A while back I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that interviewed Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. I had just had some of her ice cream at her store in Nashville, so it seemed rather serendipitous that I was now reading an interview with her. What I loved most about what she had to say was how she approaches food with simplicity, and lets the flavors shine. She doesn't try to do anything crazy, she just amplifies what is already there. Her investment in simplicity is so attractive, and something I need to apply to my life and my art practice.

Another great article I keep coming back to is Maxie McCoy's guest post on Carly the Prepster on the topic of consistency as the key to growth. Even when I don’t want to, or I’d rather just stay in bed and lounge all morning, I MUST get up, go to my studio, and do the work. Otherwise nothing will get done. Even taking 30 minutes in between appointments or errands to stop in my studio and do something is better than nothing. Progress doesn’t happen overnight, and neither does success. Small steps culminate in a long journey - I can’t wish things into action, or rely on social media to do all of the work. I have to make work, because without it, there’s nothing to share or post about!

There were many lessons I learned from a certain challenging assignment while I was in school. I learned to loosen up, to not put so much pressure on my work, and to experiment with color. My love of studying color stems from this project. What you might not know about my work is that I often paint the first layer of my paintings with garishly bright colors. I’m talking hot pinks, neon oranges, the most awful yellows, and cartoon blues. But then I layer softer colors on top of that. And then I keep layering. The result is a painting that appears soft, but has an inner glow from those first layers. It is through this process that I am able to feel what I am painting, and how people who see my work derive their emotional responses.

It’s been a while since I wrote about my work, about my life, about my thoughts. It’s been a while, probably too long. When I had to talk about my work and write about my work in school, these words came easier, and it seemed like I had more to say. It’s funny how that works; the more you talk, the more you have to say.

Maybe I'm just figuring it out? Maybe the past couple of years out of school have been a transitional time, a time where I get to keep making, not really knowing what direction it’s headed, but knowing that I can’t stop or else I won’t be able to start again. It’s the necessity of creating, rather than the need for the finished product. I can’t lose that side of my work! I have been so focused on selling and the post-production aspect of my practice, that it is easy to lose sight of the making itself.

One of my former professor would give us the same challenge with each new semester: make something you have never done before and never seen before. Every time she introduced the assignment, it was usually met with protest and anger. How is that even possible? How are we supposed to do that? But I’m a landscape/portrait/abstract painter! I can’t do something else but that, right?