Playing with Snow
Today, I release a new body of work into the world. Playing with Snow is a series of small loose watercolor landscapes that capture the solace of winter. The journey of creating them has played a powerful part in inspiring new life into me when I was desperately trying to reconnect with my creative practice.
I have been in the process of learning something quite valuable when it comes to painting. That there is an extreme difference between creativity and productivity. When I started this journey of committing to watercolor in January of 2021, I had no idea that I actually knew nothing about the act of creating. Or maybe I did, and I lost sight of it somewhere along the way…
There is something to be said about not monetizing your bliss. When art becomes a product to sell, suddenly there is a pressure placed upon it that there wasn’t when you were creating in the quiet womb of your own creative world. Now, it’s about other people. Now, suddenly it’s about how it looks or how it’s presented. It becomes an object, dehumanized in the eyes of the one who sells it.
I do not regret turning my art into a business, not at all. I have learned some exceptionally valuable things from this. Resilience, the power of believing in myself, how to run my own website, how to budget (kind of), how to promote myself, how to be brave when I’m terrified, the list goes on… My art has supported me. I have actually found success in this and I’m so proud of this whole thing I have created.
But something happened to my creative practice along the way. I especially notice it occurred over the past couple years I have been expanding my business to art fairs and festivals, exhibits, commissions, and consignment. I think I started to feel the effects of it a year ago, but it all came to a head a few months ago when I found myself saying “I really should paint today.” Over, and over, and over.
It breaks my heart a little bit just typing that. A lot actually. Many tears have been shed over the past few months and the hardest part about this was, I didn’t really understand why I didn’t feel like painting. I had plenty of ideas, sometimes I would sketch them out, or I would get tough with myself and say “you’re doing this right now.” But as I would start or get the first wash down, it was like I would leave my body and start watching myself. I would start cutting down the piece without even being halfway through. It was happening every single time I would sit down to create. Day after day after day. I had these great big ideas but I just could not seem to see them through to the end. I’d give up, cry, come back, do it again.
December was a busy month as always, I kept myself preoccupied with a market and a big, successful holiday sale. The snow began to fall and I found myself falling in love with the landscape around my home. I reverted back to an old way of creating that I always loved when I was in high school, I started taking pictures with my little CampSnap camera.
One morning, I was out on a walk with my camera and Rudder and found myself staring at this lonesome white pine at the southern end of our land. Dusted with snow, it stood there, asking nothing of me, living a whole life in one place and growing as the sun rises and sets around her. In this moment I thought, “art doesn’t need to be complicated, why am I making it so complicated?”
I decided I would paint the way I did when I first started. Small. Without the pressure of getting a big wash down fast and working against the radiator that heats our house but dries my paper out so quickly. Little sketches. Loose, no judgement, no pressure, simple subjects, just see what comes. I kept saying to myself “keep it simple, do less, do less.”
Something magical happened. I stopped thinking about what the art would become. I got lost in painting shadows on snow, and let my favorite Princeton Neptune Long Round No. 12 drift across the paper. My wrist loosened up. Tears fell. My shoulders dropped. I was dancing with it all again.
I kept going and going and going. I couldn’t stop. Oh, if you know the feeling, you know it. That wondrous joy of creative flow when the ideas keep coming and you can’t stop and you never want to.
These little pieces sat on my work bench through the holidays and I thought, how fun would it be to release a series of these tiny little paintings that feel like novelties? Each dressed up in different colored matboard and the frames… the frames can be silver and gold!
I knew very specifically that I wanted them all to stand out on their own, to have their own unique personality. So I contacted my friend Mel who works at Lizzard’s Art Gallery in Duluth and asked if they had any scrap matboard available in the frame shop. She said “we’ve got some mystery bundles, come grab whatever you want!” Then began the second wave of my creative storm. I became totally consumed with mixing and matching all of this matboard. Holding pieces up to the sunlight, this one, no that one… Over and over throughout a whole week. The entire process took my entire being. It was sheer joy.
Sitting back now, looking at a these sweet little paintings all dressed up in silver and gold and complementary colors, I realize, the best part was making it all. Now that it’s done, all I really want to do is create more. I don’t care as much as I thought I would about “how it would all turn out.” I just can’t wait for the next idea to come to life.
Playing with Snow Gallery
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“Ghosts of Winters Past”
“Lone Pine at the Southern End”
“Midwinter Dawn”
“Morning Gold”
“Racing Light”
“Meadow Drifts”
“Curiosity and Wonder”
“The Wood Pile”
“Along the Creek”
“Apricity”