Showing Work

As I have mentioned, the transition from making art at school to making art out in the world can be challenging. There were always at least two shows a year through school that I could participate in and I was starting to miss showing my work. I didn’t want to submit to galleries though, until I felt I had a strong portfolio of pieces I had finished on my own, post-graduation. I liked the idea of showing in alternate spaces like coffee shops, but I hadn’t made an effort yet and was concerned that I was just avoiding the risk of rejection. Then a co-worker mentioned that OmBase yoga studio in Hillsdale had an artist wall. I looked it up on their web-site and was suddenly motivated to send in a submission.

It was a relief to know that my motivation was still intact. I used to do a lot of yoga and knew that the community has similar values as I do. Just knowing that made the opportunity feel more worthwhile and approachable than other venues.

I showed my work there last month and it was a delightful experience. The owners of the studio are really supportive, genuine people, and I received some wonderful feedback on my art. I also learned some of the things I need to do to be more prepared next time. In school I learned all about making portfolios, business cards, etc. But there is nothing like actually submitting work and encountering the need for those things to drive the lessons home.

I didn’t sell any of the pieces but that wasn’t so much the point. Ultimately I do want to sell work. I know some artists can get very attached to their work, but the more I like a piece, the more I want to have it out in the world. For my first show, I was happy just to get my work out in public and learn about the process. I'm sure that I will grow a lot when I take the risk to submit work to venues I know less about, but it was nice to learn that sometimes the comfortable path is easy because its the one I belong on.

Under

Page One

 

Here is page one of the story I am painting. It doesn't look anything like the watercolor contemplations that served as inspiration but it does look like the kind of art I first set out to make when I went back to school. I like the way it looks but am wondering if it should be more legible since it is a story.

The rain is heavy this morning, warm and sensuous on my skin, each drop plummeting into mud. The sky is dark, an eerie blue, the deep brown tides swallows a turbulent creek.

Certainly not a traditional story, more like a haiku story which is, of course, an oxymoron.Here's the under painting:

Rembering to Listen

One thing I've noticed about cultivating any kind of personal or spiritual growth is that its really easy to ride to crazy places on any improvements. I get really quiet and content with the as-is and it feels so good I am inspired to get involved in new and exciting things and forget to practice being quiet and content with the as-is. It's not really a problem, but it was good to spend a moment making some ink and watercolor meditations the other day. This one I did on handmade paper that I gessoed in the middle. I feel a little sad when I gesso an entire piece of handmade paper because then you can't see the paper anymore.Painting with watercolor on the gesso was strange but I liked it. The piece feels a little too faux-Japanese-calligraphy to me, but Sumi ink can do that to the best of us.

Left

This is another attempt to make book pages in the style of my watercolor meditations. The words were a few of many interrupting my dot meditation on the right. I weeded them out from the normal nature poems I have going on just to do something different. I've started another as an actually story that will have several pages and I'm pretty excited about it. It's painted with oil on gessoed handmade paper. I love to look of it, especially the edges but I have to be much more aware of the surface as I work than I do when I paint on wood. 

I liked changing the painting from my original vision as I went. Many of my favorite artists work without any idea of what they are going to paint (Squeak Carnwath, Jo Ann Mace, Shannon Richardson) They all have different techniques but what I admire is how they respond to the painting as it develops. Occasionally I get glimpses of what it is like to be  totally responsive with a painting and I love it. I don’t think wanting to work with a set story or poem has to mean having a plan but I haven’t quite figured out how to get the same spontaneity with words involved. Luckily, I can experiment all I want. 

 
A couple of my co workers are really inspired by the story of George Clooney. Apparently he had many rejections before landing any work as an actor. This didn’t phase him at all because he was enjoying the rest of his life so much. My co workers were inspired to revamp the old What would Jesus do? to be What would Clooney do? As useful as that is to me while I work to develop my art I have found it even more useful to ask myself, What would I do if I weren’t uptight? I have not mastered this but it is making my life and art much more enjoyable.

Trees Before Rain

 

I can't seem to decide if I should make the hillside more yellow or not. Either way I like this painting. I decided to do a landscape without any text because I thought the words were distracting me from getting to know trees as much as I'd really like to. I have to admit when I first finished the painting I was a little appalled at how soft and beautiful it is, I thought I had totally lost my edge and would deteriorate into an artist painting things only to match people's couches. Well, that's just ridiculous. I have become a softer person, of course my paintings would follow suit. And there is no possibility that I will ever get a grasp on the latest trend in couch colors, so I think I'm safe.

Sieve

Since I been listening more attentively to my heart I've noticed that I am living my dreams more than I am striving to attain them. Previously I thought I needed to be a more ambitious person, to really assert myself to make my dreams happen out in the world. It was exhausting and a roller coaster of exhilarating successes and depressing failures. When I stay focused in my heart though, I realize that my dream of being an artist isn't about showing in a gallery or seeing my work on coffee cups in Target as much as it is about experiencing the beauty of life deeply and creatively. Well, that's already happening and has been for a long time. I feel really lucky that I have the chance to pull inside and actually enjoy my dream unfolding instead of missing it entirely while I impatiently try to drag it out of myself into the world. I still have material concerns to address about finding or creating the sort of work that will support my art more fully. But those will always exist no matter how much worldly success I encounter. It's simply our nature to always improve and refine our lives. I feel though, that if I stay focused on my heart and its deeper dreams, that I will find a more natural and fulfilling way to address the surface complaints.

This painting is one I started a year ago, I got stuck with it and just couldn't figure out what to do. Usually no matter how lost I am in a painting, there is always one thing I know I need to change. I change it and it frees me up to see the next thing I need to do, so I can avoid getting stymied. But sometimes I get attached to passages in a painting that don't work with the whole thing and then I get stuck. One nice thing about it in this instance is that, after a year, I figured it didn't really matter if I ruined the painting or not so I felt free to be really spontaneous. I really like how it turned out, though it doesn't seem to photograph well. Photographs really flatten space, but since my painting is already flat I find it weird that the space in the painting has been flattened by the photo.