My Birth as an Artist

I never went to art school. Although I've taken lots of classes, I don't have an art degree. But I had two pivotal experiences that propelled me into painting and guided me into the work I've continued doing for the last 30 years.

Through a series of miraculous events, my husband, Ed, and I became English teachers at a Chinese university in 1986-87. We had been married two years and were greener than green, but we were also desperate for a new adventure and distance from our small town. We traveled to Zhengzhou, Henan Province,the People's Republic of China, and were provided with an apartment in a building for Chinese faculty. For the next 14 months, we taught English writing and conversation and traveled extensively throughout the country.

It was a challenging time to be in a central Chinese city. Our apartment didn't get over 40 degrees for three months, and Ed and I each lost 30 pounds over the course of the year, subsisting on rice and cabbage and pancakes through the winter. There were more horses than cars in our city of one million, and I could create traffic accidents by letting my blonde hair blow freely as I walked down the boulevard (a rather heady experience).

 

On my first day of teaching, I skirted around puddles of standing water and past broken windows in the languages building. As I entered my classroom, 30 brilliant graduate students in khaki Mao jackets and caps rose and stood respectfully at attention. My life was never the same again. Over the next year, these students and another class of university faculty opened their hearts to us, told us stories of growing up during the Cultural Revolution, and shared their impossible dreams for the future. Ed's and my apartment was full of guests every night. I felt flooded with the strong impressions, like we were on a different planet.

How could I process all of these exeriences? I had packed pastels and watercolors in my suitcase, and I began illustrating our students' stories and my own gut responses. The word got around that I painted, and soon I was joined in my living room by several classically trained Chinese artists. They taught me that the drive to create transcends borders and that art happens even in unheated rooms with the simplest of materials. When we returned to the USA, I had refined a personal visual language, but, more importantly, I saw art as a vital lifeline for expressing burning, hard-to-resolve emotions.

Returning to the US was a bumpy transition for me. Ed and I moved to Oakland and struggled with new careers, tight funds, and my family of origin in crisis. I hit a major depression almost immediately and found myself in a therapist's office, pulling out a couple of watercolors and explaining, "I don't know how to use words to describe what I'm feeling, but it's a little like this..." For the next three years, I took her one or two paintings a week and we discussed the feelings behind them. Those three years became a kind of MFA program, and in the end I had a body of 300 paintings, the birth of my life as an artist.

I am grateful for that Chinese experience and the deep friendships that happened there and the artistic expression was born in that unheated apartment. And I'm grateful for the therapist who helped me paint my way out of a very dark place.

Partners in Crime

Ed and I met 41 years ago via a U-Haul truck. I was moving to the Sierras to teach first grade, and he kindly offered to help. After six hours in a truck cab, we were intrigued, maybe a little smitten, and after two years of letters and visits, we got married.

Fast-forward 40 years. It's late on a Sunday night after an Open Studio at Hunters Point in San Francisco. Our two Hondas are loaded to the roofs with paintings, lights, tables, and curtains. We are both dead tired as I pull my car up beside Ed's, roll down the window, and ask him, "Would you have offered to drive that U-Haul 40 years ago if you'd known you'd be schlepping art for the next four decades?" His eyes dart shyly to one side and then look back at me as he grins--the same look that grabbed my heart so long ago.

I couldn't have imagined a sweeter partner in crime. He stretches my canvases, photographs my paintings, poses when necessary, and listens to my kvetching. He participates in artist residencies with me and has transported paintings over thousands of miles. He has approached ever challenge with curiosity and a sense of adventure.

Once we loaded up a show into both of our cars and headed over the Bay Bridge. The Honda blew a timing belt mid-span and coasted into San Francisco in a haze of smoke and steam, our aging Volvo following close behind. We limped off the bridge and into a car repair shop, tied the canvases from the first car onto the roof of the Volvo, and sold the Honda to a mechanic for $100.

Ed is a gifted photographer. To see examples of his work, go to www.edaust.blog. Perhaps you'll be smitten, too.

 

Get Out the Art Group

 About six years ago at Laura Van Duren's birthday party, I looked around the room and was swept over with feelings of inferiority towards all the cool artists in their sophisticated clothes, gathered at the pizza table. In a burst of determination, I approached four of them, including the host, and asked them to help me start a Get Out the Art Group, where we could strategize about showing our work. Surprisingly, they all accepted, and we've been meeting every 4-6 weeks ever since, with some gaps due to Covid. One member left, and another has joined, and it's become a delightful and insightful tribe.

This group is not a critique group. We're more focused on overcoming hurdles to getting out work out in the public eye. We gather at each other's studios or at an outside table at the Paradise Park Cafe. Perhaps you have seen us there, laughing and gesturing wildly. Sometimes one of us will set a timer so each member can have a guaranteed 20 minutes to kvetch and strategize and share whatever they want. Through them I learn about museum shows and new galleries, and we compare social media tactics. They are a sounding board for finding new venues and discerning best practices with galleries. We have worked through shipping and pricing questions.

We have listened to each other's artist's statements and crafted elevator pitches--short three minute explanations of our work that we can recite if we get the ear of Someone Important at an opening or studio visit. We have also become loyal attendees of each other's openings, so if the gallery is sparsely attended, there's someone to talk to.

We keep count of the rejections. Whenever I get a Dear John letter from a gallery, I think, "I can't wait to tell GOTA about this!" We're aiming at getting 100 closed doors.

In the past year, I have reached out to four new artists who do amazing work but are just beginning to show it to the world, and GOTA 2 was born. It's a kinder, gentler group, incredibly affirming. In this group more time is spent showing the new work people are making and sharing how to overcome creative blocks.

This brings to mind a question I've been thinking about a lot since I turned 60: is art important for the art's sake, or is art important for the way it draws people together? I'll be sorting that out for the rest of my life. Right now, though, I know that I am very grateful for the companions I have for the journey.

Do you have an art group that has helped you to be creative? Are you interested in starting a Get Out the Art Group? Here are my suggestions: keep it small--no more than 5 or 6 people. Invite artists who are at a similar point professsionally as yourself more or less. Celebrate attempts rather than representation or sales. Perhaps set a timer so everyone has a chance to speak. Be loyal--go to each other's openings and open studios when you can.

If you would like to see the GOTA groups' work, follow them on Instagram: @leahkorican, @danazed, @laura_van_duren, @quitecontrarypress,@gretchendailydrawing, @wheatfield43, and @debraacollins. Their websites are leahkorican.com, danazed.com, lauravanduren.com, mvmarsh.com, BarbaraHaberart.com and Debraacollins.com.

Open Studio How-To's

 

Guidelines for Visiting an Artist's Studio:

• Greet the artist. If you're visiting a large artist building and decide not to enter a studio, but the artist catches your eye, wave.
• Be polite like your mother taught you. Don't make a bee-line for the food. Don't ask how much the studio rent is. Don't talk about your cat. Ask permission before you photograph.
  
• Don't assume that the prices are negotiable. Don't come at the end of the weekend and ask for a discount. Art is a luxury, and if you can't afford it, don't go fishing for bargains. Don't ask for discounts unless the artist is driving a nicer car than you are. 
• If you've seen the artist's work at a gallery, tell them, and don't try to get a better deal by going around a gallerist. The artist will have to pay the gallery their commission whether you bought it at the gallery or their studio.
• Share what the work makes you feel, what pieces communicate to you and why. Tell stories that they bring to mind, even if they are heavy.
• Thank the artist when you're leaving.
  

g

Guidelines for Hosting an Artist's Open Studio:

• Send out postcard invitations, emails, Facebook notifications, and Instagrams. Be the squeaky wheel. There's a lot of competition out there.
• Hang up your very best work, stuff that's personal and real, art that would hurt if it sold. Don't paint to sell. 
• Have good lighting and signs. Make a good music playlist, songs that deepen the art, and have good speakers. Label everything and have a guest sign-in sheet.
  
• Wear comfortable shoes and stand as much as possible. Don't read, and stay away from sugar.
• Greet your guests as they enter, and let them know you are the artist.
  
• Pray for one honest real interaction and know that that's enough. Give yourself permission to not listen to the cat lady, but remember that everyone coming through is made in the image of God.
• If the guests initiate conversation, then you can talk freely about the work.
• Remember that the guests are not coming for the food or to see what you're wearing. Don't waste your energy on those things. They are there to see the art.
  
• Observe which pieces attract attention.
• Never reduce your prices.
  

 I've written before in this blog that my paintings are like my children, that they aren't complete until they've gone out in the world. Open Studios are a place where they can speak and have a life independant of me, whether they are sold or not. I am deeply grateful for everyone who has come to my open studio and shared their stories, such as the couple who looked at "No Visible Means of Support" and told me about their cancer year, the man who saw the flying woman and told me about his late mother, the woman who cried when she saw the mother and child painting and told me how her mother had died when she was eight. Those are sacred moments. I am humbled when I see how art can transcend barriers between people, can stop us in our tracks, can catch at our throats and remind us what life is really about, that we all have souls.

Sanchez Art Center--50/50

 

 

I've been invited to participate in the Sanchez Art Gallery's 50/50 show. Artists are invited to create 50 6"x6" paintings in 50 days.

 

 

 

I'm going to do 50 small paintings of people touching and connecting. Here are images of the first rough starts, five days in. I'm excited about putting a lot of ideas out, fast and free.