People are asking me if I'm excited about my art show coming up and I tell them "Yes, but also indredibly nervous," and they ask, "Is this your first art show?"
It's not my first art show, but it's the first show I have ever done in this medium (acrylic paintings). To be more precise, it's the first time I've ever completed a painting at all, let alone put them on display.
I have always been an artsy type. When I was younger I crafted and created. I spool knitted pot holders like crazy.
Around grade 7 I developed an incessant desire to paint, which I had never done before, and went to Opus and bought myself a canvas and some acrylic paints. I bought a couple colours that appealed to me (mustard yellow, dark green, maroon) and I went home and tried painting the only thing I had ever kind of been able to draw, a cat. I never finished the painting because a) it was terrible, and b) how the hell do you draw/paint eyes? I put next to the garbage bin outside of our complex.
A few years later, maybe grade 11, I attempted once again to paint something. It was a swirling, very well blended, many shades of blue, baby in utero. Kinda weird, I know. I was in an art class with quite a few very talented kids and I was embarrassed by this painting because it lacked any interesting qualities or real skill. I shoved it in the back of my '78 Honda Civic and it rode around with me and my best friend Vanessa for months, until it, too, ended up leaning against the very same garbage can, unfinished and sad.
This incessant urge to paint followed me around for the next 10 years and I did nothing about it. I dabbled in collage and photography (both of which I enjoy) but there was definitely something tugging at my art strings, an urge that needed some serious satisfying.
Finally, about a year ago, I took a two day painting class that was equally inspiring and frustrating, and I attempted for 12 months (or more) to finish the piece I started while in class. Meanwhile, at a two week residency where I had proposed to teach myself how to paint, I instead came up with some mixed media pieces which I showed to the curator at Kafka's. He liked them and agreed to me having a show!
But I still wanted to paint. And I figured that if there was any time to do it, it was now. My creative gut said “paint big!” I wanted to teach myself to paint by painting big. Big canvases cost a lot of money (of which I have none) and so I reached out to my peeps and asked for them to finance the purchase of my canvas in exchange for a finished product in the end. Without the support of these people I wouldn't have been able to make this show happen. They rule. So here it is. A show of the first ever paintings I have completed. Please come celebrate them with me!
