Take a little time to fill the well

I've taken a few Artist Dates (see Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way) lately that I wanted to share with my friends... 

My husband and I encouraged out two teenage boys on a family field trip to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem this past weekend to see Theo Jansen's Strandbeests. I've been intrigued by these wind powered machines for some time now and I suspected that my boys would also be fascinated by them. 

Parker and Simon 

Maybe it was a menapausal blip but when I entered the exhibit I felt an emotional lump in my throat...like I was in the presence of genius. Or, maybe that these beasts were a kin to my own "Beasts" and that the crazy making of deciding to embroider on tissue paper in the wee hours of countless nights was not a solo mission. That there are other creatives out there that do things because they are driven by the engine of having to see an idea through and then release it to the world. Or, maybe I was hungry. Who knows? 

What I can say for sure is that viewing Jansen's "Streandbeests" pushed me to shove my own work further, to make it better, to try even harder. 

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“One reason that people have artist’s block is that they do not respect the law of dormancy in nature. Trees don’t produce fruit all year long, constantly. They have a point where they go dormant. And when you are in a dormant period creatively, if you can arrange your life to do the technical tasks that don’t take creativity, you are essentially preparing for the spring when it will blossom again.”

— Marshall Vandruff

Earlier this week I took a trip  a few hours west to Northampton, MA to get some print work done. Believe it or not, I haven't found a printer closer to me that seems to know how to work with artists to get prints and products just right. I don't mind the drive through the country, especially this time of year, and NoHo is one of my very favorite places on the planet. While the printing was being completed I decide to walk to the art store, buy some supplies and head to the Botanical Gardens at Smith College.  

The hot house was completely empty for the hour I was there sketching ! Pure bliss

A day well spent...the well is full...until next time.

How to know you're an artist

You work hard - not because anyone is watching when you are not showering or sleeping in order to get it done but because it's what you need to do. 

You don't care how long it took you to paint a piece

You fix details that perhaps no one else would have noticed. The Universe is watching and you want It to know you are showing up in the most authentic way possible.

You don't mind if someone who claims to know "the business" says you are "wound too tightly" . You know what it takes to get your work out there and if today is not the day you can wait. 

You don't compromise your ethics, values or spirit to make someone else comfortable. 

You show up everyday even if the Muse is taking her sweet time to show up or your demons are not using their "quiet voices". 

You laugh at people who think you are not being responsible with your life's purpose because actually you know, more than anyone, that being responsible for your life's purpose is exactly what you are doing. And damn! It's fun. 

You cheer on your fellow artists and say a prayer that their work, just as much as your own, will be seen for what it is: a soul and a voice displayed in public not to be lauded but to be respected.

- a favorite quote to live by by Nora Ephron

Beasts II coming out of the barn !

I have had a busy summer! If I listed all the things I have been up to this summer I might run the risk of having my audience fear for my lack of sleep and sanity...so, let me just report on my comings and goings one small bite at a time. 

Today let's start with the emerging Beasts II series. This series will feature Heritage Breeds and Heirloom Seeds. A Heritage Breed is one that was originally brought to this country (United States), usually from Europe or Britain to work on farms in the new land. Those original breeds were largely inbred over and over and manipulated to give more meat with less illness (put simply). The result has been breeds of animals like cows, chickens, goats and horses that no longer resemble their ancestors that came over on the boat. There is an exciting movement to bring back these breeds to populations that can resist extinction. The Heirloom seeds have a similar history and fate and are being grown by professional farmers as well as back yard gardeners in an effort to bring back our ancestor's plants from nearing extinction. 

In this new series I hope to adopt a looser, more joyful and intuitive way of working. I will continue to incorporate hand embroidery on layers of tissue paper as I did in the Beasts series. I hope to push the boundaries of my typical way of working with the embroidery needle as well. The pieces will be smaller and most likely just one panel per piece rather than the multi panel pieces in the Beasts series. I want to adopt a simpler, more straight forward way of working to mimic the spirit of our ancestors. Keeping it simple and straight forward will be my mantra as I work on this series. 

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"Lipizzan" 16" x 16" Acrylic, oil stick, gouache, tissue paper, ink on wood panel. All Rights Reserved

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"Guernsey Goat" 10" x 10" Acrylic, gouache, ink and graphite on wood panel. All Rights Reserved

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"American Cream Draft" 10" x 10" Acrylic, ink, gouache, tissue paper and graphite on wood panel. All Rights Reserved

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"Arapaho Goat" 24" x 24" Acrylic, gouache, ink, graphite, tissue paper and hand embroidery on tissue paper on wood panel

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Detail: "Arapaho Goat" - hand embroidery on wood board 

thank you Nantucket Historical Association !

I want to send a big "thank you!" out to Jacob Horton for being my host with the most for my visit to the Nantucket Whaling Museum! It was so much fun to share my work with the Nantucket Community that helped shape the artist I am today. The talk was not video taped (and I think I'm sorta thankful for that ;-) ). I talked about the Beasts series and the process of embroidering on tissue paper. I brought along the first piece in the Beasts II series (Heritage breeds and Heirloom seeds). My favorite part was the questions from the audience portion where I could meet some of the audience members and let my hair down a bit. Thanks again for everyone who came out and to the museum staff for being so gracious and accommodating. They even put me up for two nights in a beautiful historical home right on Main Street ! 

Talk at the Nantucket Whaling Museum

I will be speaking about the Beasts series at the Nantucket Whaling Museum on June 29th @ 6pm. I will discuss the conservation message behind the series as well as the technique I have developed of embroidering on tissue paper and it's use in this series. I will also be introducing the emerging Beasts II series: Heritage Breed Conservation. 

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!