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Ria Sharon

pondering creativity, process, and making art

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An Artist’s Sketch: Sharon Derry

May 13, 2015 by riasharon

alishaSharon Derry is a book and paper artist living and working in St. Louis, Missouri. She designs and handcrafts journals, albums, note cards and other high-end paper goods. Sharon often uses vintage ephemera in her work, including yellowing book pages, tattered sheet music, well-worn maps, dog-eared postcards, handed-down recipes…. Meticulous craftsmanship, attention to detail and original design are hallmarks of her art. Online, she sometimes goes by secretleaves. She can be found here, here and here.

sharon-derry

 

1. What’s your medium of choice and what do you love about it?

Paper, especially old paper. I do a lot with ledger pages, maps, sheet music, and lately, vintage wallpaper, especially from the thirties and forties. I also use other ephemera: Stamps, buttons, receipts, notions…all kinds of odd bits and pieces. I love these things because they have history and mystery. There’s an element of voyeurism too — a peek into past lives. Old things also have a patina of age that just is not reproducible digitally or manually. I’m not entirely sure what it is about old things that resonates with me. I’ve given it considerable thought, but haven’t completely nailed it down.

secretleaves2. What are you working on right now? What’s on your camera/desk/easel or in your studio?

I’m working on a couple of things: A wedding invitation suite for my niece, and some collage/prints on vintage wallpaper and maps. I’m also experimenting with creating patterns, which I’m really jazzed about. And I’m doing some large-scale prints using the online printing service Spoonflower. I’m using Spoonflower to print on paper right now, but I would love to experiment with printing wallpaper or fabric, which is what they specialize in.

secret-leaves3. What practices/activities are most valuable to your creative process?

For me, the important thing is to try to find large chunks of time. I’m not good at grabbing a moment here and a moment there to create. I find I need a few hours to really get going and accomplish anything. The first couple of hours are for playing. Experimenting with ideas and techniques and trying not to get caught up in creating masterpieces. Frankly, the first few things I make are usually crap. But that part of the process is so important for idea generation, happy accidents, etc. I’ve also started drawing again, although I’m not doing it with the frequency or regularity I would like.

4. What’s one thing you want to share with others about your art and/or process?

That’s a tough one. Maybe an appreciation of the level of detail and the craftsmanship? I’m very fussy and detail-oriented and it’s one of the things that sets my work apart from a lot of other folks working in similar mediums. Also the fact that I am using real, vintage materials rather than scans or digitally-produced ‘age.’ I mean, I do some of that too, but my real love are the pieces that truly are vintage — although even as I write this, I realize I’m shifting away from this a little bit. Finally, maybe the slight ‘offness’ of the subject matter: Things that other people might find repellent often show up in my work: insects, snakes, morbid anatomy, dead flowers…what I think of as strange beauty. That’s more than one thing, isn’t it? I’m not good at following directions.

5. What advice would you give to your young artist self?

Enjoy the process.
Be true to your self.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Not even yourself.

secret-leaves

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Filed Under: an artist's sketch Tagged With: courage, maker, process, St. Louis artist, vintage paper

An Artist’s Sketch: Alisha Katz Hastings-Kimball

May 6, 2015 by riasharon

alishaAlisha is a ceramic artist who loves creating unique beautiful environments. She has a BA in art therapy and an MAT from the College of New Jersey. One fall evening she attended a pottery class with a friend. Unbeknownst to her, that evening she discovered one of her true passions was to create in clay. She is a wife and mother to two incredible children and one wonderful kitty. When she’s not getting her hands dirty with clay she also enjoys photography, painting, sewing and writing. She is always looking for ways to embrace creativity in the everyday moments of her life and is usually busy answering the knocking at her hearts door.

Songbird Studio

1. What’s your medium of choice and what do you love about it?

Over the years I have worked in many mediums but I’d say for about the last 14 years my medium of choice has been clay. I love creating beautiful, meaningful things that are also functional.

2. What are you working on right now? What’s on or in your camera/desk/easel/kiln/studio?

This year I started working in porcelain. It’s been exciting to make things that I previously made in earthenware clay in porcelain. Now that I feel settled in with the transfer, I am ready to start making some new work and evolve with this new material. I feel a knocking at my heart to create something new, different and soulful. It is still devolping right now.

3. What practices/activities are most valuable to your creative process?

Each weekday morning I get up an hour and a half earlier than the rest of my family so that I can have some quiet time to center myself before the day begins. I say prayers, meditate, then I do morning pages and affirmations. This is an absolutely essential part of my daily routine. {I have been doing this for more 15 years now, which is really crazy to think about. I didn’t realize it’s been that long until just now.} There have been a few times when I have let this practice go and the results have been disastrous. If I don’t keep up this practice regularly not only do I notice but my family and close friends notice as well. I have a much harder time finding my creative center and general happiness without this practice.

4. What is one thing you want to share with others about your art and/or process?

I create the things I do usually because it’s something (like my mindfulness mugs) that I needed or wanted in my own life and I hope that it will resonate with someone else out there. A part of my process that I don’t talk a lot about is how the other creative mediums I work in strongly influence and ignite my creative flame in ceramics. Sometimes I need to play and create with photography and paint before I can move on to create the next theme in my ceramics, which happens to be a place I am in now. A lot of my work and journey is about undoing the past and allowing myself to be fully, truly myself with no apologizes.

5. What advice would you give to your younger artist self?

Keep making, keep believing in yourself and have patience it will all come together in due time. Everything you do will take much longer then you ever expected but don’t give up because you will make it all happen.

For more about Alisha, visit her at Songbird Studio.

Songbird Studio

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Filed Under: an artist's sketch Tagged With: courage, creativity, process

A little about me

I have an undergraduate degree in art. By day, I work in higher ed and in my free time I'm currently putting myself through DIY grad school.

I teach classes on creativity and inspiration on Skillshare. I occasionally share my original paintings on Etsy and fine art prints on Minted. I've also been known to make puppy portraits.

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