Five Day Art Retreat

If you were to give yourself a five-day art retreat, during which you had no other responsibilities, what would you do?

• Would you prefer to have a studio all to yourself, or be in a large group studio with a handful of other artists, but have your own designated space?
• Would you prefer working alongside a mentor in this group, or not?
• What would be your expectations in terms of your own work?
• Do you imagine focusing on one series, or creating a body of work for a show?
• Would you prefer to leave the goals open ended and just work?
• Is such a retreat possible at home or in your own studio? 
• Is five days enough?

Mentoring workshop at ACA in Florida, 2018

Me working on the wall.

 Lorraine Glessner has written an "Art Bite" series on a self-made artist's residency. Read it here. Let me know your thoughts on all of the above.

The Body of Work

From the previous post you will see that several people expressed the need for more focus. They feel like they are all over the map, artistically, and have a hard time deciding on a direction. In my workshop "The Body of Work: Freedom and Focus",  I am addressing this exact issue. I think many of us feel like we get pulled from one medium or type of imagery to another to another, and we feel like we "should" settle down and focus. Me too. All the time.

Look at this more-or-less random selection of my work from the past few years:

These are all different sizes, from 10"x10" to 36"x36". I just re-sized them for ease of layout in Photoshop. To me, these are all over the map, and each one is part of a different series. What do you see? I also work in encaustic occasionally, and dip into oil media as well, so that takes the work in yet more directions.

I think as artists we NEED the freedom to explore broadly. I also think there is a time and a method to focus and go more deeply into a particular exploration. There are just a few spaces available in my workshop at Madeline Island School of the Arts in July, where we will tackle this issue and move more easily towards building bodies of work.

Selected Comments from the Art Practice Survey

It has been fascinating to read the results of my survey. There was some overwhelming consistency in some of the answers (most of you who answered have been practicing art for more than five years, e.g.), there were some comments that varied quite a bit. I am posting a selection of comments that have a common theme, but I'll post other selections on other themes as well.

Here is the first selection:

I have lots of ideas. But I need help developing a practice that will make me more productive, more of a risk taker and more confident in my abilities to make work that has something to say. I tend to sit in the shallows of my creativity and am looking for someone who will push me beyond what I think I am currently capable of.

I guess really learning how to stay with one trying and go deep. I’m all over the place but maybe I just have to accept that that’s me.

Developing a daily (or at least weekly) routine of setting a goal, then working toward that goal.

I have a hard time narrowing down what type of art I want to make. I lack confidence and often feel overwhelmed by the possibilities .. so many techniques, mediums, subjects, etc. that I don't even start, or I just end up exactly copying the style of whatever workshop I'm following. When the workshop ends, I don't continue experimenting on my own even though I want to.

I seem to get side tracked in trying different subject matter and techniques and even though I know I should work in a series I find it hard to stay committed. I find doing your workshops a great way to keep focused except they stop and then so do I.I am not disciplined it seems.

High on my priority list is finding my artistic voice and developing a body of work.

having trouble finishing things to point they would be sellable--jump around too much (experimenting and then experimenting on something with different materials)

Does this sound like you? Do you feel you need to push yourself to go more deeply into each exploration? Is jumping around "too much" something you struggle with?

What Do You Want in a Workshop?

Describe your art practice and tell me what you most want in workshops, videos, books, and other content. I have created a survey with twelve questions and optional comments where you can let me know about yourself as an artist, and how I might address your most pressing issues.

Take the survey here.

There is a little Thank You gift at the end of the survey, which you can download and print.

Thanks for making me laugh!

You can tell I love teaching by the heart on my shirt, if not by the look on my face.

I would love to get your ideas for a caption on this one.

Hudson River Valley Art Workshops, 2017

Fabulous group in Arizona a couple years back.

Thanks in advance for taking my survey. I hope it helps you clarify your own art goals or art practice as much as it helps me decide which new workshops to develop.

A Few Hearts from Collage Challenge #4

Check out the Heart Collages on our Flickr Group here. I have added a few of my own. See the challenge in the previous post, and please participate if it sounds like fun.

Here are a few from the group. As you can see, some of them made use of the collage papers I made available for download (which you can do here), and some did just fine without.

Here are a few heart collages I did on Friday:

This is the only one in my group in which I make the heart the center image. In the others, the heart is simply part of a larger collage. I like playing with both approaches.

This one came out of left field. End of day, fooling around, did not even expect to put a heart in this one. Maybe it's a heart perched on an outhouse.

Even if hearts are not your thing, I hope you will find inspiration in the work posted on Flickr.

Collage Challenge #4 for the month of May

Collage Challenge #4 Part 1

For Collage Challenge #4 we are making hearts. Yes, hearts. Here is the most recent post on collage hearts, with links to previous posts. The rules for this collage challenge are:

• The hearts should be collage only. No painting or drawing in these. 
• Make one heart per piece. That is, don't make repeating hearts in one piece.

Download a few collage papers here. Using them is optional.

 Join our Flickr group and post your heart collages there.

You could just cut out a heart and glue it to a background, but to make it more fun and challenging try creating the heart shape out of several collage pieces, and/or same with the ground. Here are a couple of examples from the previous posts:

 Part 2

Send me collections of collage papers that you would like to see made into heart collages. Six to ten pieces is plenty. Send to:

Jane Davies Studios
PO Box 45
Rupert, Vermont 05768

I will choose one or more winners and make collage hearts for them.

Also, send me a self addressed envelope with postage if you are in the US, and not if you are outside the US. I will send you some collage papers.

Winners of Collage Challenge #3

Thank you to all who participated in Collage Challenge #3! What a great collection of collage papers with TYPE I received from so many participants. Be sure to check out the fabulous work on our Flickr group here. It is inspiring to see such diverse and creative work from so many of you.

I will post the next challenge, Collage Challenge #4, on Friday. For now, here are the winners of Collage Challenge #3. 

Jo Murray sent me this collection of papers, all the way from Australia.

Joyce Francis sent these papers.

 I will send these two 9"x12" collages to the winners.

Meanwhile, here are a few contributions from the challenge that are posted on the Flickr group:

Check out the whole group here.