On Thursday, I did something that, perhaps unbelievably, felt pretty scary to me. I dropped one of my new paintings (the one above) off at the Harrisburg Art Association for their annual members show.
It’s a little baffling that submitting a single painting to a local art show would feel so terrifying to me. After all, I’ve been showing my jewelry, in exhibitions, boutiques, craft shows, trade shows, and stores, for the better part of twenty years. And I had no shortage of experience showing the sculpture I created in graduate school either, culminating in two two-person shows of my MFA thesis work after leaving school.
So why should showing this painting feel so scary?
Perhaps it’s because, unlike with my jewelry, I’m still trying to find my voice in painting. Or the fact that, while I actually took many painting classes while in high school (including summer programs at Lebanon Valley College and the University of the Arts in Philly), I feel a little more like a novice when it comes to painting.
It may even be that my paintings feel like they come from a much more personal place than my jewelry or even my sculpture, which definitely had a more academic bent.
But I think the biggest reason is simply that when I look at my current paintings, my first thought is that they are weird. When I’m up in my studio making them, I can’t help but shake the feeling that these are strange little paintings.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against weird. In fact, thinking of my paintings as weird reminds me of a story from when I was in undergrad.
Taking a sculpture class where we were explicitly not allowed to make jewelry, I asked the professor if I could make something wearable for my final project.
His response: “Well you’re weird enough that you can make that work.”
In this case, weird wasn’t a negative. It was a compliment about my ability to push and challenge ideas and do something different.
But I’m not in art school anymore. Instead, I’m a jewelry designer and metalsmith with an established brand. And more than that, I’m living in a small town, in a relatively rural area, with tastes that could be described mostly as conservative.
When it comes to weird, there’s definitely a continuum. What’s weird in one circumstance is practically normal in others.
Walking around the Whitney and the Met Breuer in New York with my friend Amber the other week and thinking about my own work, it didn’t feel weird.
But when I think about what most of the people in my area picture when they think about art, my work feels weird. (Though you could argue the same about some of my jewelry.)
Still, even though these feelings of weirdness make it kind of terrifying to show my work in a local venue, I made myself do it anyway. The past few months of shifting more of my energy from screens to real life have made me profoundly aware of the need to share my art in physical venues, not just online.
Especially since my need to cultivate a less digital, more physical life was one of the big motivators to start painting again.
So even when (especially when) it feels uncomfortable to show my work, I’m flexing my brave muscles and trying to share more in real life, and that starts with some local venues.
Not only that, I’m trying lean into my weirdness a little more by taking comfort in the fact that there’s actually plenty of weird in the world. I’m seeking out more weird art (both in person and online) and filling my home and studio with plants that I find weird. (Like cacti and succulents. Because there’s no denying that there are some really weird, really cool plants in those categories.)
And most importantly, I’m recognizing that weird is just another way of saying unique or individual or one of a kind. So when I feel like my work is weird, I know I’m on to something, because it’s getting me one step closer to making paintings that are distinctly mine.
PS. This particular painting isn’t for sale (because it’s still in the show!) but you can shop more paintings from this body of work in my online store!
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