Category Archives: Artist’s Date

Artist’s Date: A Birthday Visit to The Clover Market

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Clover Market, Ardmore, vintage, antiqueThis weekend, two fantastic things happened. It was my birthday, and The Clover Market was open in Ardmore, PA.  I know the two events are entirely unrelated, but I like to think that all of the fantastic artists, vintage sellers, and crafters came to The Clover Market for my birthday.

In reality, the market is held several times a year – in the Spring and the Fall – and features a huge number of artists, crafters, vintage shops, and the like. The market is juried – in the sense that you have to submit an application, work samples, and be approved in order to participate, which is probably some of the reason there was such a remarkable and consistent quality to everything I saw while I was there. Continue reading →

Artist’s Date: Using Bad Circumstances for Good Art

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antique camera photography vintage filmThis week has been very artistically accomplished for me – I was able to get quite a few new pieces finished that are scheduled to hang in a great little local-food cafe in Media, PA this weekend, and I’ve felt very inspired and at peace with my “inner artist” – a nice change from the angsty, hot mess she tends to be at times. While browsing other art blogs to see what was going on in the community (doing my best to avoid being the reclusive artist that I can be!), I came across a video of Neil Gaiman’s 2012 address of the graduates of The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.  You can view the entire speech here, and I highly recommend that you do.

One of the quotes from his speech that stuck with me was, “Things will probably work out, and time will probably take the sting away, and the only thing that really matters is that you do what only you can do; make good art.”

These simple lines are really at the essence of what being an artist is – we have creation in our blood. It is a process that has been passed down to us from our earliest of ancestors. The art of making, so to speak, is inherent in all of us, and it’s no coincidence that it’s often the things that helps to get us through the dark times and the thing that we turn to when nothing else seems to be working. Through all of the circumstances in which we find ourselves – the ending of relationships, the beginning of new ones, the deaths of loved ones, and all the impossibilities we can be faced with  – make good art.

In many ways, it’s easier to visualize putting this sentiment into action with the big things.  In the past, I’ve always tuned to art when I couldn’t handle the things going on around me, but this week, not too long after hearing Mr. Gaiman’s speech, I had the chance to apply his words to a much less serious event, and perhaps learned that it’s just as important to use all the things around me to ‘make good art’ when the circumstances are just kind of annoying and not totally devastating. Continue reading →

Artist’s Date: Wandering in the Woods

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Having lived in the city for most of my adult life, I’m still pretty fascinated by my relatively new, wooded surroundings.  The house I share with my fiance, his two kids (his in the sense that I did not biologically create them – but I love them like they’re my own!), and our two hilarious cats is in the middle of a 6 acre wooded property, which is in the middle of what seems to be a larger wooded property with some farms and roads thrown in periodically. In the city, the closest I found myself to nature was often a brief interaction with my houseplants – here, it’s inescapable. Nature is everywhere – and aside from the countless trees and plants, we have a very large flock of wild turkeys, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, birds, possum, skunks, and at least two large and particularly bold groundhogs, among other things living on our property.  Needless to say, it is both endlessly entertaining and endlessly beautiful here.

For my Artist’s Date this past week, I took a few hours and wandered around our property (yes, it’s large enough that you can wander for hours).  It was early in the morning and one of the sunnier, warmer days we’ve had in the past couple of weeks. The air was fresh, everything was wet and very much alive, and as I snapped photos for later reference in potential art pieces, I couldn’t help but feel very calm, connected, and refreshed. Everything an Artist’s Date is supposed to be.

Here are a few of the pictures I took. Continue reading →

Artist’s Date #10: O, Canada

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Canadian flag at the U.S. Canadian BorderI’m a little late in posting this, but I drafted it on my iphone (not an easy task) on a little road trip to Canada.

We left Wednesday night and made it as far as Watertown, NY – a solid 6 hour drive.  Thankfully, Chris had already made reservations at a hotel there, because my sing along with the radio had long since turned into whining about how I could not possibly sit in the car any longer. After six or seven hours of sleep, allowing me an extra hour in the hotel to make sure I had time to wake up and shower without feeling too rushed, and grabbing breakfast (because that would have turned into a whine-fest all by itself), we headed off to the U.S-Canadian border.

I’ve had the opportunity to do plenty of international traveling in the past, but I had never been to Canada, and I had never crossed an international border by car. I had no idea what to expect, and Chris thoroughly freaked me out with countless tales of getting stopped, questioned, and searched when trying to cross the border in the past. This time, it turns out, the questions were few and the crossing was uneventful (he usually drives a suspicious looking van and used to have a ponytail – the combination was made for questioning, I think!)St. Lawrence home Canada

Once in Canada, at the recommendation of our host, we took a very scenic drive along the St. Lawrence on Canadian high way 2 – rather than staying on the major road. It was incredibly beautiful, and well worth the little bit of extra time. The drive took us along the water, through quaint, very European-looking towns, past unbelievable mansions nestled on their own little islands, through parks and wooded areas. I know I’m repeating myself, but it was incredibly beautiful.

The man we were visiting lives in Ingleside, Canada, and it took us another few hours of driving that morning to make it to his house.

We arrived at his modest, but adorable home in the early afternoon, and were immediately ushered into a large garage/former studio. I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with premiere airbrush artist Guy Frechette. He had been airbrushing impressive, custom works of art onto vehicles – particularly vans – for over thirty years, and painting on canvas for even longer.  My fiance, Chris, had hired him years ago to paint a custom wrap-around on a late 1970′s van that he had bought, but because of on-going health issues as a result of the airbrushing process, Guy had been forced into retirement, and at the strict advice of his doctor could no longer airbrush vehicles in the same manner he had been doing for so many years. While they were making arrangements for Chris to pick up the van (initially, the unfinished artwork was to be painted over in the van’s original black), they somehow both hatched a plan that involved me finishing the artwork on the van. This trip was to be my first lesson in airbrushing vehicles. Continue reading →

Artist’s Date #9: How Often Do You Tell Yourself “No”?

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My new garden - strawberries and peppersOne of the challenges The Artist’s Way has thrown my way is to consider how often I tell myself “no” and why.

As creatives (or even human beings!), many of us spend much of our lives squelching all that is frivolous, impractical, and seemingly unnecessary about ourselves, whether it be taking a math class instead of that pottery class we really felt drawn to or not allowing ourselves to invest in that new set of brushes because they were “too expensive to justify spending on a hobby.”  Don’t misunderstand – I know as well as anyone that sometimes you have to take math, and many times there is no way to sidestep the boundaries of a budget; however, I also know that self-denial is an easy habit to pick up, and we can often lose ourselves in the cycle of “no” for the sake of saying “no”, or because it feels easier and safer than allowing our inner children to be a little frivolous and impractical, or perhaps because we don’t think we deserve to be indulged.

I am the type of person that genuinely enjoys celebrating other people. I do birthdays. Holidays thrill me. I love buying and making gifts for the people in my life. Over the years, I have learned that not everyone shares this particular sentiment, though most of the people that end up in my circle, so to speak, learn to just accept it from me. You don’t want a birthday present? Be prepared for me to shrug and give you one anyway. You don’t need it, you say? Well birthday presents wouldn’t be nearly as fun if you needed them, would they?

I had grown accustomed to the occasional gift/party/etc. being accepted with a small sigh of resignation (ahem, Jeff), but no one had ever challenged me on my, shall we say, celebratory preferences, until I met and began dating my current fiance, Chris. (He will surely mention this name-drop when he gets home tonight, but frankly, he’s gotten away pretty easy so far) After we had been dating for a while and I knew him well enough to know when his birthday was without it being creepy, I had the realization that I was the unfortunate member of the pair to decide whether and how to recognize his birthday, since his came before mine on the calendar. It would have been much easier if mine had come first – to let him decide if we had been dating long enough to “do” birthdays or not and set the precedent. Clearly, I was out of luck, and I spent days agonizing over how to handle the upcoming birthday for fear of doing too much, or worse, too little. Continue reading →

Artist’s Dates 7, 8 & New Work

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spring daffodilsThe last two weeks have felt like pure insanity. Not a day has gone by without 100 or so things to do, places to go, or people to see, and I feel like I’ve barely had two seconds to breathe, let alone blog. I have managed to continue to slowly (but surely!) make my way through more of The Artist’s Way, and, although simple, make sure I did an Artist’s Date each week.

Artist’s Date #7 was very different from my previous Artist’s Dates. Two Thursdays ago, I drove to Cherry Hill, NJ, parked on the edge of a mid-sized development, and rang the doorbell to apartment #111. The door opened, I stepped inside a modest, but pretty apartment, and after brief introductions, was instructed to remove my shoes and lie down on a large, white table positioned in the middle of the room.

The woman who had let me in – Lisa – asked me what it was I would like to work on. She was going to fix my energy. I told her that I had, for quite a long time, been struggling with my professional endeavors. With little more information than that, she set to work.

I, on the other hand, did nothing but answer the occasional question and lie on the table with my eyes closed. She often touched my wrist and stood with her hands in prayer position, murmuring. Other times she cradled the back of my head in her hands, and for a while she held my feet. She told me that my second chakra was severely out of balance. Despite my vast amount of experience in energy work and several different modalities of energy therapy, I had never concentrated on the chakras and honestly didn’t know what the second chakra represented – so I just went with it and let her do her thing. Continue reading →

Artist’s Date #6: The Wasteland (a.k.a. my studio)

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Molskine sketchbook cover design

In my previous post, I confessed that I’ve been in quite the creative funk for the past few weeks. It sometimes feels unshakable, but I’ve given it a valiant effort this week – I finished up the exercises from week #5 of The Artist’s Way and picked up my reading for week #6, and I made a sincere attempt at doing my morning pages every day. I was not 100% successful at the last bit, but it’s better than the big fat nothing I did in February, and today (Monday) I woke up and did my morning pages first thing – a good start to the week, if I do say so myself!

Since last week was supposed to be my triumphant return to the process of The Artist’s Way and my creative process in general, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I should spend the time I had set aside for my Artist’s Date. Honestly, I was at a loss – I didn’t feel like doing anything quite yet, and it’s hard enough to figure out what to do with these things as it is. I was toying with the idea of visiting a few different museums and galleries, including the Noyes in Oceanville and some of the galleries I like in New Hope. Both of these options involved long-ish drives and I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm or the energy I needed to actually pull them off – not to mention they both would have been all day adventures, and, well, blah. It wasn’t what I needed for my first week back, but figuring out what I did need was proving to be impossible.

The end of the week was quickly approaching by this point. I was running out of time.

Thursday night, I was getting ready to go to bed when my fiance, Chris, walked past my studio/office and offhandedly remarked, possibly more to one of the cats than to me, “Oh, it’s Kari’s Wasteland…”

I knew how I would be spending my Artist’s Date.Artist's studio before

In its current condition, my studio was nothing short of a mess. I was mid-project on about 10 different pieces, there was stuff everywhere, and the cats had knocked just about everything that was standing onto its side. I hadn’t gone in that space – let alone moved or used anything in it – for weeks. It looked as if it had been abandoned. Deserted. Left for dead.

I often parallel my Artist’s Dates with the actual process of dating – it’s like investing time and resources into my inner artist so that she’ll like me and stick around. It’s not quite as arbitrary than that, but I do think I’m wooing a part of my that has been stifled for quite a long time. At this rate, I realized, I was dating this inner-girl and hoping she wold come home with me, to my messy and unorganized studio, and want to stay. It’s like the guy who brings you back to his apartment and you have to step over the laundry-strewn floor and move pizza boxes just to sit on the couch – when he tries to make out with you, you’re sure your hair will end up in an old container of chinese takeout and there’s no way his sheets have been washed in the last decade. Have. To. Get. Out.

I realized I was being that guy. There was no way I would end up feeling inspired or encouraged to finish or start projects with my creative space looking the way that it did.

This it what my studio looked like before (right).

Continue reading →

Artist’s Date #5: Cold Hearted

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Cold Hearted craft handmade art eventHappy Valentine’s, everyone!

This week, I once again shifted my artist’s date from its normal day to the weekend. A few weeks ago, I stumbled on a Facebook event page for Cold Hearted: A Pre-Valentine’s Day Art/Craft/Handmade Event, and I decided I would go. I went. This is kind of a big deal.

I am, by no means, the type of person who is afraid to go places or one that doesn’t embrace experiences, but I do tend to spend more time at home than not, and in the past, I have not been one to go places for the sake of experiencing them by myself.  The concept of completing an Artist’s Date each week has changed that, but there is still a fundamental difference between wandering a museum alone and attending an event that would include being in the midst of a lot of people I don’t know, and, frankly, one that seemed to be centered on a community of which I was not directly apart.

When Saturday rolled around, I woke up to a “to-do” list about a mile long. I had a party to throw on Sunday, cake to make, grocery shopping to do, and so on. In order to make the event (and not be too stressed to focus), I knew I would have to finish as much as possible that morning. I’m a terrible morning person. And to top it all off, it was snowing. Continue reading →

Artist’s Date #4: Lake Placid, NY

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Lake Placid Church with BirchesThursday is the day that I normally set aside time for myself to go on an Artist’s Date. This is time strictly set aside to going somewhere that benefits, refuels, or inspires my creative side. I like to think of it as taking my inner artist out on a literal date – like I have to woo her so she’ll stick around and not go into hiding. This past Thursday, however, came and went with no Artist’s Date.  My intention for last week was to spend the entire weekend away being inspired and making things. Like an Artist’s Date on steroids.

Chris an I had been invited by my very good friend Jill and her husband, Brad, to spend the weekend in a cabin (though it ended up being more like a multimillion dollar house made up to look like cabin) on Lake Placid in upstate New York. Being that Chris is an avid skier with little extra time to make trips up north like this, and my opportunities to see Jill are few and far between, we jumped at the chance to take the trip. Anticipating beautiful scenery both in Lake Placid and on the long drive up, and knowing I would have time to wander, sketch, and maybe even get some artwork done, I decided to count the trip as my fourth Artist’s Date. Continue reading →