Our first annual Visual Arts Week at The Mountain was a success! You may have seen the reels I posted on Instagram capturing just a hint of the wonderful environment where we painted and sculpted. Eighteen enthusiastic, adventurous, and good-hearted people joined to make a creative community and some new friends.
I was surprised, though, how challenging it is to learn to paint in a new way. My studio practice has been to study classical, ‘academy’ painting, glazing in layers over days or months. The pain of learning has also been spread over a number of years. Suddenly, all at once, under the tutelage of our fine instructor, Melinda Borysevicz, I had to rewire my brain to adjust most areas of what I had trained myself to do. One morning I made a short list of them: paint, canvas, brushes, medium, patience, drawing, brush control, edges, color mixing, viscosity, values, temperature, hue…
And I found myself in a beautiful, evocative setting with rising feelings of frustration. Since we were doing quick studies, none of my pieces from the workshops are ‘finished’. And Melinda advised not to go back in the studio and rework them*, but instead to use them as a reminder of the process and where we were in our practice at that moment. So, one of the best lessons of the week was in humility. What I hope to take away from it is not just new physical painting skills, but a refreshed resilience in the soul-growing experience that is painting.
I’m going to add a day of plein air to my schedule weekly and we’ll see if I’m successful. Stay tuned.
*I made an exception for the one painting, featured above, that was done from the imagination on the one day we were forced inside by rain.