Greetings! I'm starting off 2023 by posting my reflections on my work from 2022. This will be my blog home going forward. Earlier blog posts can be read at http://paintingboldly.blogspot.com/
2022 Reflections...
Looking back over my work from 2022, the theme that comes tomind is “allowing.” As a child and young adult, before art became my full-time professional vocation, my art followed my whim. I delved into detail, changed my style radically from one artwork to the next, explored many mediums, didn’t worry much about what art means. I allowed myself to explore, though alwayswith a seriousness and focus to the process. Even as a professional, my work has traveled through different styles and periods, a journey I strive to embrace as a natural and essentialpart of my artistic evolution. But that freedom to explore becomes easily stunted as an artist becomes recognized for a certain way of creating, and a certain “look” to their art becomes expected by collectors.
In 2022 though, perhaps due to the freedom that came withthe breaking of many social norms during the Coronavirus Pandemic, I allowed myself the wider range of exploration that I embraced in my youth. I pressured myself less to produce by quantity, allowing myself more time exploring details with each piece. I indulged in using copious amounts of silver paint and vine charcoal, and incorporating as many glowing suns as I wished. I took breaks to sew and craft during the times when I grew tired of pushing paint, spending weeks making my daughters clothes and duffel bags in the studio instead of working at my easle. This freedom I allowed myself felt uncomfortable at first – I worried I was growing tired of painting, even to the extent that I would
need to find a different vocation. But eventually, towards the end of the year, the drive of creativity broke free, and the discomfort I felt towards painting became pleasure again.
As I get older, I’m learning more and more that creativityis a cycle, or perhaps a wonky slinky that’s been stretched out of shape in some places. Sometimes the loops are short and easy, like a fun rollercoaster. Sometimes they feel like running a marathon on a maddeningly long track. But when I keep showing up to the studio each day regardless of what I get done, that sweet spot of familiarity and “home” always returns. Then the cycle begins again, as the comfort of home emboldens me to move in an unfamiliar direction yet again.
I am lucky to have a community of collectors, collaborators,and colleagues who are supportive of the ever-changing “look” of my art. I could not stay engaged with this journey without letting my work evolve, as I would not wish to stop evolving as a person. I look back at earlier work with the fondness one looks back at childhood, or earlier times in life. These past phases are unrepeatable and unique but are linked together by the throughline of one’s deeper unchangeable self.
(Pictured above: "Snow Daze" 2022 20"x39")