Exploring Creative Expression

I'm off to corn country shortly to enjoy friend and fellow artist Tamar Assaf's participation in The Fields Project. Tamar is Hebrew for fabulous and the selection of her work for this annual celebration of art and agriculture creates not just beauty but also an excuse for me to road trip (via commercial airline, naturally. I'm a lot closer to hip replacement than I am the hip college scene) to the Land of Lincoln where I shall eat tomatoes and corn from local farmers all day every day while talking about how good the food is, which is the way of my people. We are a people of Grammas offering seconds, of long, lazy discussions of string bean varieties (go, Kentucky Wonder, go!) and of watermelon slices so sweet you'll weep with the glory of the divine mystery that is summer eatin'. Art and agriculture belong together. The smell of grilling burgers and sunblock, the sweet nectar of a peach, sleeve-wiped and juicy fresh from the tree, the moments sublime and cuisine exquisite, will kick off hot fun in the summertime for me. See you there.

Art of Possibility on Art Buyer

Oh Look! An Art of Possibility Studios article scavenger hunt!

(You'll find us on p.34).

It's That You Play the Game

Friendships may or may not translate into good business, but good business invariably grows into lasting friendships.

I'd like to introduce another upstart, friendly, fun, artist-founded company to the growing list of friends of Art of Possibility: Sandy Parker's Phenominoes®. Sandy founded Deep in the ART of Texas to create affordable, wearable art and generate jobs in her community, a place I lovingly described as "not California."

Sandy found my work online, called, and we just love one another's unique, independent goals and are now working at the intersection of those objectives, making both Art of Possibility and Phenominoes better for the shared effort.


We chose 27 different great paintings by George Mendoza and me for our first collection. Each domino pendant has a cleverly designed hook so you can easily transfer it onto other necklaces to add a little play to any ensemble.

Art of Possibility on the ABC News

Art of Possibility was profiled on the 6:00 news, by ABC's SF affiliate Channel 7.

Watch it here.

The Evolution of a Brand

To those who are checking in, Art of Possibility didn't make the Echoing Green finals. In their supreme coolness, however, I can get the judges' unredacted notes (anonymized, naturally) so I can see how my concept was perceived by others more clueful than I.

I'll keep you posted and you know I deeply appreciate your support.

And today I realized I'm not really an art agency in any traditional understanding of agency. My not adapting my language to describe what I do as the business has evolved created significant confusion. So after I finish this I'll begin calling Art of Possibility an art brand. Period. To build that brand it represents artists but that's where the similarities between the work I'm doing and a standard art
agency end.

We represent artists, but we also help them through professional development and creating an infrastructure that facilitates their success. When I started the business it was because I saw market gaps that limited opportunity for artists with disabilities and I adopted a traditional model, then line item by line item, adjusted it to be positioned for optimum success. In those line item transitions I
moved away from the tried-and-true into the vast enormity of our shared potential.

It's into that potential that I drive forward, always exploring, and as I look over my shoulder and see the limits of the old vocabulary I realize I must advance, not cling to the ordinary so my hands are free to grasp the extraordinary as I reach for it.

Meet the Reasons I Love What I Do: Enid Swift

Enid found Art of Possibility through an open call on VSA and I immediately loved her work. Tired of simplistic, childish patterns I found a complexity and maturity in her aesthetic that I believe in completely, mostly because she designs
patterns I want.

Enid's also the only artist with us who has repaired Chinook helicopters.

de Young and de Artest

Ketra will have work featured in Art Slam 2009 at the MH de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 28.

An expansive slide show of works by disabled artists will be shown in the Koret Auditorium as part of the de Young's Access Advisors annual event, celebrating the diversity of creativity that emerges from disability.

The 2009 Art Slam marks the third year of the event and Ketra's participation in it.

The Ending Before the Beginning: Part II

Imagine my surprise when people actually liked my paintings! After a couple years of study I chose to go beyond the hobby level and "be an artist." Very quickly the simple logistics of getting here-to-there with canvases caught up with me. Because of the type of vision loss I have I'm extremely sensitive to light, "photophobia," they call it. Being at an outdoor tented festival all weekend makes me really, really crabby. It's just the brightness of it all. Sadly, no one buys art in the dark.

And if I had all these problems getting around, just think about artists with mobility problems! They must really have a tough time!

After a long-and-only-interesting-to-me bit of field research I founded Art of Possibility LLC, the only art brand exclusively representing physically disabled artists via license in a for-profit model.

I've been reticent about blogging because as a former writer I believe in paying for content; because I only get 24 hours a day instead of the 30 or so I could use; and because bridging the Art of Possibility from just me to a fully developed agency representing other artists means I have, as a business objective, a desire to make it less "the Ketra Show" and more about us, about an idea: inclusion. Compassion. Proof that caring is cool. Evidence that good deeds are good business.

The Ending Before the Beginning

I have successfully avoided this for the last eight years. Some stories beg to be told but for my own the storyteller rebelled. As a writer and editor I could identify "story": I knew it when I lived it, but I didn't want to tell it. I walked away from wordsmithery. As we scrapped up the dot com carnage in 2000 my world faded in a white-glow blur of blindness.

I can still see a little. 90% of all blind people can see something, just not enough to get by without a lot of workarounds. My vision deteriorated over my late 30s. At 40 I was white-cane-swingin' blind.

I picked up a paint brush. My life changed.