Life in the Arts
I have identified as an artist as long as I can remember.
I was told that I was an artist as a child, and I accepted it as truth, because that is what I loved to do. In school, I was not just doodling in class. I was sketching in class, practicing drawing a wide range of subjects in the margins of my math assignments while sitting quietly, shyly hiding under the radar. I remember feeling competitive in our brief art classes. I wanted to be the best artist in the classroom.
By Junior High I had read The Agony and the Ecstasy (biography about Michelangelo) so many times the cover fell off and the spine disintegrated. Lust for Life (Van Gogh) was the next object of my obsession, then Renoir and Monet. I got my first oil painting set for Christmas at 12 years old.
At 15 years old I was nominated by my German teacher to go on a summer student exchange, one of many life-changing mentors I had as a young person. On the way to Germany we stopped in Amsterdam for a day. I saw Rembrandt’s monumental Nightwatch at the Rijks Museum a few weeks before it was slashed and removed from view for years. I dashed to the Van Gogh Museum, was told I had 20 minutes, and ran sobbing through the galleries. I finally returned to these 2 museums in April 2023, and it was an extremely emotional experience.
Having seen Rembrandt and Van Gogh paintings in other museums around the world over the years, and decades, but to return to these first two museums that this small town girl ever visited, 50 years later, was a powerful punch in the gut…in a good way. I spent one whole day in the Rijks Museum, including the once-in-a-lifetime Vermeer exhibit. I spent the next whole day in the Van Gogh Museum. I went alone to the Van Gogh Museum, so I could stand in front of each painting as long as I wanted.
There is a thread that connects all of these events from my childhood to the latest museum I visited. (The John Singer Sargent once-in-a-lifetime exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) In between are the 15 years that I attended a weekly painting group with a live model. There are the years of studying classic oil portrait painting in the style of the Masters, with the Grisaille underpainting. There are the years spent studying color, doing still life exercise paintings in an impressionist painter’s studio. There are the years packing my portable easel and paints to our local Iris gardens, hiking through forests and up mountain trails, and taking in the reflections of a snowy peak in a crystalline mountain lake.
During all these years I was learning about color, composition, value, and the openness of the artist community. During these years I also belonged to a professional writers’ group, and produced many articles and short stories. I never stopped believing that I was an artist, and I never stopped making art, but having children took a toll and eventually I had to step away from all of these activities, to raise my children and then start a business with my husband. To our surprise, the business took off, beyond our wildest dreams!
During these years I had discovered the quilting community, and very quickly focused in on art quilting. Because of my past career as a fashion designer and then textile designer, I was drawn to the design and production end of the industry. After our online retail business took off, I began to make time to design fabrics and make art quilts. The very first project I joined was a group of art quilters making an exhibit with a full deck of Tarot Cards. I jumped right in and made 3 cards, including The Empress, who was very pregnant in my version. This was a few years after I had lost a full term baby girl during labor, from a cord accident. So my very first art quilt was a healing quilt, and as I created the archetype of the pregnant goddess, I was working on healing myself.
Art has always been a process for me. Each work of art was a journey of self-discovery, healing and growth. Each work of art had a message or emotion to share. The tsunami of creative energy that has poured forth since I was a child (as a musician, artist and writer) has found its most satisfying expression in the visual arts. My next art project often comes to me fully-formed in a dream. Art is not so much a creation, but a translation….from what I see fully-formed in my head….to a tangible expression in fabrics, or on paper or canvas, to share with others what I see.
Creativity is Life Force, and it exists in everyone. I invite you to join me on this journey of expression and self-discovery in 2024.
– Luana
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