What I learned about being an artist while wearing a hair net

I just ended a year long part time job as a school cafeteria staff person at my children's charter school in Central, MA. I took on the job for two days a week this year as a way to keep a trickle of income as I worked towards my Beasts show this past winter. When prepping for a big show income stalls and new work that can be sold right away just about stops. I must admit that in those first few months the voices in my head were very hard to silent. I became frustrated at the reality that I had to find a second (well, fourth) part time job to support my art career as I watched other artists online turn down work because they had too much art related work coming in. But, I stuck with it and in the end I learned a good deal about myself and even my role as an artist. Here are a few of those things I learned while working along side some of the best woman I have had the privilege of knowing: 

• Remain in the moment: keep your ego out of your actions and tell the voices in your head to change their attitude. Remind yourself what messages you are sending to the universe by your habits of thinking. 
• Presentation and marketing and things made with love and care "sell". We could put out oatmeal with a sign that read "oatmeal" and it would sit there...we put out a hand written sign reading, "creamy brown sugar and cinnamon oatmeal" with a little sketch of a bowl and we couldn't make enough! Same oatmeal, different marketing campaign. 
• Have a daily to-do list and stick to it but be able to be flexible enough to wing it at times. Stuff gets burnt, too much pepper falls in the salad, the lettuce comes in brown....use creativity and a sense of humor to make it work. 
• One can always make a moment matter and make someone's day better. Making connections over food, over a new haircut noticed or giving an IOU for forgotten lunch money are small acts of connection and matter. 

vegetables from the F.W. Parker Charter School gardens used in the salad bar

I am hitting the ground running in the coming weeks... I will be speaking at the Nantucket Whaling Museum  on June 29th about my Beasts series and the process I developed of embroidering on tissue paper. I hope to gain back some focus and energy in the studio. It's been an exhausting year and I have never felt more motivated to "get to gettin' " in the business of making a living being an artist ! Bring it on summer ! 

The importance of Storytelling

Hello! 

Happy Spring ! Here in New England it has been a long winter - even for those of us who love the snowy season. It seems she is finally here and green things are starting to poke through the brown leaves in the garden. 

I've been continuing to work away at my business plan and goals for where I want to take my work in the coming year.

I've been considering storytelling and it's importance in not only my life but in all our lives. It binds us together, helping us to learn from one another's experience and to realize our similarities. When I was young I remember wanting to be an oral storyteller, using puppets to tell stories from all over the world. I collected folk tale books from many different cultures and traditions. When I was in college I went to the University of Wales, Cardiff to translate the written Welsh folktales the university holds in it's collections. My senior exhibition was completely illustrations from stories I had written and some that I had brought back from Wales. When I had children I loved to introduce them to the stories I had loved as a child, some that my mother had shared with me from her childhood library. Some of her books were no longer being published so we read from the copies of the books her mother had read to her. Passing down stories, whether folk, fictional, myth or family history are the stuff of connection between elder to child and between friend to friend, stranger to stranger. Stories can be shared through an oral tradition or through the written text, around a crackling fire or on a bar stool. They give our life stories meaning and a means to make sense of them. 

When it comes to my work, storytelling plays a central role in my intention. It's important to me that when someone views my work that their imagination immediately begins to weave a story about what they see. In the Imagined Still Life series I want the viewer to imagine the person who has set that particular table and what the objects mean to them: did that mushroom pot belong to her grandmother? Was that pottery bird brought back from a back packing trip across Europe? In the Beasts series my hope is that when a viewer looks into the eyes of these animals they are immediately brought into it's soul and it's story. I want the viewer to ask why that honey bee looks so unhappy and cramped or why that Tapir has been so rude as to upset the civilized ritual of a tea party. Story draws us in and connects us to the why of the narrative; whether in a folktale or a portrait. 

"Carole kept a ferris wheel in her back garden to remind her that one could always see things differently" 

In the "story seed project" conveyed in my Gumdrop Hill Series, the title starts the tale spinning with a suggestion for the narrative. This concept was pushed even further when a friend, who teaches third grade at a local elementary school, showed her students the image above and asked them to write stories about what they saw. The results were varied and wonderful! The circles in the sky became snowballs flying in a snowball fight between siblings. The ferris wheel itself became an alien ship from an unknown planet. I was able to visit the class and tell them how delighted and inspired I had been by their stories. I was able to demonstrate the use of tissue paper layers in my work as they created their own gumdrop hill scenes. So fun! 

And finally, when a client commissions a piece for their home, I get clues from them that I can weave into the piece which allows the viewers of the work to play a sort of treasure hunt, finding the pieces of the family's history that are meaningful. I hide important dates, names, quotes, etc... into the composition. The intention with these projects is to set the table (so to speak) for conversations between the family members and the friends they share the piece with as it hangs in their home. During the commission brainstorming conversation itself I hear many stories of the client's children, family and the meaning of their individual shared histories. 

Story is important - what story do you tell with your work, around your camp fire, in your head? 

Some of my favorite artists whose work uses story to bring the viewer into the work: 

• Amanda Blake 
• Marc Chagall - learn more on: artsy.net
• Pamela Zagarenski 
• Brian Andreas 

Values in Business

Writing the business plan for Phygment Studio .... again. I have revisited this practice two or three times in the past five years. I always seem to stop at the same point: somewhere around the theme, "how exactly are you going to do all this Jane?!" 

I am mainly using Jennifer Lee's Right-Brain Business Plan books as well as her video conferences . The link to her very helpful website is here: Right-Brain Business Plan  

One of the things Jennifer has her readers contemplate is our values and how these might be reflected in our business practices. 

a few pages from my Right Brain Business Plan book - showing cards illustrating my business values

One of the things Jennifer has her readers contemplate is our values and how these might be reflected in our business practices. Here are some of my top values I hope to uphold through my business vision: 

•         "Life is precious and time is finite." This comes from the experience of having too many significant losses in my life. It can be a good thing to be grateful for the time we have or it can sometimes feel like a curse. I rarely let myself just relax without having a specific intention behind it. As far as my business goals are related to this mind set: I never want to feel like I am wasting my gifts, my time or my purpose in this life. I also think that this mind set is behind my motivation to make commission projects ones that will have lasting and impactful meaning to generations to come. 
•         Authenticity: The work I make and the teachings I share should come from a place of clear-eyed legitimacy. That might mean that I may have to tell an art director, "that's not in my wheel house" or "I will not copy another artist's style". 
•         Awareness: Create work that encourages a slowing down of the viewer's experience to gain a deeper experience with the work. Develop layers of experience in the work. Through my teaching and guidance I will support a deeper understanding of the individual's creative voice. 

I hope to continue to share some of the insights I gain through this process - keep me honest and poke me if I don't...because that might mean I've hit that road block again (or maybe saw something pretty and wanted to paint it instead of doing this work). 

Five Art Films worth seeing

Sometimes when I am working in the studio I like to watch Netflix tv shows or movies. I recently watched five art-related movies that were insightful and thought provoking. I can recommend all of them and here is why: 

• "Frida"   - this Oscar winning film focuses on Frida Kahlo's relationship with her husband, artist Diago Rivera. What I found most compelling about this film was the relationship she had with her art and her insatiable appetite to create art for herself. I learned so much about this incredibly strong and inspirational woman. It's a gorgeous film to boot.

• "Miss Potter" (I think I actually watched this one on Amazon). This is a great movie to watch if you have a child (particularly a female child) who is interested in making art. This movie plays out the story of Beatrix Potter, the creator of the beloved children's series of books that include "The Tale of Pater Rabbit" and gave us such characters as Squirrel Nutkin, Miss Tittlemouse, etc... Miss Potter is played by Renee Zellweger, who I think does a beautiful job. I got lost in this film as it reminded me of being a young girl dreaming of being an illustrator and children's book writer as I sketched away in the little studio I had made myself in an empty closet in my bedroom. The gorgeous shots of the Lake District and English countryside were an eye-candy bonus. My husband sat through this movie and seemed to enjoy it - this is my pick for a great family movie night flick. 

• "Marina Abromovic: The Artist is Present"  This film, along with the next two, are documentaries and not necessarily appropriate for young viewers. This film follows the Serbian performance artist, Marina Abramovic as she prepares for her retrospective show at the MOMA in 2010. What struck me about this documentary was how very true it is that the story of why and how an artist makes art truly does "sell" the work. I have long struggled to connect with some of the performance and more avant guard modern art I have seen and always wished I could know more about the "why" motivation of an artist. The insight into this artist's vision and personal story made the experience of her art incredibly moving for me. I grew to admire and adore her. The throngs of people who came to sit with her during her very real and powerful personal installation did as well. It is a powerful insight into the modern art world and the hero-worship it can often create around  artists. It's a thought-provoking movie worth watching and paying attention to. 

• "Wasteland" This film follows revered artist Vik Muniz as he documents the work of Brazilian recyclable materials/trash pickers in the trash dumps of Rio De Janeiro's Jardim Gramacho landfill. This is a gem of a film that sucks you in to a world one could never imagine. The beauty and power of Muniz's vision and the relationship he forges with this inspired and resilient community is something to witness. The lives of all who were involved in this project are changed in ways you just cannot predict when he first begins his project in this ... well, wasteland and with the people who have made it their livelihood and community. This film is a powerful one for preteens and teenagers. 

• "Cutie and the Boxer"  This film was nominated in 2014 for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It focuses on the complicated relationship between married artists Ushio and Noriko Shinohara. I found their relationship depressing at times as well as endearing in moments. It is a tension-filled marriage between two artists who happened to be married. Much like Frida Kahlo, Noriko Shinohara creates art that is both autobiographical and painful as it maps her struggle to assert her own personal voice.  Noriko is belittled by her better-known artist husband. The emotional abuse she endures during their long marriage was hard for me to watch at times. It is a poignant portrait of a woman who is struggling to defend an identity she has long ago lost to her over-bearing and dysfunctional husband. I was reminded by watching the "boxing artist", Ushio, that when you create art for the sole purpose of making money it often falls flat. I watched as he frantically attempted to make images that would sell rather than ones that truly spoke to him.  Meanwhile, his wife  was quietly and clandestinely creating work that was truth-filled and intensely personal. The contrast between their two creative muses was palpable. This film is worth watching but be prepared to feel a little deflated and frustrated. 

Some final thoughts about these films as a group: 

      I continue to reflect on the woman in these films as a female artist, wife and mother. All of these films gave me a view of woman that helped me better understand myself. I feel inspired by all the woman (both artists and the trash pickers in Wasteland) featured in these films and would welcome discussion about what others felt about them. Please share your thoughts with me and my audience here on the blog!

Be well and enjoy! 

Something new...

I have adopted a few new practices that I wanted to share with you....

the new daily journaling technique 

• As I mentioned in the last blog post, I am enrolled in the 2015 Year of the Spark with Carla Sonheim and Lynn Whipple. One of the techniques that Carla has shared is her practice of daily note taking and or journaling. I have adapted it a bit to fit my needs on a given day. The technique is to divide the daily page into small sections. It's less overwhelming then a big blank page and I can adapt the sections to meet my needs on a given day. 
• I have started several different practices to help me move my work in a natural and authentic way. I do this periodically to confuse those creative muscles. I wrote some random themes or imagery impressions on small pieces of paper and folded them up and mixed them together in a small container (photo below). I then might pick two or three of these themes and see what imagery ideas come to mind. For example; what might an Indian-themed circus quilt illustration look like? I also pick a few of the 'object' cards to see if it might work in a composition. For example, I might pull a "skeleton key" card and try to see if that shape might work in the piece. Just to shake things up. 

• I've been brainstorming ways to rethink my typical go-to composition comfort zone. To do this, sometimes I just browse on Pinterest to look at other artist's work. To see how they solve a problem of telling a story or highlighting shape or movement. I look at how they use the edge of the piece. Do they always follow the 'rules' of Classical balance? If not, why does it work anyway? This past week I was brought back to a composition concept that I have long been drawn to: the map or aerial view.

Two artists came to mind when I began my research and brainstorming about this perspective: 

First, is Barbara Neulinger, Barbara was a fellow Skidmore College art student with me. She was a few years older than me and I always admired her work. I remember Barbara doing a series of works all done from the perspective of a bird (it seemed) looking down on urban roof tops. I loved the abstraction of her perspective - so far from the way I was thinking about composition at the time. 

Second, is an Australian artist named Marina Strocchi  that brings to my mind garden maps. She uses flattened perspective that is rich with pattern and folk imagery. Her palette is limited, highlighting the simplicity of shape and repetition. 

I have always been fascinated by maps, particularly illustrated maps. Perhaps this is the influence of my father's long career in civil engineering. I learned how to read a map almost before I could read. I have been collecting images of maps and aerial perspectives on a Pinterest board for a while now, not knowing if and when the influence of these images would pop up. 

a page from my sketchbook...brainstorming flattened perspective/map-like composition 

How do you shake up your way of working...in the studio, kitchen, garden, computer? 

I have a subscribe button!

It's been on my "to do" list for months...and I've done it! Please subscribe to my blog posts by clicking over there on the right on the SUBSCRIBE button and join me in this process of creativity and occasional angst! 

I have signed on to take the 2015 Year of the Spark class with Carla Sonheim and Lynn Whipple. 

My goals for the class are to loosen up and have fun trying new things and meeting new friends. I look forward to seeing how this experience informs my new work this year. 

I am looking forward to the four commissions I have on my schedule in the next few months.

I am also thrilled to announce that I will be speaking at the Nantucket Historical Association's Whaling Museum in June. I worked at the Main Street Gallery on the island back in the mid-late '80's when I was a college student. It was while working at the gallery that I fell in love with an artist's works of formal, realistic oil portraits of farm animals. I have held these portraits in my imagination, knowing that some day I would do large portraits of animals. The Beasts series is a result of this goal and returning to Nantucket to give back to the community that brought me so much joy is something I am so very grateful for. 

I hope to begin writing a book proposal about the various ways I have used tissue paper in my work over the past eight years. 

What are your goals for 2015? 

Advent Doodles

On December 1st I decided, very impulsively, to post an advent doodle a day on Facebook and Instagram. I have enough sketches and little quickly rendered illustrations in my sketch books to do all 24 days, so why not? It has really been fun and I have had a great response to them! 

I will be adding more images to this gallery every so often until Christmas. Follow me on Facebook or Instagram to get them fresh daily!

Reminder: I will be having a meet-up at the Hanover Theatre to view my Beasts show on December 30th @ 10am. If you are local to Worcester, MA - please join us! 

Sold!

The Beasts are moving! 

https://www.facebook.com/ARTSWorcester/photos/a.161538257381967.1073741828.152418468293946/319934204875704/?type=1&fref=nf

I am thrilled to announce that there are now three sold pieces in the Beasts show at the Hanover Theatre ! I am also happy to announce that I will be having an informal meet-up for people who would like to view the show with me on December 30th at 10 am. The address of the theatre is: 2 Southbridge Street in Worcester, MA. The gallery room is not open to the public, you must be accompanied by either myself or someone from ARTSWorcester (508-755-5142). 

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"Antongil Bay Humpback Whale" 36" x 72" diptych Acrylic, gouache, watercolor, ink, vintage papers and hand embroidery on tissue paper. SOLD

Following my compass

“It’s easy to keep track of art by what art is NOT. It’s not following a manual, reading a Dummies book, looking for a map. It tends to be people who are working with a compass instead who have an understanding of true North and are willing to solve a problem in an interesting way. - Seth Godin”

I love the radio program On Being with Krista Tippett  and I was up early this morning to hear this personally auspicious interview. Seth Godin has been dancing around the periphery of my conciosuness as someone I was going to get to reading, listening to, etc... This morning was my day to hear his message and it could not have been at a more important time. I am the student who is ready for this teacher.  

Although I have had the experience of going with my gut, pushing something out into the world or into a relationship, not knowing what the outcome will be and not letting that stop me many times, I still needed to hear his message today. I once had a friend who told me she admired my ability to "push the boat out", to take a chance that I would be rejected or taken advantage of for my vulnerability. I wasn't sure that was a strength. Maybe it's fool-hardy? Maybe it's childish? Or maybe that makes me an artist. Every artist has his/her audience that will meet them half way and gain joy, wisdom and or food for thought from their voice. But we can't find our audience if we stay in our dark, safe corners. We have to put it out there, knowing that some will wrinkle their noses and keep walking. It's the ones that stop and pause long enough to say, "tell me more" that we make our art for. It's connection, even on small scales, that lead to an eventual wider audience and help us find our tribe. 

To everyone who came to my website or is reading  my blog because something about what I am doing resonates with you - thank you! You are my tribe and I am yours. Tell me more. 

Here is the link to this interview between Krista Tippett and Seth Godin: http://onbeing.org/program/seth-godin-on-the-art-of-noticing-and-then-creating/5000 

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"Kerinci Tapir" 30" x 30" Acrylic, gouache, tissue paper, vintage papers, graphite and hand embroidery on tissue paper on wood panel. $1600.00