Sun in Libra, Moon in Gemini, Waning Moon
Hello Art Lovers and Creative Juicy Beans!
I am currently taking part in Radiant Faces, a mixed media portrait class hosted by Mixed Media Journaling Artist Effy Wild.
Each week i am working through each of the nine teachers lessons and playing with new styles, materials and techniques - its great! I'm learning new things and it's giving me the me time and play time that i want and need in amongst all the art work - which don't get me wrong i most certainly love too but play is playful!
This Radiant Faces class is the beginning of my 'HeART School' explorations actually!
I studied tertiary art at TAFE and University but i don't really feel like i did. I was there alright but it wasn't what i wanted it to be. Instead of art classes full of inspiration and technical skill based learning my painting lecturing told me Painting was dead! Which for my naive 19 year old self i just didn't understand. They wanted conceptual intelligent art and i wanted to just learn how to paint and play with all the materials and mediums, i didn't want to create a clever conceptual body of work, i just wanted to paint what was in my heart. Sadly instead of running for the hills i stayed for 6 years of tertiary art. When i look back now I wish instead i had participated in 6 years of art classes at a local centre instead, i imagine myself amazing by now! But i can't look back in regret, it was what it was and it is all good learning about the spirit, about creation and about my own personal journey with art making, heart listening and life living.
So while they were all too busy being 'clever', all up in the head that it lost all the heart, I lost my art heart too. In fact it broke apart, i couldn't express myself creatively without massive anxiety and the big ol' inner critic having a huge go at me and my creations - its enough for the sensitive artist to shrivel up and die. But she is an amazingly resilient creature and she came roaring back to life, ignited by the fires of The Artist Way course by Julia Cameron, a book i took myself through in 2010, five years after i had graduated from Uni. I came back to life and reclaimed myself as Artist and so began my journey to Handmade Wonderland and teaching and living a life of art LOVE!
I can look back now at my art education and understand the gift within the experience now. Mostly i met some beautiful friends and it taught me about how i want to teach and share my love of art and creativity with others from a heart centered, allowing, encouraging, beautiful space.
I have realised recently that although my paintings and creations certainly don't fit into the contemporary art whatevers i was still holding them up to this world and pointing out all their flaws, listening to this pesky inner critic crapping on about concept and my lack of it and this and that and so and so and bla bla bla - shut up!
I am putting my foot down now.
It is not for me to worry about the concept and the ideological and the contextual bladiblahbluerrghhh, i am not the art critic nor to i care to ever be one.
My art is just what it is, it is what i long for, what i need to create to authentically express myself and to be in the world, it is my healing and my celebration, my play. It is the way i connect to the divine, the spiritual, the magical. I tap into the well of my life within and this is where i draw my art from. And this is enough. I am enough. My art is enough.
Here is a wonderful quote by Australian Artist Rosalie Gascoigne
I think your art should be your natural product. It should come naturally
out of you and it should be different from the other persons art because you are different from the other person. I don't think anybody ever realises their potential til they have an awareness of themselves, what conditioned them, and what sort of person they are... Your art is in you and you were born with it. You don't want to go round contaminating yourself with other people's thoughts because art is not only about the product on the wall, it's about your personal expansion, your having a continual adventure. You need never dry up, you need never dwindle, because life gives you some sort of adventure, happy or sad, all the time. That is what you have to plug into, the region where you live, and what you really know is in your bone marrow
So i have decided now to gift myself the art education i wish i had had all those years ago and this is the beginning, I am going to follow the path of joy and curiosity in an attempt to learn new skills and techniques and play with new materials and mediums. I'll share the journey as i go.
Here is my radiant faces journey so far, inspired by the wonderful Jane Davenport, the first teacher of the series. I love her work so much :)
Big Art Love to you all,
Brightest Blessings
xxx
Hello Art Lovers and Creative Juicy Beans!
I am currently taking part in Radiant Faces, a mixed media portrait class hosted by Mixed Media Journaling Artist Effy Wild.
Each week i am working through each of the nine teachers lessons and playing with new styles, materials and techniques - its great! I'm learning new things and it's giving me the me time and play time that i want and need in amongst all the art work - which don't get me wrong i most certainly love too but play is playful!
This Radiant Faces class is the beginning of my 'HeART School' explorations actually!
I studied tertiary art at TAFE and University but i don't really feel like i did. I was there alright but it wasn't what i wanted it to be. Instead of art classes full of inspiration and technical skill based learning my painting lecturing told me Painting was dead! Which for my naive 19 year old self i just didn't understand. They wanted conceptual intelligent art and i wanted to just learn how to paint and play with all the materials and mediums, i didn't want to create a clever conceptual body of work, i just wanted to paint what was in my heart. Sadly instead of running for the hills i stayed for 6 years of tertiary art. When i look back now I wish instead i had participated in 6 years of art classes at a local centre instead, i imagine myself amazing by now! But i can't look back in regret, it was what it was and it is all good learning about the spirit, about creation and about my own personal journey with art making, heart listening and life living.
So while they were all too busy being 'clever', all up in the head that it lost all the heart, I lost my art heart too. In fact it broke apart, i couldn't express myself creatively without massive anxiety and the big ol' inner critic having a huge go at me and my creations - its enough for the sensitive artist to shrivel up and die. But she is an amazingly resilient creature and she came roaring back to life, ignited by the fires of The Artist Way course by Julia Cameron, a book i took myself through in 2010, five years after i had graduated from Uni. I came back to life and reclaimed myself as Artist and so began my journey to Handmade Wonderland and teaching and living a life of art LOVE!
I can look back now at my art education and understand the gift within the experience now. Mostly i met some beautiful friends and it taught me about how i want to teach and share my love of art and creativity with others from a heart centered, allowing, encouraging, beautiful space.
I have realised recently that although my paintings and creations certainly don't fit into the contemporary art whatevers i was still holding them up to this world and pointing out all their flaws, listening to this pesky inner critic crapping on about concept and my lack of it and this and that and so and so and bla bla bla - shut up!
I am putting my foot down now.
It is not for me to worry about the concept and the ideological and the contextual bladiblahbluerrghhh, i am not the art critic nor to i care to ever be one.
My art is just what it is, it is what i long for, what i need to create to authentically express myself and to be in the world, it is my healing and my celebration, my play. It is the way i connect to the divine, the spiritual, the magical. I tap into the well of my life within and this is where i draw my art from. And this is enough. I am enough. My art is enough.
Here is a wonderful quote by Australian Artist Rosalie Gascoigne
I think your art should be your natural product. It should come naturally
out of you and it should be different from the other persons art because you are different from the other person. I don't think anybody ever realises their potential til they have an awareness of themselves, what conditioned them, and what sort of person they are... Your art is in you and you were born with it. You don't want to go round contaminating yourself with other people's thoughts because art is not only about the product on the wall, it's about your personal expansion, your having a continual adventure. You need never dry up, you need never dwindle, because life gives you some sort of adventure, happy or sad, all the time. That is what you have to plug into, the region where you live, and what you really know is in your bone marrow
So i have decided now to gift myself the art education i wish i had had all those years ago and this is the beginning, I am going to follow the path of joy and curiosity in an attempt to learn new skills and techniques and play with new materials and mediums. I'll share the journey as i go.
Here is my radiant faces journey so far, inspired by the wonderful Jane Davenport, the first teacher of the series. I love her work so much :)
Big Art Love to you all,
Brightest Blessings
xxx
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