Working Through Influences

when you are uncomfortable with them

For some time now, I have been a big believer in letting what you are innately drawn to influence your creativity.

I have let graphics, words, art, shapes, ideas, and imagery all land on my mood board without judgment.

When I pick up the vibe of the board, I often dig in a little deeper and go searching for imagery, poetry, and art that feels in conversation with what is happening on my mood board and in my thought life. 

I have spanned from the sexy disco era and Slim Arron photography to sensual, lusty florals, leaning into nature to speak the language of being female. 

It has surfaced in my work as romantic, sometimes sexual, always passionate.

I recently gave my students the assignment to look around their studios, homes, bookshelves, and even the snapshots on their phones for jumping off points, inspiration, and stories. It’s good to go into making art with some ideas; you have to go in with some ideas (or so I believed).

But as an artist, sometimes “stories" and meaning in your art simply cannot be planned, which is troubling if you are a planner, and sometimes ideas just make their way out of you. This often feels like a strange type of therapy, having something make its way out of you. You know you are “in flow,” but it can feel uncomfortable, unplanned, and uncontrollable.

I went to Florence in search of something. I was certainly not in search of religious themes or iconography. You can't seem to escape it in Italy, and it was such a way of life for people during the 1500’s, 1600’s, 1700’s ok pretty much all the time.

The art felt human, passionate, and full of drama and theatre to me, especially on this trip.

While I can lean into the idea of using the work masters as a "Way In" just like I talked about in this article, I still know there's more for me here. I feel it, but I am working through how it influences me.

As I painted for the show in LA the next week, the work kept getting more moody, and I didn't and don't know how to stop it. What happened to all that "space" I wanted to paint?

I realized that I had kept up my dive into the history of women in art and this piece came out as a result. 

“Artemisia” Monica Lee Rich

Named after the female Italian Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi whose masterful hand and intellect painted work that scholars deem to be much like the work of Caravaggio. But now scholars and regular folks like me feel like she actually brought much more to the table, especially from the female point of view.

 I am a girl who happens to like a good revenge story or simply a good story, and Artemisia Gentileschi certainly provides it. She led quite a life and was often defined by a rape that happened to her as a young woman and the paintings that were painted as a “result”. Here's a quote from a New Yorker article by Rebecca Mead about Artemisia Gentileschi, which is a fascinating read about a rather fascinating woman. (buckle up the article is good!)

"A raft of recent papers by academics, however, have objected to portraying Artemisia as if she herself were a two-dimensional mythological figure—a victim exacting revenge through brushwork. As more of her personal history is unearthed by scholars, a more complex picture emerges. And Artemisia's art is increasingly being appreciated for the knowingness with which she made use of elements of her life—not just sexual violation but also motherhood, erotic passion, and professional ambition. Artemisia recognized that being a woman offered her a rare perspective and authority on many artistic subjects. "You will find the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman," she once assured a patron. Such insight makes Artemisia feel, four hundred years after she lived, like one of our more self-aware contemporaries." -Rebecca Mead New Yorker Magazine 

I painted the pieces in the first picture in oil this week, and I am unsure if they will be dry in time to tuck them in a suitcase to take to LA on Wednesday. I am eager to come home and keep pulling at this uncomfortable thread that I can’t quite explain. I have spent a lifetime trying to avoid drama in my own life, which is not to say it doesn’t pop up now and then. I like “passion,” not necessarily drama, but it could be I am realizing that they can often go hand in hand. It could also be that I am a good translator of it in my own way. I am just planning on following my muse since the works are coming out with ease which is not the right word, since they are coming out “with purpose.”

“Being Human” Monica Lee Rich

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Next week, Michael will be stepping in with a new article while I am at The Other Art Fair in LA. Follow along on my Instagram; I am sure I will post in my stories a lot.

I mentioned last week that I will be sharing my class “Abstraction in Watercolor” with yearly paid subscribers. If you are interested, sign up by subscribing below; I will start delivering what I teach the first week in Oct. All current yearly subscribers will have full access to it! I am looking forward to sharing it.