Fort Missoula Water Tower

Healing with Soft pastels.
When playing with soft pastels, I could pick up a stick of color, make a swatch, put it down, and go back to the grind on other things.
I am fascinated with abstract writing in my art, wanting to express my struggles with dyslexia. These Pieces, I hope, will draw a person in and make them curious about the meaning, attempt to read what is in front of them only to find out they cannot, and have a moment of what it is like to be dyslexic.
I love playing with this in soft pastels, which led to my experimenting with cognitive therapy. I start this process by writing out my negative thoughts with pastels; I smear them into the background to create an underpainting. Then I layer positive thinking words on the top for my mark-making to build my image. This becomes a fun puzzle that moves my mind away from racy thoughts; my words change from a forced thought process to something more present and relaxed in creating the painting. I combined this with starting a Plein Air art group. Plein Air meaning-of or relates to painting in outdoor daylight. We go to local parks and trails to be outdoors and paint the scenery as a group. This grouped several things that I needed help finding separate time for, and put them all into one event—socializing, meditation, cognitive therapy, exercise, vitamin D, and I was getting my artwork done. Using the word writing cognitive therapy process to build the landscape outdoors strengthened the effects of loosening my muscles and clearing my thoughts.
This Plein air work helped me through the Covid pandemic, having to step in and take care of my father with Alzheimer's Dementia and make my artwork deadlines. To me, this has developed into a powerful tool.
Thanks for taking a moment.
Amanda