Updates from Terri on Her Art Journey
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What do you dream to do in retirement? If you’re currently retired, are you living your dream? These were questions I asked in a recent survey of my friends on Facebook, and I got some interesting answers.
Only 10% of those responding said they never plan to retire, either for financial reasons or because their work is fulfilling—what one friend called a “lifeline.” Another 10% said they’re not sure what they want to do and they’re “still working on it.” Sadly, about 5% said they’re “not living the dream” because of the COVID-19 lockdown. But, happily, nearly 75% say they are living the dream; when asked what they’re doing, there were a variety of interesting answers. Some are traveling or living abroad or on a quiet island; others have taken up painting, photography, or finishing a novel; one lady just enjoys walking her pets. Perhaps the most interesting answer came from a friend who retired at the age of 72. When someone joked that he should become an EMT, he took it seriously, trained for eighteen months and now serves happily as an EMT. He says, “I’m living the dream I never had,” proving his point that “maybe unscripted life has a way of writing dreams for you.” I like that philosophy. Sometimes you just have to be open to the unexpected, and not be afraid to try something new. Don’t believe the lies that you’re too old, don’t have the time, can’t afford it, aren’t talented enough or lack the education. Say your dreams out loud and write them down. When you commit them to paper, “impossible” things seem to become reality more quickly. It isn’t magic, and you’ll probably have to work at it, but doors will begin to open. Look for mentors. When I retired, I set some goals for myself and sought expert advice in three specific areas. Even though I had never been particularly creative, I started calling myself a “visual artist.” So, one of the things I needed was a good art instructor, and I found two: Joan Iaconetti for watercolor and Rod Moore for acrylics. The other area I needed help in was my health. In addition to adding exercise to my lifestyle, I wanted someone to show me how to improve my diet and teach me how to cook, and for that I found Isabel Price and her New Life Promise program. (By the way, as a result of Isabel’s advice, I’ve lost more than 30 pounds in just nine months!) And, finally, I needed a spiritual mentor who could show me how to thrive as a Christian artist. For that, God sent me to Matt Tommey and his Created to Thrive mentoring group. Matt has guided me to discover the artist God has designed me to be, showing me how to be in alignment with the Lord’s assignment. Honestly, all of my mentors have been a Godsend. You, too, will find people willing and able to reach out and help you in your journey. Of course, you may have to reach out first. Start dreaming, put some effort into it, open some doors, and surprise yourself!
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You are unique. There’s only one you, and there are two things over which you have total control: your attitudes and your efforts. Therefore, I believe that with a positive attitude and a little hard work, you can be anything you want to be. And, as I stated in my previous blog post, we were all born to create. So, if you haven’t begun your creative journey already, what are you waiting for? For me, my art journey really began when I retired from my career as a journalist and started calling myself a “visual artist.” (More about that in a future blog post.) Today, I want to talk about YOUR creative journey and to encourage you to pursue your dreams, whatever they may be. Malcolm Gladwell once wrote that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a particular skill. That is, of course, unless you were born a virtuoso, such as a musician with perfect pitch or a genius chess player with a brilliant mind. For most of us, to develop master competency requires sacrifice, dedication, commitment and persistent practice. But, as Vince Lombardi points out, practice doesn’t always make perfect; practice makes permanent. In other words, practicing something regularly will make it a permanent habit and only perfect practice will make it perfect. If you practice playing a song with the wrong notes, you’ll have a hard time learning how to play that song correctly. So, a foundational truth is: learn the foundations first! It will make the journey a lot smoother and faster. Would-be novelists will find the pursuit of authorship much easier when they know the basics of grammar, topic sentences, and paragraph structure, for example. And painters will have quicker success if they learn principles of composition, design, values, and color mixing. While you’re learning the foundations and improving your technical skills, do some crazy, courageous stuff, too. Give yourself grace to break away from the rules. If it’s working, trust yourself and go with it. It may not be technically correct, but it could be wonderful. Be true to your artistic voice and be willing to lose in order to win. Along the journey, there may be setbacks and detours, and your commitment may be tested. After all, you may have to create a lot of ugly art before it starts to look good. By the way, that’s where I’m at now – creating lots of ugly art; someday I’ll share some of my ugly art, so you can see just how bad it can be! On my trip to Italy in 2018, I visited the Vatican, the city-state surrounded by Rome and home to the Sistine Chapel. This is where I was introduced to Renaissance Art, Michelangelo's “Creation of Adam” and the iconic image of the “Hand of God’ (pictured above). This fresco, painted between 1508 and 1512 on the chapel’s ceiling, is based on the Biblical story of creation which depicts God breathing life into Adam, the first man created in the Book of Genesis. God’s right hand reaching out to Adam’s left hand signifies the spark of life being passed to humanity and symbolizes God creating man in his own image and likeness.
For artists during the Renaissance, religious themes provided most of the inspiration and content for their paintings and sculpture. During that period, Michelangelo was seen as one of the best choices for highly paid commissions, which led to his extensive work in the Sistine Chapel. His composition on the ceiling carries more than 300 images stretched over 500 square meters, and is a sort of summary of the Book of Genesis, including the story of Noah and the general story of creation. God is portrayed as being accessible, touchable, and close to His creation. Through his painting, Michelangelo captures what the church has been trying to explain to its followers for centuries, evidence that God and humans are nothing if not the perfect image of one another. By reaching out to God, Adam is about to receive the one component that separates humankind from every other beast that roams the Earth—imagination. Because God is Himself an imaginative creator, we humans are born to imagine and create. And we do it best when we do it with God’s help. More than four hundred years after Michelangelo painted “Creation of Adam,” the Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “It is the artist that realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God’s heaven.” As artists, we all have the faculty of imagination, creative intelligence, giftedness and originality. We are inspired by the pictures in our heads (like colored slides projected on a screen), giving us images of ways to see things as they are or could be. We look to God’s own creativity, beginning with Nature, to reveal His intelligence, beauty, mystery, creativity, power and glory. We use the tools of our art—words, colors, motion, breath, song, clay, paint—to combine the forms and elements available to us in striking and original ways. In so doing, we make the pictures in our heads visible to others. At birth, people are gifted with different types of talents. Some call it “natural talent.” I prefer to call it “God-gifted talent.” Whatever you call it, your mission should be to identify your inherent gifts and abilities and share them with the world. What did God make you to do? Design you to design? Build you to build? Create you to create? Like love, creativity should not be a selfish act; it exists for God and others. It’s why I pray that everything I create be for God’s glory and the world’s good. Amen. Artists impart truth based on their own life experiences, so that art is a mirror offering a reflection of life itself. Emma Ferrer of The Florence Academy of Art reiterates by saying, "Art has the power to evoke the same emotions, thoughts, moral and ethical controversies and conflicts that we experience in life." Aristotle put it this way: "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." At the same time, art imitates life and the artist emulates life in various artistic mediums. It's all about the artist's unique understanding of reality. After all, knowledge can be achieved through our own eyes, but perspective is gained by seeing through the eyes of another, bringing humanity towards understanding of PERSONAL TRUTHS.
As I see it, art is a TOOL to relate truth, representing nature, the human form and beauty through artistic means, whether that's photography, watercolors, acrylic paintings, woodworking, sculptures, gardens, quilting, fiber art, fashion or even music. In my case, I hope to explore truth in a two-dimensional way, through photographs and paintings. That's why I profess that "a picture is worth a thousand words." Henrik Ibsen first said, "A thousand words leave not the same impression as does a single deed," and after his death in 1906, his quote was paraphrased into "A picture is worth a thousand words" (mostly in advertisements and publicity campaigns). Its meaning is clear: seeing something is better for learning than having it described. Leonardo da Vinci, the great Italian polymath (person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning) and Renaissance artist, wrote that a poet would be "overcome by sleep and hunger before being able to describe with words what a painter is able to depict in an instant." Born in 1452, he died in 1519, but during his 67 years on Earth, he created such wonderful works of art as Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. I was born exactly 500 years after Leonardo, and I'm already nearly two years older than he was when he died. Although I'm beginning my "art journey" much later in life than the grand master did, I'm eager to start telling my version of the truth through art. And I'm out to prove that it's never too late to use my pictures and paintings to tell my stories. |
AuthorTerri Thompson is a journalist-turned-visual artist, who is on an "art journey" and exploring how to tell her stories through her watercolor and acrylic paintings and photographs. Categories |