up from me in person. (Yes, those graveyard calendars will be there, too!) I will be at the corner of Berteau and Ravenswood on October 4th and 5th from 11am-6pm!!!

Are you counting down the days until you can get a Chicago Graves Calendar in your hands?

The Calendars will be available starting October 4th at the  Artwalk Ravenswood. The good folks who organize this artwalk have graced me with some wall space at the corner of Berteau and Ravenswood. Come find me and your calendar both Saturday, October 4th, and Sunday, October 5th, from 11am-6pm. (I will remind you all about this plenty!) I will be standing by some unrelated paintings of mine trying to explain why I dressed people up in costumes, drove them to a patch of grass in a graveyard and why there’s this polka dot car always in the background…and this will help you keep track of your days throughout the year, too. Makes sense to me! So what is to be expected in this calendar?… let’s see, you might recall sneak peaks of Resurrection Mary (vanishing hitchhiker), Frank and Peter Gusenberg (gangsters), the Clowns (clowns), Oscar Mayer (sausage maker), Enrico Fermi (father of atomic bomb.) Also expect great months of the year that will feature: the famous ghost of Inez Clarke, Ignaz Schwinn (bicycle maker), Mrs. O’Leary (whose cow did NOT start the Great Chicago Fire-the family has officially cleared her name,) Marshall Field (department store maker,) Emma Goldman (troublemaker,) Chester Gould (DIck Tracey cartoonist,) and the 12th mystery grave???? You will have to buy the calendar. If you can not make it to the art walk, you may find me crashing your holiday parties with calendars in my trench coat. If you don’t throw a party, I will have them for sale at my etsy store. So many options.

My first project as a full-time artist: sewing little pockets onto my homemade mousepad. I got tired of everything I taped on the wall crashing down or little pieces of paper getting lost under my table. A while back I sewed a couple layers of corduroy together to make a good surface to cruise my mouse around. It has served me well. I was able to make it better by sewing pockets onto the sides so that they hang off the corner of my desk! Ya-hoo. May the world never know what I was REALLY supposed to be doing while I was sewing little pockets and then blogging about it. (hehe.)The pockets were made in my true renegade intuitive fashion: No measuring, just eyeballing and adjusting as I go along.