New Year's Evolutions 2020

So, the earth has orbited another graceful ellipse around our sun, and once again I take this time to take stock of the year that was, and set intentions for the year to come.

But of course, this year has been like no other. It will go down in history as one of the craziest, horriblest, nastiest no-good rotten years. 

ornament by www.plumdandy.org

We have all lost something this year; loved ones, income, opportunities, travel plans, the simple joy of congregating, or the privilege of having faith in our institutions and compatriots.

Through this difficult time, I have made a practice of counting my blessings each day. Sure, my art career took a hit. But I have plenty, I am surrounded by loving family and friends, I am safe and healthy. I am indeed one of the lucky ones. For this I am grateful. 

The Year of the Pivot

Boy howdy, we all had to pivot, and my artistic path was no exception. For some time now, I've been cruising along, avoiding change. Then Covid hit and I was forced into it. Here is the list of all the new things I did this year:

1. I invested in an art business class by Alyson Stanfield at www.artbizsuccess.com Through working with her I have rebranded my website, had more fun with the language I use when talking about my work, upped my social media use, and, as you may have noticed, wrote more blogposts!

2. I taught myself a whole new medium, printmaking. Again, as the economy has contracted, my hope is to have a wider array of price points to appeal to a larger audience.

3. I have set up my first online store so I can sell some of my work directly to you.

4. I had a major exhibition “Story Without a Plot” at RiverSea Gallery. Along with the regular preparations for a show, I took a crash course in online communications, producing a live video recording of the opening and an online artist talk. These videos are preserved on my blog here.

5. In response to Black Lives Matter, I made a commitment with a few friends to learn more about racism, and how I unwittingly contribute to white supremacy by my own lack of understanding. As you can imagine, this work has been unpleasant and difficult, but I am so glad I have the opportunity to learn and to hopefully be part of the solution in my own small way.

Perseverance

If there is anything my new-found middle-aged wisdom has taught me, it is that without perseverance success is impossible. I have committed time, money and effort into my career with no immediate results. However I've got the feeling I am headed in the right direction, and I am truly excited by what lies ahead!

I would like to thank all of you out there who have supported me over the years, and I dearly hope that my efforts have brought at least a weensy bit of levity and inspiration to you.

I am sending you all warm thoughts and hopes of good luck and a Happier New Year.


PS. Alyson sent along a wonderful article by Rosie Spinks: 2020 Will Never End Unless You Grieve It. It helped me have more awareness about the collective emotions we have about the year that has been. I hope it does the same for you. Love to you and yours.

Story Without a Plot Artist Talk

Through the month of August, I will be the featured artist at RiverSea Gallery in beautiful Astoria, OR.

Show dates: August 8th - September 8th
RiverSea Gallery 1160 Commercial St, Astoria, OR.

The opening night for Story Without a Plot was a wonderful success!
Thank you to all the people who attended my art opening at RiverSea Gallery last night, online or in person.
In association with the show we held an artist talk. Times being what they are, we did it online in a zoom call. This is an edited video of the artist talk. I talked about why I am inspired by film noir, discuss how I develop an image, then open the “room” up for questions.

Additionally, a portion of the opening was filmed, and you can watch the video embedded below. In it you can see the art up on the wall, and listen to myself and other people talk about the work.

 

 

New Year's Evolutions

Like many of you, my year has been filled with successes and also some setbacks.

One of the upsides to my setbacks is that I have a lot more time on my hands and my life is more in balance. A balanced life is supposedly a good thing. But in the U.S., being “too busy” is a point of pride, a dysfunctional way in which we feel we are important, that we are “getting somewhere”, that we are “making progress”, that we are relevant. For many of us, being overworked and under rested is a status symbol. It gives us the illusion of success.

I'm not a person who makes New Year's resolutions, but each year at this time I do take stock of the year that was, and set intentions for the year to come. So as the old year turns and the new year dawns, I am asking myself what “success” means to me and what does it look like?

Since I do not need to make a living from my art, I have the latitude to define success anyway I like. But this fortunate circumstance creates its own pitfall.

My friend Kelly Williams often asks; “what is your fear?” Mine is to be considered a dilettante.

Merriam Webster:
Dilettante
1 : a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge : dabbler

My great fear is that I will not be taken seriously as an artist. This translates into a vague array of circumstances that I desire; a certain number of galleries, a certain number of shows, a certain number of sales. Ambitions that are vague and unconsidered have a funny way of driving me in ways that are often unsustainable and inappropriate to my more healthy desires and actual circumstances. So I am taking some time to evaluate my desires and create appropriate goals.

Will I actively search for more representation, or is that appropriate to my artistic output? Will I develop a technique that is quicker and less laborious, or is my slow pace of artmaking something I can indulge in, and simply adjust my expectations to be in line with it? Shall I go back into the intaglio printmaking I dipped my toe into last spring? What if I were to branch out further into woodblock printing? How would more printmaking affect my connection to my audience? Would it make my art more accessible?

These are some of the possibilities I have rambling around in my head. I am so grateful that I have the blessing and the luxury of being able to fulfill my life dream of being an artist. I look forward to sharing with you the paths I take, where it leads me and the art that results from it all.

I wish you a felicitous New Year!

The Making of "Collared" - the Final Piece

As I described in my last post, my technique for developing my collage paintings involves multiple steps. It starts with a drawing, then moves onto a small collage sketch on illustration board, then onto the large final piece on wood panel.

In my last post I shared with you as I made the drawing and then went onto the collage sketch. In this post I made three short videos about the making of the large, final version of "Collared".

Please excuse the film and sound quality of these videos - I'm still learning how to produce them! Here is a picture of the piece at the stage it was in when I made this video.

The Making of "Collared" Take 1! from Leslie Peterson Sapp on Vimeo.

Who is Leland Bell? A great American artist who started out as an abstract painter and moved onto figurative, narrative painting. (Not to be confused with the other Leland Bell, a Native American painter who shares the same name.)

Leland Bell, "Three Figures with Butterfly" 1979-82

After working on it for a few hours, I followed up with a review of my decisions. 

The Making of "Collared" Take 2! from Leslie Peterson Sapp on Vimeo.

This is the final video where show ways I have resolved certain issues, and new decisions I have to make. 

The Making of Collared Take 3! from Leslie Peterson Sapp on Vimeo.

And here it is! The final piece is done. Email me for purchasing information.

Leslie Peterson Sapp, "Collared" 16"x20" $950.00

The Making of "Collared"- a Work in Progress

As many of you know, my technique for developing my collage paintings involves multiple steps. It starts with a drawing, then moves onto a small collage sketch on illustration board, then onto the large final piece on wood panel.

During the past week I participated in a facebook/instagram challenge put on by my art business coach Cory Huff at The Abundant Artist. Because of this challenge I created three short videos of myself discussing creating of my newest collage sketch for a piece I will call "Collared".

Here are all three videos, (each one is about 2 minutes long) along with pictures of the sketch at it's various stages.

 First, here is the image itself. I was attracted to the woman's collar - hence the title! I also find that the word has many, somewhat uncomfortable meanings and associations which I think helps add depth to the image.

Next, here a is one of two drawings I did of the scene, trying to simplify and create order of the image.





As you can see, I made the collage sketch while at the beach for a long holiday weekend. Maybe this is why I appear so jovial.
Making of "Collared" collage sketch, take 1 from Leslie Peterson Sapp on Vimeo.

This the first stage of the sketch:

Making of "Collared" collage sketch take 2! from Leslie Peterson Sapp on Vimeo.

Next I made a big decision about color. In the first picture, the table tops in this bar are tan colored. This tan color is my go-to color choice for table tops. But making"by route" choices is the downfall for a fine artist! The purple-taupe cools the image down and creates a mood.

In the final video, I talk about some of the last adjustments I need to make to feel "right" about the finished sketch.

The Making of "Collared" take 3. from Leslie Peterson Sapp on Vimeo.
And here is the final! (Maybe! I am still wondering about that wine bottle.)

Now I will move onto the final piece, which will probably 16"x20".

 (BTW, this collage sketch is also for sale! It is 4"x5" and is $150.00)

How Do Artists Restore After a Big Show?

Last month my show “Man of Many Wiles” at Gallery 114 was a wonderful success! The turnout was good, I made some sales and got a lot of support from friends new and old. This success was because of a tremendous effort of time, energy, will and risk-taking. I pushed the envelope of my comfort zone on multiple fronts. Thankfully, the efforts paid off and I am satisfied with the results.

Now that the show is over and done, I find I am a bit out of sorts. I expected myself to keep the momentum going and immediately started to think about what to do next. It has taken me a bit of time to realize that what I really need is to pause and restore.

I have a lot of things to consider:

Do I continue doing more work with The Odyssey?
Do I go back to my Film Noir series?
Do I expand my Odyssey series to include other sources from literature, such as The Metamorphoses, Norse Mythology, or even Shakespeare?
Where do I show next? What is my next venue?

I have a tendency to ride myself a bit hard. I have realized that I can’t simply continue to produce without taking some time to relax, dream, and reassess my desires and goals. Some of the ways in which I am restoring myself are:

• Back to doing little, no-pressure drawings and sketches. 
• Reading things that interest and inspire me. 
• Catching up with things I couldn’t do while I was working so hard.
• Gardening.
• Cleaning up my studio, reorganizing my stuff in a way that feels good. 
• Looking at other artists’ work and becoming inspired. 
• Beach time!

I trust and respect my process.
I trust and respect my inner rhythms.
I trust that "it" will come back to me, better and stronger than ever.

How do you restore yourself after a huge endeavor?