Relief
Making art is my form of therapy
While the world swirls with ugly threats and bad news for their side, I am looking for beauty and calm and growth. I think we all need to look outside all of this crazy and try to find something that brings relief and helps us center.
For me, that’s working with my hands, mind and imagination. I’ve worked in a lot of art media over the years: art quilting, beading, embroidery; oil, acrylic and pastel painting; throwing clay and sculpture in copper and clay. I’ve enjoyed the process of learning and creating in each media. But there’s something I’ve never tried: relief work.
A new clay experiment.
I’ve done repousse in copper but working on a clay relief is totally different. With copper sheets, you push out from the back of the copper to create the raised design.
With clay relief, you add clay to the surface of a slab of clay to make a design or image. During my surgery recovery, I got into painting again. I painted some landscapes and flowers. I like painting, but something in me wanted more.
So I started rolling and cutting and shaping and soon one of my paintings turned into a clay relief landscape and another a flower.
It was so much fun, I did a few more.
Now what?
I wish I could tell you I have a plan. I don’t. Like all of the art I’ve created and shown over the last 20 years, it was just something I had to do. Something came about because I needed to work with color and texture and shape.
Some of the pieces tell a story, like this one, about a woman from Japan.
Some were masks made of window screening.
Some were just paintings.
Some were just cups, bowls and vases.
Art, like life, changes.
What I do know is after the major abdominal surgery, I won’t be throwing cups or bowls anymore. But I still love clay and how it feels and how it forms and how it looks. And I can use underglazes to paint again which feels like a return to my creative watercolor ‘home’ but in a new way.
Instead of putting myself down for not sticking to one art media, I want to let myself experiment. Embrace the fact that as my life changes and so does my art.
And you know, to accept that, well it’s kind of a relief.
Yes to the changes in both ourselves and our art…these are poignant pieces you’ve shown here. I look forward to seeing more “changes.”
I love your pieces. Especially the copper, which I have never tried. In school (forever ago!) I was told to have "one recognizable style." Yikes. No thank you. I want it to be fun. Writers are told the same--not to cross genres. Why not? When we feel free, it shows in the work. Art has been a sanctuary for me, too.