It's not an easy time to be human. (Has there been an easier time?) Surrounded by soaring temperatures, wildfires and floods, I ask myself "what can I do? Beyond reducing, recycling, and reusing (how many yogurt containers and bubble wrap sheets do you have?) there's a more essential question:"What can I do to make the world a better place?"
I dreamt last night that I'd gone back to work at UC Davis Children's Hospital, where I spent many years as an art therapist. Each day I walked out of the hospital, certain that I'd made a difference. But for me, now, the way to make a difference lies in devoting myself more deeply to my art and believing in the power of art to change lives. Because after all, what was I using to make a difference at work--art! And certainly my life directions and perspectives have been in large part shaped by the art I've studied and the writers I've read.
The challenge to believe in my own work has had a big helping hand this summer: Mark and Marija Eane's course: Language of Design. Although I have a BA and an MFA in art, I went to school at a time when technique and the mastery of craft were not as highly valued in art education. I've longed for a class like this and now it's here.
Mark and Marija have broken down the language of design into its principles and elements (balance, hierarchy, color, line, shape, etc.). They take us through in-depth lectures and share glorious examples from art history. There are well crafted exercises and as I do them, I feel holes of missing knowledge being filled, areas where I've known something was missing but didn't know what it was.
In this time of whirling chaos, their commitment to teaching and their workshop has infused new energy into my studio practice.