Looking Backwards for Inspiration
So many times when we think of things that are inspiring, we have that
feeling we need to be looking forward to something off in the future. Maybe we
think we should re-examine our goals that we have set, or our “5 year Plan,” or
just check in with our “to-do list.” All of those things are good and necessary
to do so that we can stay focused. They all help to keep us on our path that we
have laid out – reminders of where we want to go and what we want to be.
But, today, I want to talk about
the value of “Looking Backwards.”
I
started looking backwards after the first of the year. It has taken me on an
amazing journey into my own history!
I began to work on my archives, as an artist. I was wondering just how
many exhibitions I had done since I started my art career in 1976. That was the
year when I first picked up the artist’s paint brush, and learned how to mix a “palette”
and how to make a painting. Within the next three years, I had worked
diligently at making art, painting. In
only three years, I began to exhibit my work in my local area when there were
opportunities.
To my utter disbelief, I immediately began getting the paintings juried
into exhibition, and I also began winning awards at nearly every show I entered.
It was not long until my work was juried into a prestigious art
exhibition in New York City – the Audubon Art Exhibition! How exciting that was
for me.
For the first time ever, I went by myself on a plane to NYC, and I
attended the opening of that show. There
was my work – on view – and it felt so “normal” for me to be there and see that
work. I can still remember exactly what painting it was. It was a picture of an
old western Pennsylvania house that I saw often when I was out driving. It was
located on a two lane road on a
hillside; trees surrounded it and cast soft blue/violet shadows on the white
house. One day I had stopped to capture that scene with a photograph and then I
had taken the photo into my studio to do the painting, “View from New Castle
Road.” I still love that painting!
This special painting hangs in my home, and reminds me that I have
accomplished something good in my past. It also is a marker that it was the
beginning of my public career on a national level.
Once I started painting, I did it just about every day. The first few
years I painted on the kitchen table after the children left for school. Sometimes,
I had an easel set up in the dining room, and I painted there from objects I
had set up for a still life.
Eventually, my art took me off in a new direction. I entered a fine
arts program at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. I majored in painting, and I began doing
tapestry weavings. My weavings were like paintings, in my mind.
After I received the BFA degree, I was honored to receive a scholarship
and fellowship to go to West Virginia University, in Morgantown, WV. There, I
work diligently on the MFA degree. I continued to paint, as that was my focus
there, too. In addition to painting, I also discovered a piece of plywood one
day, and that inspired me to try to make a woodcut print.
For my MFA Thesis exhibition, the large gallery was filled with immense
paintings and large wood cut prints. I had created a world for the visitors to
walk into – it was my world, created in my studio.
As the years went on, I continued to show my work everywhere I had an
opportunity or invitation. One of my woodcut prints went to the Osaka Triennale
in 1991, the year I graduated from WVU. Other woodcut prints were selected for
the Ambassador’s residence in Paupau, New Guinea as part of the “Artists in
Embassies” Program by the US Dept. of State.
Presently, I have been making art seriously for thirty-seven years. I
decided it was time I “LOOKED BACKWARDS” to see where I have been and how I got
to where I am today.
I found this job to be enormous. I had to sort through every program,
newspaper and magazine article, and documentation I had gathered over the
years. Fortunately, I am a highly organized person, and I had everything in
order, chronologically. The job took me two months of intensive work though.
I found so much to be proud of along the way on this journey to the
past, to my artistic beginnings. It encouraged me and gave me so much
information about myself and the works I have created over the years. This was
a very inspiring thing to do, and I finished it with renewed enthusiasm for my
present work, and for the work that will still be created in my future.
Looking Backwards at my Art Works is so satisfying. It gives me a feeling of being where I am supposed to be - at this time. It gives me a better sense of where I came from, and pushes me forwards to think about where I am going in the future. These paintings from my PAST are my friends, like ANGELS looking over me, whispering to me,
"Keep on going.
You are not alone.
I am with you."
I was amazed to discover that I had been in over 300 exhibitions and
had won over 100 awards in those exhibitions!
With
this task brought up-to-date, I can now send off my records on CDs to the
galleries and museums that have my work in their permanent collection. This is
a good thing to do for your archives so that there will be records that will go
with your art works for future scholars to investigate. I will be preparing the
CDs soon, after I gather some photographs of myself and my art works and add
them to the CDs too.
Next up on my horizon, now, is to begin the task of organizing all my
poetry and writing and putting them all into order chronologically.
Once this is done, it will be an easy task to keep them updated
periodically. All the hard work will be finished.
Sometimes we need to give ourselves a little pat on the back for a job
well done! Looking Backwards can be the place to begin to realize just what you
have accomplished in your creative life. I was able to realize all the nuances and
details of my creative journey by “Looking Backwards.”
