The Newest Year

As time passes...

and night falls on 2012...

I remember...

the highs...

and the lows...

the moments of contemplation...

and moments of pain...

objects found...

and people lost...

feeling the weight of the world...

and feeling light as a feather...

a sense of calm...

and being content...

feeling off balance...

and finding my way...

climbing to new heights...

and realizing the sky is the limit...

and throughout it all...

Thank you all for being such a big part of my world this past year. I look forward to sharing the journey together as 2012 becomes 2013. Wishing you and your families a very happy, healthy and creative 2013. May every dream come true!

5x5: Chapter 9

I may be the author of The Pulse of Mixed Media but the true, creative force behind my book is the group of artists who generously shared their secrets and passions and, of course, their art. It was important to me that this book be representative of our entire artistic community, but the total number of contributors I could include was limited by the number of pages in the book. Not wanting to be contained by page numbers, I decided that the Internet was the perfect vehicle to extend the book and be able to include more of the community. With this in mind, the 5x5 Pulse Project was born.

The Pulse of Mixed Media presented the results of a survey in which contributing artists were asked questions that they had to answer with words or provided with prompts that they had to respond to by creating art. These ideas were combined in the 5x5 Pulse Project. I put out an open call for artists to submit artwork created in response to one or more of the following questions that were part of the original book:

1. If your artwork could talk, what would it say?

2. Who has had the most impact on your creative life?

3. What is one thing you have never shared with the creative community?

Submitting artists could chose 1, 2, or all 3 of the questions and respond to each by creating artwork in any medium in the form of a 5" x 5" square. They were asked to include words as a part of their artwork as well. There was a tremendous response to this call and I will be posting each submission every Sunday throughout the months of November and December. 

The 5x5 project is also being featured in a ten-page spread in the November/December 2012 issue of Somerset Studio, now available in stores and online here.

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Who has had the most impact on your creative life?

Stephanie Hilvitz

"The women in my life. My artists tribe. My grandmothers. My mother."

Paula Bogdan

"Thank you dad for constantly reminding me that I have a brain in my head and that I can do anything I want to do. Thank you for putting that first camera in my hands and for showing me life's beauty."

Amy Duncan

"I owe my creative spirit to my mom...fostered at an early age"

Sarah Fishburn

"A child of the 1930s, she played with her sisters, the neighborhood children, and all the other little things that comprised her world. She grew up to be dizzyingly clever and dazzingly beautiful. She is never far from my thoughts."

Lelainia Lloyd

"For the last 15 months I've been taking online photography classes with the fabulous Vivienne McMaster. Taking on photography was a huge leap for me. Picking up a camera & learning to use it to make art was way outside my comfort zone. Vivienne has informed my creative practice & forever changed my artistic life."

Maggie Crawford

"Since discovering rubber stamping in 1996 I have taken many classes from a number of very talented teachers on the art retreat circuit - all of whom have influenced me and helped me to grow along the way. I have tried lots of different mixed media art forms but am happiest with art journaling, book making and collage. I create art just for myself, for my own enjoyment and fulfillment. I don't have a blog as I would rather be making art than writing about it, but I do get an incredible amount of inspiration from checking out other people's blogs. I cannot chose just one person. Everyone I have encountered has had some impact; large or small. I thank everyone who has inspired me on this incredible journey but most of all me. I discovered a passion and nurtured this creative life for myself."

What is the one thing you have never shared with the creative community?

Barbara Kleinhans

"I feel stuck in this repetitive landscape"

Chris Meissner

"Broken, disheartened, isolated, alone, outsider, misfit, disenchanted, disappointed, left out, forgotten, wounded, regret, broken."

Deborah Guthrie

"Meltdowns. Good old I'm a loser meltdowns. I can rage as hard as I delight. Thank goodness I delight most of the time as the rages steal so much. I work hard at walking the walk and talking the talk as an artist/instructor but sometimes the ground gives out and a storm blows in and rages. It passes and I believe once again."

Trudi Sissons

"I know all the words to Tiny Tim's Tip Toe Through the Tulips"

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This is the last edition of 5x5. Join me for a new Pulse question - the last in the 5th series of The Pulse - in the new year on Sunday, January 6th.

Collaboration Station

In my continuing efforts to slowly update my blog, I have recently added two new static links just below the blog header: a link to my ONLINE SHOP and a link to a page that highlights my COLLABORATIONS with other artists. I attribute much of my growth as an artist to the many collaborations that I have been involved with. You can read some of my thoughts about collaborative projects in this article from the MMCA Marketplace Blog from 2010.

Although I have taken some time off from collaborations in the recent past to focus on other projects, I hope to get back to creating with other artists just as soon as I have a bit more time.

In prepping my collaborations page I realized that I had never posted pictures from my collaboration with Sarah Whitmire. Both Sarah and I created our own handmade and handbound books, which we traded back and forth via mail for the three years of the project. We each worked in both books, sometimes creating our own pages and, even more challenging, sometimes working on every page - on top of the other person's art.

So, by way of introducing my new collaborations page, here are some of our pages from my book...

The Business of Art

In 2010 a series of survey questions were posted on my blog as a means of ‘taking the pulse’ of the online art community. More than 40 questions were posed and the results of the survey were presented as sidebars in my book The Pulse of Mixed Media: Secrets and Passions of 100 Artists Revealed. The survey tapped into a range of issues, both practical and psychological, related to being an artist today.

In Pulse Points, my newest series continuing here today on Create Mixed Media, select survey questions from the book were presented to several different groups of artists working in mixed media and beyond. 

Today's rockstar panel includes: Mary Beth Shaw, Marie Otero, Ronda Palazzari, and Angela Wales Rockett.

Today's questions and original survey results from The Pulse of Mixed Media:

How do you feel about the "business side" of being an artist?

This aspect is usually problematic for me…53%

Don't really embrace the business side but I handle it well…28%

I feel equally able to focus on both creativity and business...12%

The business side is easy: it is the creating that is hard...2%

If you sell your work, do you have trouble with pricing?

No, I have a system that works for me…8%

Yes, but overall I am comfortable with my pricing decisions…42%

Yes, and as a result I tend to underprice…48%

Yes, and as a result I tend to overprice…2%

And a taste of what our panel members had to say:

Mary Beth Shaw: "Coming from my previous life in corporate America, I find the business side inevitable and easy...of course that doesn't mean I like it."

Marie Otero: "I think the key is in recognizing where you want to go with your art and understanding what it will take for you to achieve your goals." 

Ronda Palazzari: "While the business side of is not my favorite part and I would rather be creating, I appreciate that I have to take care of it in order to create."

Angela Wales Rockett: "I am learning to be clear with myself about my own definition of success, and not to compare my efforts and results with somebody else's."

Head on over to Create Mixed Media to hear much more of what the panel has to say about these issues. You can also read the first three posts in the series if you missed them. And if you would like, please share your own thoughts in the comment sections here or at CMM.

5x5: Chapter 8

I may be the author of The Pulse of Mixed Media but the true, creative force behind my book is the group of artists who generously shared their secrets and passions and, of course, their art. It was important to me that this book be representative of our entire artistic community, but the total number of contributors I could include was limited by the number of pages in the book. Not wanting to be contained by page numbers, I decided that the Internet was the perfect vehicle to extend the book and be able to include more of the community. With this in mind, the 5x5 Pulse Project was born.

The Pulse of Mixed Media presented the results of a survey in which contributing artists were asked questions that they had to answer with words or provided with prompts that they had to respond to by creating art. These ideas were combined in the 5x5 Pulse Project. I put out an open call for artists to submit artwork created in response to one or more of the following questions that were part of the original book:

1. If your artwork could talk, what would it say?

2. Who has had the most impact on your creative life?

3. What is one thing you have never shared with the creative community?

Submitting artists could chose 1, 2, or all 3 of the questions and respond to each by creating artwork in any medium in the form of a 5" x 5" square. They were asked to include words as a part of their artwork as well. There was a tremendous response to this call and I will be posting each submission every Sunday throughout the months of November and December. 

The 5x5 project is also being featured in a ten-page spread in the November/December 2012 issue of Somerset Studio, now available in stores and online here.

---------------------------------

If your artwork could talk, what would it say?

Kim Henkel

"I have brought joy, peace and comfort
I have brought silence, beauty. strength
to the very heart of my creator.
I have let in the light."

Cat Storey

"grow"

Robert Stockton

"I exist as a fragment of the everyday details of a life lived in another place or time."

Olivia King

"She often does not know the way. She stands alone in front of me waiting, sifting through memories looking for the still point of a fragment, a whisper, a color. Then she begins with her brush. because she must show you what lies beneath her soul."

Karen Isaacson

"What will she do next?"

Lindi Stevenson

"Art...in real life. Where have you been?"

Carrie Siems

"My artwork did have something to say... until I took the words right out of its mouth. Seriously, have you looked inside?"

Sandy Babb

"I extol the warmth of I the shimmering summer sun.... I express the purity of the atmosphere on full moonlit star studded nights... I express the verdure of the forests that cover the hills and hollows of her home both through color and symbol... I express the intricacy and detail with which she likes to create... I express creative freedom and artistic adventure where the inception of new ideas are formed and begin being worked out... I express the emerging artist who is slowly working her way out of  her insulated cocoon and testing her new found wings..."

Who has had the most impact on your creative life? 

Carol Henley

"Find A Project was the standard cure for almost everything... So... I learned to be very creative! Thanks Mom!"

Elizabeth Bunsen

"shadowlady"

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The next and last edition of 5x5 will be posted on Sunday, December 30th.