mcauleyhouseartists: Time for a couple of BIG Shout-Outs

Monday, February 6, 2012

Time for a couple of BIG Shout-Outs

Debbie

As time draws near to our 6th annual art exhibit I want to express my gratitude to Debbie Amylon for all the work she has done with the art group for the past three years. Debbie comes every Tuesday morning to McAuley House to work in the kitchen before coming to the art group to volunteer her time. Debbie is an artist, teacher, and advocate for the arts. Our artists love having her in the group and she comes prepared to share her talents every single week !
She has recently taught one of our artists how to make exquisite collages, and another very shy artist how to paint.
With much love and appreciation - KK

Don

Next big Shout-Out goes to Don O'Sullivan, my husband and longtime McAuley House supporter. Don works diligently every year at this time helping me get ready for the art show. He's great at framing, making coffee, and picking up art from the artists at various locations. He's always ready for an adventure which is a good thing if you're going to stay married to me. But the best part of it all- he really cares for the artists. He makes dinner for them at our house and gives them rides to all kinds of places...
Don-Thanks for all you do and your willingness to live with an open heart.

We're all looking forward to another great show. Thank you to McAuley House for keeping the faith in the art program in spite of all the messes we make. Congratulations to all of the artists !
Artists- we've had 2,285 views to the blog from around the world in the past 30 days- pretty amazing.

About the Art Program

5 Ways to Grow as an Artist

So how would a Cassatt or a Henri or Picasso approach painting differently than we do today? How might this heartfelt fear of others controlling our painting process impact our self-understanding as artists? Here are five possible answers:

1. Making a successful picture is not the goal. Think of periods, such as childhood, when we grew, our self-understanding changed and we became more of who we are. There was an endless stream of events where we expressed ourselves and slowly began to discover the things that pleased us. As with the sense of freedom characterized above, the entire payoff was growth. The events of life when we grow are the things that happen along the way. Making art should be exactly the same. Paintings are just the series of events or steps we take. Let them go. Keep moving. Or as Henri implored, “Keep living.”

2. The painting process is always a beginning. As soon as the freshness evaporates (we are bored or lost or acquire interest in something else), stop. Do not think in terms of finishing. Picasso lectures eloquently on this. Finish is the death of our work because it means we are painting an expectation or “to be like” and that puts the brakes on painting to see and feel more deeply. Every beginning is a new prompt, a new point of departure. Begin everything. Finish nothing.

3. Ignore non-artist authorities. Juries, the grantors, the gallery, the direction from above are just so many fingers in our pie. All external measures are dangerous because they not only push us to performing, as opposed to creating, but their sense of worth takes over our own. This is precisely what Parisian artists fought against.

4. Get into a prolonged creative process. Have dozens of paintings in your studio that have been abandoned for one reason or another, left in various stages, unfinished but always complete as expressions of who you were at that moment. Work on several paintings simultaneously. You are not making shoes.

5. Furnish the world with your beauty, let the world see, touch and feel who you are. Scary I know. It is so much easier to hide within safe fortresses, the sources of praise and dignity that we can count on by pleasing our audience. This is the dreaded condition called style. We cannot be free to be who we are if we are not always risking being who we are in front of others.