Insights and Ideas

Last year around this time I participated in  one of Leslie Avon Miller’s online coaching classes, called “Refresh Your Creative Practice” and amazing insights sprang from these sessions about my creative purpose and direction. A week ago I started this new year’s offering, “Finding Your Authentic Voice”,  already aware of how stimulating Leslie’s classes are and how they inspire my growth as an artist. This statement and image are from her blog:

Our first assignment  was to develop a metaphor for our authentic creative self through a partnered visualization with another member of the group. My metaphor is already inspiring  new ideas:

I am the alchemist who transforms life experience into artistic gold.

I am slowly easing back into studio work and productivity again after lots of organizational work and am revisiting some of the work that was in my exhibition last summer and revising its presentation.

Here is a 48” x 48” substrate with composition gold leaf applied and then worked back into to age with various acrylic paints. It’s absolutely lovely as it is and I may choose to create several more of these and complete them as mixed media/paintings.

I created the gold-leafed stretched canvas substrate with the idea of mounting this dimensional piece to it. I think it will work – won’t know until I finish hand tacking this to the canvas surface, which is a  time consuming task that I haven’t yet started. I’m also working on a third piece like this one but on an ochre ground with white and variegated gray letterforms and some hand stitching.

I meet tomorrow with three jurors and the director of Rochester Contemporary Art Center to coordinate the jurying for the Northeast Regional Juried Contemporary Fiber Exhibition, an idea that I initiated and have worked very hard to make happen for Surface Design Association members. With 100 entries and nearly 300 works to consider, the response has been gratifying and exciting.

By next week the organizational side of my life will quiet down for a bit and I’ll be able to work at least three full days in my studio again – looking forward to it.