Season of Change

What a difference it can be in my creative journey from one month to the next! August felt very much like molasses in January, a slow moving energy that felt very sticky and uncomfortable. I deleted the first blog draft because I found it too whiny and very much ” somebody tell me what to do!!!” I didn’t have the words for what I thought of my art practice was becoming then but I have it now: my art, specifically my landscapes, was growing stale, very much a ho-hum kind of art that didn’t impress me but I couldn’t figure out how to change it.

September has always felt the New Years to me, I’m sure because of the school year but it always feels full of hope and new beginnings. This September was no different. I started my online mentoring program on the 4th through Mastrius, based in Alberta; I am the mentee, one of 9 women (totally coincidentally) that gather 2x a month to learn not only from our mentor but also each other! I’m looking forward to growing in this supportive community. We started off my doing greyscale work, of which I am not a huge fan but did complete the 2 pieces that I’d chosen. I applied to be a part of their online art show later this fall and was accepted! I am busy creating a few small pieces that I will share in my next blog.

September saw me enroll in a free, week long Creative Breadcrumbs workshop put in by Nick Wilton at Art 2 life. That ran from the 12th to the 16th and was a week of play and discovery. I was guided to this free course by an podcast I recently discovered, Art Juice, out of the UK and in one episode I heard them ask “why wouldn’t you take something that’s free?” It was a total coincidence that their podcast and this workshop were roughly at the same time! Stranger still when you consider that the episode I was listening to was from 2020!! I took it as a sign, to just do it. I knew his style of painting isn’t mine, he’s abstract and I am not but there’s still lots to learn about me and my art practice. At the end of the week long challenge I felt the creative tap starting to turn back on. One morning the ideas just started to bubble up to the surface and I quickly wrote them down in my art journal. I enrolled in the follow up 21 day creative challenge, Spark. Through a leap of faith and a well timed art sale, I enrolled in the Art 2 Life 21 day creative challenge. I believe the universe was definitely looking after me! This leap of faith is the most money I’ve spent on my furthering my art practice. I didn’t expect the course to change my style but the weekly homework and assignments certainly pushed me trough a shift away from that feeling of becoming stale.

Just before the first workshop started I finished a 3 year old painting that was languishing on my bedroom wall. Some paintings I give up on pretty easily, others like this sunflower I just couldn’t bring myself to gesso over. I knew it had good bones and it just needed time to reveal itself to me. I am so pleased with how it turned out and will be sad to see it go when it sells.

When it was done, I hung it on the wall beside my recent landscape that I consider “stale”. It’s an amazing comparison, front and centre in my studio as a reminder; a reminder how fast my creativity can turn around. Do I know what to do with the landscape to make it pop, no, but maybe I’ll figure it out along the way. I’m saving that aha for my next blog..so stay tuned…