April Love Letter: Everything is practice
Happy April dear friend.
I can’t believe we are already through the first quarter of the year. I hope you are starting to feel the transition of the seasons in a positive way wherever you are in the world. Here in Austin, TX we are starting to experience our first 90 degree (32 celsius) days and I couldn’t be happier.
Spring will always come is a mantra I have had on my mind this past month. One of my favorite yoga teachers, Kyle Miller, shared this quote that I really love:
“One day the forest appears gray and lifeless, the next day sunbeams cast warm light on branches brimming with buds.” from the book Between Heaven and Earth by Harriet Beinfield and Efern Korngold.
We are in the season of new life and renewal. Lately I have been focusing on patience and keeping in mind that things unfold as they are ready. I once heard that changes often take 3 months to show any kind of result. Just like seeds need time to root and sprout. Sometimes it is difficult for me to see that, I always want to know something is right or see change immediately in the moment but for most things that is impossible. It takes a lot of trust to be that patient. This is what inspired me to create this month’s sticker sheet from my flower series from January. I know that this series has influenced some of my recent work, though it might not directly look like it. I always believe that each painting helps to influence the work that comes after it, even if that might be months (or even years) down the line.
April’s Mail Club
I will be honest that painting has been the last thing I have wanted to do this past month. In February I took a class to learn TouchDesigner which I absolutely loved. I also have been learning a lot about music and have some big goals this year on integrating the two. But with that I have struggled to figure out how to balance it with my painting practice. I have put a lot of pressure on myself to paint and my focus has been trying to relieve that negative mindset. So this month I started approaching everything I do as practice. A lot of times when I paint I am very critical and it is often not that enjoyable until I decide something is finished. So I have started thinking of my studio time like practicing basketball when I was 11 years old in my driveway. Every paint stroke is like shooting a free throw. Sometimes the ball goes in, sometimes it hits the rim, but every time it doesn’t really matter, you just get the ball and shoot again. It is being in this state of flow that makes things so much easier and beautiful. I have been bringing this lens of practicing when communicating with my partner, applying for art open calls, starting a new routine, etc. This mindset has been really helpful for me in letting go of perfection in all aspects of my life.
The prints this month are a result from this approach in my studio practice. I started experimenting with monoprinting by creating single prints using gel plates. This way of creating took away some of the control I had over the work. I never knew how much of the paint would transfer onto the paper from the gel plate and many of these pieces had multiple layers of transfers. I really enjoyed the process and seeing what emerged. The two prints in this month’s mailing were some of my favorites. They both look like landscapes to me, but I would love to know how you see them. If there is a memory or place that the composition or colors remind you of, feel free to share that with me. What I love about landscapes is that they can be so simple but carry so many different meanings and places depending on the viewer.
If you would like to purchase April’s mail club mailing, you can shop past mail clubs here. You can join The Club for May’s mailing by signing up here by April 15th.
Thanks for reading, thanks for being here. I hope you have a great April full of new experiences and fresh perspectives.
love & light
-anna