As a staff member in the Fine and Performing Arts department at the Emilson Y, I always take pride in the programming we offer, whether I am involved in said program or not. Recently I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a Cork and Canvas event offered by our Fine Arts Coordinator, Beth Gilmore, and I was simply blown away.

Having known Beth for a number of years, and even sharing an office since the opening of Laura's Center for the Arts about a year ago, I knew that Beth was both an accomplished artists and a thoughtful, articulate educator. Having seen her working with the campers, students and community members that participate in our classes and events I thought I knew what it would be like to be on the other side. My expectations were far exceeded.

If you are unfamiliar with our Cork and Canvas events, the basic idea is wine and painting.  The instructor walks the class through recreating an original painting step by step. I do not have any painting ability and I certainly didn't leave with a museum worthy work, but let me tell you, my mother wants in hanging in her living room! 

During our first break to allow the paint to dry!

One of the most amazing things was walking around and seeing the way the other people in the class interpreted the same instruction. There was no pressure to be right, and when that pressure was eliminated it made it easy to sit back, enjoy a glass of wine, and have a blast.  Beth's cheesy jokes and effortlessly casual demeanor made it feel like everyone in the room had known each other for years, providing the perfect environment to allow our muses to mingle.

The finished product

It was amazing to be on the other side of a class, especially with someone who I have spent so much time working and growing with.  We even had a chance to snap a great picture.

It MAY be good enough for a museum...What do you think?

Thursday I had the pleasure of hosting the Live Y'ers at Larua's Center for the Arts where I gave a presentation on my personal art making.  As an art educator, I am constantly introducing my students to different contemporary artists and talking about the many different ways in which they work.  It was such a treat to have a chance to talk about the process I've personally tailored to fit my artistic goals.

Each artist creates their own method of working, through time spent in the studio, situating things this way or that, to create their work.  Two goals I have found myself working towards are to create a sense of investigation of a semi-familiar scape and to keep the freshness of the drawn line present throughout the piece.

The tables shown in these photos are an organized version of what my studio looks like.  I surround myself with little printed reference photos which primarily come from my photos taken while visiting Yellowstone National Park, a girlfriend's honeymoon photos from Hawaii, and printed images from National Geographic publications. Then, I stitch them together like a puzzle and create a new landscape.

After giving a short presentation on my work using photos from my website and an actual painting in progress that I brought along with me for the day, the Live Y'ers got to work on this puzzle process.

Some amazing pieces were made where interesting connecting lines were found to create a new land.

We later got out some oil pastels to further connect our imagery.

It was such a great feeling to, for the first time, describe my uniquely crafted art making process and watch as people connect with it so quickly and start making art that seemed so natural to the process. These women really picked up on my two main goals, so keep an eye out for painting updates on my website... you just may find some of these compositions in there!