The winter is always a time of renewal for my art practice. It is time to finish up commissions taken during the summer season and then it is art exploration time for me! This is the annual time I give to myself as an almost “annual in-house gallery artist residency”.
But I don’t leave my house to go to a residency site, and I keep the gallery open on Saturdays and by chance the rest of the week. I still cook my own meals, and do the day to day chores that keep life going. I go swimming for exercise every few days in a local pool, and do a small amount of shopping for groceries and necessities. Occasionally I will just sit and read, often biographies of artists.
But this is also my time to get in the studios (clay and 2D) and let it rip. Just my materials and me- there is nothing better than that! I work out ideas that have been floating in my mind from the past year. Looking out my windows I paint winter, and I buy lovely flowers to draw and paint. I pull out all kinds of materials and let the materials speak to me about creating collages. I study drawings that I did on location during the past summer and fall to reconnect with the inspiration I experienced then. I take walks through the woods to look at form.
I work on my potter’s wheel and invite the clay and my hands to interact with my creative brain to freely create. When we get thaws I go into the unheated section of my studio that contains a large Bailey slab roller and roll slabs to turn into forms that come to me as I work. In my 2-D studio I continue my journey with bock printing.
This time is vital to me as an artist. Let it begin!