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Ria Sharon

pondering creativity, process, and making art

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An Artist’s Sketch: Jennifer Hallock

June 17, 2015 by riasharon

JenniferHallockJennifer is formally trained in graphic design but enjoys a career as an interior stylist in New York and Connecticut, which she adores for so many reasons but mostly because she make things beautiful, and gets to help people transform their personal spaces into real sanctuaries. She thinks everyone is a creator, it’s just a matter of figuring out what your medium is. She has been lucky enough to have had parents that encouraged her to figure that out at a young age. She sells a lot of prints of her paintings through online venues like minted.com but typically gives a lot of her art away. She’s not about trying to be an artist, “I make stuff and that makes me happy. if what i made makes you happy too, then all the better, you’re welcome to it.”

You can find Jennifer on Instagram on her blog, Sometimes Divine, on her website, and on Minted.

Jennifer-Hallock

1. What’s your medium of choice and what do you love about it?
I’d say I’m equally in love with photography and painting, but spend more time painting these days. I use acrylics and love how you can keep piling up the paint, transforming it layer by layer until you get the result that feels best. The best paintings are the ones that you couldn’t get right and thought were a muddled mess not worth saving until, something strange happens and you don’t know how, but the paint ends up where it needs to be and all of a sudden it’s gorgeous. Sort of like life!

2. What are you working on right now? What’s on your camera/desk/easel or in your studio?
I always have like 15 projects going on at once. There’s always a painting in progress, a file full of photos in my computer waiting to be edited and a few clients waiting for me to make them happy. My most important project though, when it comes to creating, is more about the life I’m creating for myself, figuring out what I’m here to contribute, and helping my teenage son gain the awareness and tools he’ll need to create a life he’ll really thrive in.

nebula-web-2

3. What practices/activities are most valuable to your creative process?
Other artists’ works and lives are of great inspiration to me. It’s amazing how much things have changed since the introduction of social media in terms of exposure and community. Instagram is my venue of choice and I can’t tell you how many awesome artists I’ve been introduced to, supported and received support from through this platform.

I’m also very selective about the people and activities that I let into my life. I’ve decided that if I don’t deem something/someone extraordinary or in some way beneficial to my personal growth, it doesn’t make the cut. This helps to keep positive energy flowing into my life as opposed to it being drained, which is really important to creating my best work.

4. What’s one thing you want to share with others about your art and/or process?
I’m very interested in love and beauty and try to embody that in my life and everything I create. If I feel like I’m not in that space, I can’t make anything — except a mess. There are important and talented artists that do really profound things when their insides are dark and stormy. I’m not one of them.

I also read a ton which helps me to stay in that centered space that allows me to create things I love. I can get really turned around and kind of obsessed over really big questions about life that I’ll never be able to answer. Reading about how really smart people have confronted these questions, their observations and views, has a super calming effect on me and often leads me to feel a bit more comfortable with the unknown. Sometimes I’m even fooled into thinking I have a clue.

spontanious-web-25. What advice would you give to your young artist self?
Ooooh so much! First of all I’d tell her that if you want to hang out in your cut-offs all day and paint, then do it. Do exactly what you want. That pressure you feel to “be something” and “get somewhere” isn’t real. I wasted about 10 years in a career that, while exciting, was not my calling. I was more concerned with security and what people thought than following what was true and right for me. There’s no such thing as security and if you betray what your heart knows trying to seek it, then when things unravel, which they absolutely will, you will be left at ground zero. Life has a way of doing whatever it can (no matter how painful) to set you on the path you’re built for. So I’d tell her to pay attention! The stuff you only think you may know, you actually do know. You don’t need to be anything, it’s enough to just be. And the only place to get to is right now. This one I’m still learning, presence will probably remain my biggest challenge and hardest life lesson.

All makers know that it’s the process that keeps them coming back for more, not the finished piece. I’d tell her that this is also true in life. It’s never about the destination and always about the many (terrifying, exhilarating, mundane and totally perfect) moments that delivered you there.

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Filed Under: an artist's sketch Tagged With: art, creativity, painting

An Artist’s Sketch: Xanthe Berkeley

May 20, 2015 by riasharon

Xanthe BerkeleyXanthe is a photographer, film-maker & visual story-teller. Filling the frame with bright colours, movement, sunshine and smiles; her work centres around family life and adventures.

A wide variety of projects keeps her photography and film business busy. From guiding and inspiring others, through her online film courses, to her own brand of relaxed session reportage – capturing everyday moments and cataloging these memories is her passion.

Xanthe is an Instagram fan – you’ll find her there daily – mooching around London capturing the colourful details, sharing snippets of family life, or exploring the outdoors with her love of camping, nature and good times around the campfire.

xanthe-berkeley

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

I love both photography & film making… It’s hard to choose between the two. Both give me the opportunity to document my life and tell those stories.

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

I’m fortunate to have various projects on the go at one time. Photographing portraits and making films as part of my online courses. I have a year long Time Capsules course which is bursting with creativity as people are making films each month. I’m so inspired by them. I’m loving making mini movies to share on Instagram – it’s a creative challenge to tell a story in just 15 seconds.

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

Get outside and shoot, be inspired by your surroundings.
Find a community either in real life or online, of people creating work that encourages & inspires you and support each other.

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

That I don’t share all the work I create… Only the work I love. I think a lot of people compare themselves to other artists, but don’t consider that they’re only seeing the highlights, not the mistakes.

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

To do a lot of work. Keep creating and you’ll find your thing.

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

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

An Artist’s Sketch: Mic Boekelmann

April 29, 2015 by riasharon

micMic Boekelmann is a filipino-born modern portrait painter and art coach on a mission to highlight the unique stories of people. With a vibrant, warm and dynamic style, her art displays the beauty and inspiration she sees in the people she meets.

This love and excitement for connecting with individuals of different backgrounds were influenced by Mic’s childhood years growing up in the Philippines, Germany, Israel and the U.S. She believes there are more things that connect us than divide us. Her work creates opportunities for others to feel the same.

When Mic is not painting and hosting art workshops in her Princeton home studio, she enjoys exploring the world and checking out food joints with her swabian husband and two cool kids.

micb-2

1. What’s your medium of choice and what do you love about it?
Oil on canvas: The #1 thing I love about oil paints is that it is FORGIVING. It doesn’t dry right away and since I’m not a perfect painter, I need time to push the paint around to make corrections or to get a better feel for the composition.

2. What are you working on right now? What’s on or in your camera/desk/easel/kiln/studio?
Right now, I’m working on a family portrait and on Adam – inspired by the book of Genesis in the Old Testament.

3. What practices/activities are most valuable to your creative process?
The most valuable practice to my creative process is: setting goals and putting them on a month-at-a-glance calendar. My responsibilities as a mom can easily take over, so that my creative goals are pushed to the side. If the creative process is indeed important to me, I need to put this on the calendar and set time aside to invest in it.

4. What’s one thing you want to share with others about your art and/or process?
Although my art is figurative, I never want to make it look technical. It’s important for me to show how I feel about the person or the situation through vibrant colors and brush strokes.

5. What advice would you give to your young artist self?
Your art will bring joy to others. Don’t keep it to yourself.

For more about Mic, visit her website.

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

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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