Freedom to Create - I am Back

The nice thing about signing up for something (a concert,a game, an event) way in advance is that when the time comes up on the calender you HAVE to go whether it is convenient or not.  Happily, my latest version of this was the Art & Soul Retreat down in Hampton, VA. http://www.artandsoulretreat.com I carpooled with my Stifel & Capra colleague Christine of Society Hill Design http://www.societyhilldesigns.com . 

I really lucked out because I abhor driving and for the price of a tank of gas Chris drove the whole way, hooray!  The excellent traffic boded well for the event.  The retreat too went super smoothly.  Everything was easy to find, the people were lovely, the instructors informative, the food? well it was an Embassy Suites after all so we will make allowances there.  I learned a LOT while I was away but one of the most interesting sessions I took was by a gentleman named Jesse Reno.

Jesse is a former musician turned full time artist and he led a class called "Freedom to Create".  Leading was more like herding cats.  Imagine a group of 27 women, average age 62 (and that is with me being 50!) all kibitzing and commenting, all in a positive way of course!  Jesse's loving response? "Dude, shut the ()^)*&^& up, these other folks came to hear me not you!"  Jesse had a lot to say about his creative process, the cold turkey shift from music to art and how to live the proverbial artist's life.  It was really inspiring to hear someone with no excuses.  Although I received the info a bit wistfully as I seem to be full of excuses these days.

We did two exercises, the first of which involved pumping red, blue, yellow, white & black paint onto a plastic plate and painting with our hands.  This was a little traumatic for some manicured ladies.  My hang-up?  mixing paint.  But I went into this thinking that I was "just going to use these papers for collage backgrounds" so I really went at it with abandon, dare I say freedom?  Making BIG, messy pieces on paper felt great, non precious and with nothing to lose I was rather thrilled how my pieces came out.  In keeping with my new resolution to actually FINISH things I start,I came home, harassed my lovely neighbor Beth into matting my pieces for me, hung them on FIRSTfriday, and darn if one of them didn't sell!  I am so proud.  Proud I did something new, proud I actually got them on the wall and even prouder that the pieces actually spoke to someone.  Life is good.