CREATIVE ARTISTS

• Thanks to Annie Spratt for featured photo on Unsplash

I do not think of myself as an artist and in trying to find a descriptive word I believe is accurate, I landed on the word PRACTICE.  I am practicing becoming a better writer.  Back on July 31, I published a post called “Carving Out A Creative Life” about the process of becoming an artist and I featured a woodcarver, Ernest Honanie, as an example. I realized I was talking to myself in that post.   Then Kirsten Powers offered a 12-week course using Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” as our text and Kirsten as our guide.  That was completed recently with about 20 out of 80 making it to the finish line, having learned how to practice with more consistency, support and finding our voice as writers.

I continued to publish my weekly posts and as a tribute to Kirsten and fellow classmates, I added an “Artist of the Week” series for 12 weeks, featuring a different artist each week.  There were 6 women, 6 men;  2 sculptors, 2 painters, 1 writer, 1 poet, 1 musician, 2 graphic artist illustrators, 1 dancer, 1 architect, and a group of Amish women quilters.    The following is a list of those 12 artist/creators and you can follow the link which will take you to the post in NOTES on “FROM BOTH SIDES NOW”.  T

This is a different kind of post from my usual and I thought it worth the experiment since I enjoyed the time and effort that went into each one. And I know my loyal subscribers do not necessarily see a NOTE that I post.   So, I am glad to share these with all of you, my fellow artists, writers, readers, subscribers, and followers.  There are some back stories for how and why I chose these representative artists and how each one emerged in the process of choosing, perhaps another story for another time.  This exercise may have revealed something about my thought process, how and comes to me from some internal or external source that I do no fulky understand.  Here are the 12 featured artists.  All you need to do, similar to finding an earlier post, is to go to my NOTES page and look for the date connected to the artist.  As I said, it’s an experiment, finger crossed, hoping you enjoy the results as much as I enjoyed putting them all together.  https://garygruber.substack.com/notes

#1. – August 1 - Roxanne Swentzel - Native American  sculptor from Santa Ana Pueblo in northern New Mexico – “Spinning Woman”

# 2 – August 6   Georgia O’Keefe,- NM painter from Abiquiu, dedicated museum in Santa Fe,  “Pedernal”

#3 -  August 13  Norman Mingo – Illustrator for Mad Magazine and iconic “What, Me Worry?”

#4 – August 20  Ramon Kelly – Mexican American painter. “Modela Mexicana”

#5 – August 27. Robin Wall Kimmerer.- Writer, Scientist, Mother  “Braiding Sweetgrass”

#6 – Sept, 3    Gilllian Lynne – Dancer, choreographer, “Royal Ballet”.  “Cats”.   “Phantom of the Opera”

#7 – Sept. 10 - Moshie Safdie – Architect -  “Habitat 67”.  “Crystal Bridges Museum”

#8 – Sept 17 - José Guadalupe Posada – Mexican graphic artist, “Dia Del Muertos”

#9.   Sept 24. Ben Ortega,  NM woodcarver.  “St. Francis”. 4’4”’ high wooden sculpture

# 10. Sept 30 – Amish women quilters with samples and a back story.

# 11 Oct. 8    Joni Mitchell  - musician, painter  “From Both Sides Now”

# 12  Oct. 15  John O’Donohue -poet. “To Bless the Space Between Us”. 

Thank you for continuing to read and comment on my posts “FROM BOTH SIDES NOW.”    I appreciate the time you take by reading, engaging in different ways, and for sharing your observations and impressions.  If any of you have a suggestion for what you might like to see coming from this muddled mind of mine, knowing what you know “about me” do let me know. For more about me, an earlier post “This Version of Me” back on March 28 will give you some additional details.   Muchas gracias, mi amigos!