Postcard design: Christine O’Brien; image detail: Matrix 4 Lynda Schlosberg

Please join me on Saturday, June 16th, 2012, 10am – 4pm in my NEW space at the Studios at Porter Mill 2nd Annual Open Studios event in collaboration with Beverly Arts Fest and Endicott College Center for the Arts. Explore the studios of fifty ceramists, painters, photographers, jewelers, musicians, printmakers, and more! Meet the artists, ask questions and purchase original works of art. A free trolley will be running all day to take you between Porter Mill and Beverly Arts Fest on Cabot Street.

From 5-7pm join me in the Gallery at Porter Mill for a group show of the artist’s in the building and an evening celebration filled with art, food, drinks and live music by Ali Manion and Friends.

I hope to see you there!

Studios at Porter Mill
95 Rantoul Street
Beverly, MA 01915
Studio 2-7/2-8 (on the second floor)

The Open Studios at Porter Mill is supported in part by a grant from the Beverly Cultural council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural council, a state agency.

I have been participating in the Artists’ Professional Toolbox (APT), put on by the Art’s & Business Council of Greater Boston. It is a career development program that has the intent of empowering practicing visual artists with the skills and confidence they need to master the business challenges of being an artist. It is a nine-month intensive course for a select group of artists to learn and practice marketing, networking, and business skills with the additional benefits of peer group interaction, mentorship, and feedback.

As a part of this talented group of artists, we had the opportunity to put some of the things we learned into action and curated our own show at the Art at 12 Gallery in the Fort Point Artist Community in South Boston. Below is our press release and show information. I hope that if you are in the area you will come to the opening reception or stop in and see the show while it is up through June 22nd. You won’t be disappointed!

If you can’t make the show, be sure to check out the video at the bottom of this post to see work by the other artists, or click on their links below to go to their websites.

PRESS RELEASE:

Risky Business: Artist’s  Professional Toolbox (7), a multi-media art exhibit, at Art at 12 Gallery, 12 Farnsworth Street, Boston, MA from May 17 – June 22, 2012.  Reception with the artists on Thursday, May 17, 2012, 5-8pm.

Aren’t artists always taking risks?  Of course.  But you have to be a bold and courageous risk-taker to aspire to turn your relative passion into a career.  Enrolled in the Greater Boston Arts and Business Council’s  Artist’s Professional Toolbox program, now in it’s seventh year, these nineteen artists work to take their art and their businesses to a new level. The exhibit includes photography, painting, mixed media, installation, wire work, jewelry, video and sculpture.

Exhibiting artists: Lisa Barthelson, Steven Bogart, Lisa Bohnwagner, Jalysa Belmer, Tim de Christopher, Dawna Davis, Linda Germain, Betsy Gould,  Phoebe Grip, Sirarpi Heghinian-Walzer, Jenn Houle, Sarah Kariko, Lynne Klemmer, Heather Lenz, Colette Lucas, Lynda Schlosberg, Katha Seidman, Kathleen Volp, Audrina Warren.

Art at 12 Gallery
12 Farnsworth Street
Boston, MA 02210
gallery@fortpointarts.org
Call for more information 617-423-1100

Show runs from May 17 – June 22, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 17, 2012, 5-8pm
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday 11am-6pm, Saturday & Sunday 10am-5pm

Here is a short video slideshow that highlights work by the artist’s in the show:
(Slideshow put together by Linda Germain)

TRON Legacy Light Vehicle on the Game Grid

With a commitment to building a more vibrant blog, I signed up for a 4-week Blog Triage class with Cynthia Morris and Alyson Stanfield. My first assignment is to describe the people I want to visit and read my blog.

The easy answer would be to say other artists, curators, collectors, writers and friends. Which is definitely true. However, as I ponder the themes that fuel my art, I would also love to be in a dialogue with others who have similar interests, so that we might push the conversation forward on those topics (or at least just have fun sharing ideas).

These are some of (but not limited to) the things I find fascinating:

• I love science fiction movies and how (in the good ones) the underlying foundation to the story is rooted in philosophical ideas of consciousness—and dare I say—spirituality.
• I also love how technology is used to physically make the movie—and more often than not—is a central character in the story. How computer animation seems to be a perfect metaphor engaging ideas of the ‘unknown’ and the ‘unseen.’
• Consider all those crazy scenes we watch in the dark (think TRON’s Game Grid, pictured above), where we get lost in the perception of that reality, when the reality is, it’s just made up of a bunch of 1’s and 0’s. It doesn’t really exist anywhere.
• It’s kind of like when I start to ponder the ideas of quantum mechanics—with all those vibrating particles and wave functions interacting with energy and matter…Not to mention its implication on the laws of nature, and law of attraction.
• Or how all this development in technology is impacting our neural network. And how we see things. Both literally and figuratively.

So, I am mostly an artist with a fascination in science, technology and philosophy, and a deep curiosity of human consciousness—seeking an audience with similar interests. Oh, and who love art (and artists) and a really good science fiction movie!

Here is an image of the drawing I co-created with artists Denise Driscoll, Carol Myers, Alison Williams, Jeffrey Ellse, Michael Finnegan and Keith MacLelland…

There were two other drawing teams in the gallery with us, and here is their work, this is a group of NHIA alumni…

And this is by a group of NHIA students…

The exhibition Swarm Intelligence will engage three sets of Artists; the art group Co-Laboratory, NHIA Alumni, and NHIA Foundations Drawing Students, in an effort to make three distinct but connected drawings within the Amherst Street Gallery. The intended result is to create a combined effect that is greater than the efforts of each individual or any single group. As Co-Laboratory, artists Lynda Schlosberg, Denise Driscoll, Michael Finnegan, Jeffery Ellse, Keith MacLelland and Alison Williams approach various projects with the desire to find new ways to work together.

Amherst Street Gallery
77 Amherst Street
Manchester, NH 03101

www.nhia.edu

For more information contact Gallery Director Andrew Lucas at 603-836-2573 or email alucas@nhia.edu
Mapquest Link

Show runs from February 24 – March 16, 2012
Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 5-7pm
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am-12pm, Closed Sunday

Today, the world of quantum physics confirms that the universe is made of formless energy, and that particles do not originate from particles. Everything springs from something that is akin to your imagination. You can’t touch, taste, see, hear, or smell it. It has no boundaries. You can’t prove it with mathematical formulas or scientific verification. Yet we all know that it exists. These invisible thoughts that you have—these ideas that continue to percolate within you, these fanciful images that are always with you—are beyond the scope of science to prove or disprove.

–Wayne Dyer, from “Wishes Fulfilled”

Recently I was asked to consider what nourishes me. The question was asked in regards to my personal relationships but it got me thinking about how that same question applies to my art making. Besides, isn’t my art a personal relationship too? Maybe it can’t speak back to me with words, but it certainly speaks back to me emotionally.

Lately I’ve been in a bit of a funk.

Perhaps it’s the short New England days, and the fact that I spend so much of my daytime indoors on my computer that I barely get any natural sunlight. I think my whole life I’ve always had a touch of SADD during the winter months and now I’m just putting the pieces together. Could that be why I love the summer so much, I get to be outside in the sun? I certainly know that being outdoors nourishes my soul. Even in the winter, getting to Cape Ann and spending time along the shoreline of Gloucester and Manchester nourishes my soul. Being near a large body of water with an expansive horizon always tends to reset my perspective. It get’s me out of my head and in touch with the broader aspects of life. I connect to the piece of me that is so much more than my physical being.

Since the New Year I have been attempting to adopt a set of new morning habits/rituals. Shortly after getting up I meditate for twenty minutes, read for 30-60 minutes and then exercise, which for these winter months consists of spinning on my LeMond fitness trainer, for 30 minutes. The three things together seem to nourish me in a way I can’t fully describe. The meditation helps keep me calm and balanced, while the spinning get’s my blood pumping and my metabolism raised to help me physically attack the day. These are things that help my body and mind, yet I believe it’s the reading that helps nourish my art more than anything. I could be wrong about that, but it’s the one thing that I’ve let drop off over the past year or so. With an increasingly busy schedule it’s hard to find time for critical reading. For me that means theoretical books, not the morning paper.  I learned when I was in graduate school that my sweet spot for reading was in the morning. I was kind of surprised by that because I always had the impression that reading made me tired. I discovered that was only because I would always try and read at the end of the day when I was tired.

Lately, (meaning the last few years), I’ve been in a rush to get to my computer. To open my email and start work as soon as I can. Now I’m trying to take the 2+ hours in the morning to commit to these new routines. I’ve always deemed them a top priority yet somehow always put them last on the daily to-do list which means on most days they don’t happen.

Why should it be so hard to do the things I consider important; the things that nourish my soul, my art, and not to mention the rest of my life?

Anyway, back to reading. I’ve always described myself as a book hound. Some girls like to buy shoes, well; I have a thing for books. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach and I buy books with the full intention of reading them all. When I buy one I can’t wait to digest it all in one sitting. But I never have the time.

Scratch that.

I never take the time.

And so books get started and then never finished. For instance, right now I have at least five half read books sitting on the nightstand next to my bed, five more half read books on my desk, and three more half read books sitting on the coffee table. That’s thirteen books! And that doesn’t even count the nine that are in the bookshelf that I’ve ear marked as critical next reads!

(Now I’m up to 22!)

I guess in the sense that “we are what we eat,” we too “are what we read.” So here’s the list of my half-read/soon-to-be-read list of books (and in no particular order) that reflect the complexity of who I am, and what shows up in my art:

1. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, by Lewis Hyde
2. Being in Balance, by Wayne Dyer
3. How to Get Control of Your Time and Life, by Alan Lakein
4. Guide to Getting Arts Grants, by Ellen Liberatori
5. I’d Rather Be in the Studio, by Alyson Stanfield
6. A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle (reading for the second time)
7. The Healing Code, by Alexander Loyd
8. The Language of Letting Go, by Melody Beattie
9. The Vortex, by Esther and Jerry Hicks
10. The Light Inside the Dark, by John Tarrant
11. Buddha Is as Buddah Does, by Lama Surya Das
12. On Women Turning 50, interviews by Cathleen Rountree
13. The Heart of… (oh wait, I can’t list this one, it’s too personal)
14. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2010, edited by Freeman Dyson
15. The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, by Thomas Metzinger
16. The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton
17. The Fabric of the Cosmos, by Briane Greene
18. Quantum Shift in the Global Brain, by Ervin Laszlo
19. The Shadow of the Object, by Christopher Bollas
20. Technoromanticism, by Richard Coyne
21. Insights of Genius, by Arthur Miller
22. Art and Visual Perception, by Rudolph Arnheim

This is a long list. More than I can handle in a year, given my schedule and time. But if I can keep up the morning routine of reading for just 30-60 minutes (focusing on one book at a time I might add) my guess is that I can get through a lot more than I think. And I’d reach a goal that I’ve set to read more this year, as it directly informs my art, and the expansion of my life.

I’ll have to check-in next January and see how well I’ve fared.

Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness

Dan Dennett on our consciousness

Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight

VS Ramachandran on your mind

Last night I met with my peer group which is a part of the Artist’s Professional Toolbox course I’m taking from the Boston Art’s and Business Council of Greater Boston. In our peer group we have a structured part of our meeting, where we each get time to talk about where we are at and then get feedback.

When it was my turn I shared how I’ve been struggling with meeting goals I’ve set for completing a series of paintings I’ve been working on this fall. My first deadline was to have them done by Thanksgiving.

I missed that one.

Now I’ve set a new one for the end of the year and I’m not sure I’m going to make that one either. I’ve been getting time in the studio (although it does vary from week to week) but I’m frustrated with the fact that I’m most likely going to miss this second deadline.

That’s when someone asked me: “Are you more interested in the process or the end result?”

I had to stop and think.

In reality, it’s a bit of both. But lately I’ve been so focused on just trying to get to the finish line of my goals that I’m missing the process. I’ve been making decisions in my work just to move it forward rather than taking the time to be more conscious about my choices of composition and color. So I added something like, “I’ve been painting unconsciously.”

That’s when someone asked me: “Is that a bad thing?”

No.

In some ways my work is about the unconscious part of our being, and how that unconsciousness mixes and flows in the ether to  collectively create what we call our “life experience.” So perhaps I can give the paintings that have developed more unconsciously some validity – even if I think they are “bombs.” More importantly, I’m being reminded that it’s about the process and not the end result. Isn’t life about the journey, not the destination?

Yet I still struggle with the deadline dilemma. As a painter, we are conditioned to create as much product as we can. We always need to be churning out new work. With an exhibition deadline looming it often becomes about the end product rather than the process. Perhaps there really isn’t an answer to this….since all of life seems to be a cycle of ups and downs the focus between process and product may just have this same cycle too and it’s something I need to figure out how to ride.

Anyway, here’s the last “unconscious” painting I finished (quick shot)…

Currently Untitled, 16×16, acrylic on panel.

And here’s one that has sort of been running on auto pilot. I’m stuck on my color direction. I added this bright turquoise blue and now don’t know what to do. (It was part of an unconscious choice in a rush to finish the piece)…

Work in process, 30×30 inches, acrylic on panel.

So I’m going back to nature to see what can inspire me on it’s next step. I’ve got a composite of images below I hope to pull from and see what happens. It’s interesting to find that these unusual and saturated color combinations actually exist out there.

I have a piece in 13FOREST Gallery’s holiday show “Plenty.”

13FOREST Gallery
167A Massachusetts Ave
Arlington, MA 02474

www.13forest.com

For more information contact Gallery Marc Guertin at 781-641-3333 or email info@13FOREST.com

Show runs November 17, 2011 – February 4, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 17, 2011, 7-9pm
Arlington First Lights Event: Saturday, December 3, 2011, 11am-4pm
Third Thursday Holiday Party: Thursday, December 15, 2011 7-9pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday/Wednesday/Saturday 11am-7pm, Thursday 11am-8pm, Sunday by appointment or chance.