While my awesome brother Jordan was here a few weeks ago, we headed up to Park City for Gallery Stroll. We love Park City. We love looking at art. And we LOVE Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. So, naturally Gallery Stroll is a fun night for our family! I was inspired yet again by some of the talented artists showing in Montgomery-Lee Fine Art, Meyer Gallery and Gallery MAR and even got to meet both Jared Sanders and Andrzej Skorut – both of which were painting in their prospective galleries, and both of which do some really cool work.
In addition to simply having a fun night, I had two things occur to me: 1. Gallery MAR is the gallery I want to show in. I went to Gallery Stroll not even intending to talk to a gallery about my work, but as I was standing inside Gallery MAR talking to Rebecca Richards about life and art, I had the strongest impression that Gallery MAR was the place to hang my work and that someday I will. And then I felt at peace and completely overcome with excitement all at the same time.We had a really great discussion and I told her about some of the paintings I’ve been working on, but more than anything she was real and down to earth and I felt like she cared about me as a person and as a mom, not just as an artist who could make the Gallery loads of money. And she wasn’t so interested in selling art that she didn’t have time to talk to a young family with two young kids that probably wouldn’t be buying the art that was hanging. That’s who I want selling my paintings – someone that’s real, and confident and comfortable in their own skin.
2. It’s okay to do paintings just because they are beautiful. Yes, I think it is important to continually work on a series of paintings that describe your ideas of the world around you and that hold meaning for you, but it’s also important to paint what you love, even if that means it is simply incredible to look at & fun to do. And I LOVE landscape painting. It’s so freeing and so fulfilling for me. God created the earth and all the beauty we see, so I hope my paintings will in some way comment on the simplicity and majesty of God’s creations. This was a big ah-ha moment for me and since having this realization, I now have THREE series of paintings I am working on and very excited about. I am entering a Plein Air show next week, a small paintings show in November and I have a a solo show at Terra Nova Gallery in January. I’ve been painting like crazy and loving it ever since Gallery Stroll – indeed it was a really good night for me!
