From Website to Blog- Constant Evolution of Myself as an Artist

I blog weekly, sometimes daily, with my students. Blogging has become my new favorite form of written expression. I still adore my art journals and doodles, but the advent of technology has embraced the writing process. Yet somehow I have not considered a personal artist’s blog until today. For the last two years I have had an excellent personal website. Not only was it expensive to maintain and host, it was just that, a website. It was one dimensional and did not allow me to interact with my audience.  It was flat, I was becoming flat. I received many emails asking about my process, mediums, and questions about technique.  I wanted a way to better interact with my audience. As an artist and teacher I am aways seeking out change and new ways to evolve. I firmly believe without change one stagnates and becomes negative and limited. Change can be a bad thing as well, you need to know how to spin your opportunities and when to call it a day.  With technology there are so many amazing ways to connect, explore, express and teach. Everything seems shiny and new and then it becomes one big mass of stimulus bombarding you at all directions.  My kids at school call this ” electronic hell”.  For a lack of a better term, I agree. Blogging fits my bill and offers me  a challenge , a learning opportunity, and freedom, yet I feel comfortable and able to maintain it and do it justice.

Today’s artist needs to adapt in order to survive. Gone are the days of holing yourself up in a beautifully decrepit studio and shunning all things “modern” in order to sacrifice for your art. In fact I feel you do not need to “starve” for your art.  Art is redundant, everything has been done before and now is competitive and cutthroat. A downside of technology is that it is more easily pirated now and copied. An artist needs to self promote and network. Art is a passion, but it is also a sales career and business.  A very fickle and temperamental business.

So I am here, changing myself in order to better fit the needs of my clients, and to offer myself the challenge to take my work to another level.  This page will serve as my journal, my artist’s notebook and my portfolio. I will be posting past and current works as well as my photography and jewelry.  I will also be writing about art , specifically art education in Chicago.  This new blog not only brings change to my studio and personal craft, it begins a new era for me an educator. In addition to special education and art therapy I will now also be teaching middle school art! This is a culmination of a dream that has been 14 years in the making.  Please follow me on my journey, Thank you and I look forward to getting to know you  better!

“A is for Argentina”  Argentinian Red Comet-11 X14  #1 in a series of Acrylic Paintings on Historically Significant   Vintage Paper. This piece features the events of 1976 –