(what happens when) waiting for the perfect painting studio

"My Warrior for the Feminine Divine" mixed media on canvas 72"x72" 2015  all rights reserved by Laurie Maves

Since my last Linked-In blog post, I have been patiently (who am i kidding - sometimes not so patiently) waiting for my new studio to come to fruition. In April I wrote the entry "Fliegen" Away on 4/15, as I was in the midst of packing up my desk, my paints, my easels, boxes of magazines, various collage materials, brushes, etc etc.  You name it, in the 2D art world of media, I was probably boxing, taping, and bubble wrapping those various materials away. I had to leave my 2000 square foot studio as my landlords were changing spaces, and I was along with them for the ride, so where they went, so did I.  At the time, I thought I might be down and out for only a month.  That was all well and good, because I was in the middle of my wedding and glorious honeymoon to one of my favorite countries on the planet, Italy. Honestly, I had many other thoughts on my mind in the month of May, than making that fourth grand 72"x72" painting of 2015, or completing the next commission on my log.

But now two months to the date have passed, and I'm still without a completed studio and boy is it really showing my over-achieving, anxiety-ridden, always need to be accomplishing something, dark side.  My newly-wed husband, who is gracious enough to cut a space out of his business's warehouse to create me a beautifully north-facing sunlit 1000 square foot studio, has been more than accommodating and supportive. "Take the summer off, Laurie. This is my busy season, and I only have spare guys to build your space when the company slows down, and we're super busy right now.  Take some time to be with your boys, relax, enjoy the summer, read some books, practice your Italian. I love you.  You know it's ok to slow down every once in awhile.  Take this time as a gift."

What??? Take the summer off??? Relax??? Enjoy the summer??? What does that mean? Is he crazy?

And the more time I went without a studio, the more I realized I was a certified downright art-making-junkie. I had been pushing my work, my paintings, my concepts, my social media so hard for so long - for over a decade - that I really didn't know what it meant to cool it.  Not to mention, I was an avid yogi as well. I have been practicing yoga for about the same amount of time I have been steadfastly pursuing my art career. So why is it that I cannot seem to practice my practice?

Why does it seem like even after all the Kris Carr, Mastin Kipp, and Deepak Chopra articles, podcasts and videos that I have absorbed like a sponge over the years that I cannot be at peace when I am not at work?

Is it because my art-making is more than a self-made job? More than a pay check and aspiring fancy career? Is it because I have a type A personality? Is it because I am a perfect example of a mom, who doesn't want to be categorized as a "soccer-mom" or "stay at home mom" because that somehow defines me as weak and less than? Is it because my over-achieving personality since childhood has its claws so deep into my guts that when the most important person in my life says, "hey honey take a break, you deserve it," that I feel guilty...almost as if that is impossible to do?

Why as 30-50 year old something women do we push ourselves to such crazy extremes only to find we are truly making our lives - even the most brilliant ones - more chaotic? Why do we beat ourselves up when we are not creating, achieving or being the best "mommy" on the block? Why is it so hard to just 'be"?

I'm still wondering about all of this about myself and about high-achieving mommies in general. And even more so, I wonder about this for creatives, artists, writers, and the like, when we seem to have the ability to have a dream job, dream husband, dream kids and it's still not enough to take the guilt away of not performing? Perhaps I need to sign up for another round of talk therapy to calm my nerves while I await my new warehouse studio's walls to go up. Maybe I should take a page out of my own Art Therapist's background and draw about my anxiety of not having a working studio I can run to. Maybe the creative process is SO innate in individuals like myself, that when people like me do NOT create, we do in fact go a little bit batty? I can't even begin to tell you I have the answer at the moment, and maybe that's life's process, to create this puzzle along the way that I am driven to put together and continually solve? Maybe I won't be asking these questions of myself 10 years from now, and maybe just maybe I can learn to chill the hell out this summer, when I don't have a shop up and running.

Is that possible?

Check back with me in thirty days, and I'll let you know. Studio or no studio, I'd better figure it out, read a book, draw in my journal, get a sun burn, and make some home-made focaccia.

a Venus for the 2015 Denver Chalk Arts Festival

the end of Saturday, day one, we got a lot of chalk on the ground...twice!

Ah, the annual Denver Chalk Art Festival! What an amazing event, 13 years in the running.  I was able to participate again this year, which marks my fourth or fifth year chalking it up. Many of my local artist friends have been showing up every year, but this was the first in about 5 years that I had volunteered my chalking efforts on the streets of Larimer Square.

I was told by one Larimer Arts Association member that approximately 100,000 people would walk the streets and get a viewing of over a hundred amazing examples of temporary chalk art over the weekend.

The annual chalk arts event in Denver runs for three days. We would have started outlining our works on Friday June 5th, had the weather in Denver not been so very wet.

So we waited (we being the Laurie Maves Art team of myself and my eldest son, Forest) until Saturday June 6th to get started on out 8'x8' reproduction of one of my 2015 paintings called, 

"Venus and the Ponte Vecchio"

detail of Laurie Maves' 72"x72' mixed media painting on canvas, 2015. all rights reserved by the artist

Below are some photos of the weekend's process, including the untimely downpour at 3pm in the afternoon, which inevitably washed away over 80% of what Forest and I had gotten on the pavement in the prior 6 hours of work.

9 am on Saturday morning

just about noon on Saturday. Forest at work 

and then the rains came at 2pm

and this is what remained...

by the end of day one

venus detail day 2, Sunday June 7, 2015

after a day's worth of hustle I was able to complete the image Forest and I started

many thanks to our square sponsor, the band, Something Underground

When all was said and done, even with the rains and all the back-breaking, knee-crunching work, the image came out beautifully.  I am so grateful for the assistance of my son on day one. What a great way to spend 8 ours with a fabulous child. I am also most grateful to have had the opportunity to work next to a longtime artist colleague and dear friend, Eric Matelski. Eric was the guy who said to me over a decade ago, "If you can chalk live, you can paint live!" and my life changed from then on!
For more information on the annual event, visit the Larimer Arts.org website

"fliegen" away 4/15

The annual date of April 15th can drudge up a variety of thoughts, feelings and emotions for many. It is the national, "pay your taxes day." And for some that just makes us crazy, especially if you're a creative right brained sort of person. - Luckily I am a middle of the road left-brained artist. I am a creative, yet I desire to be extremely organized and efficient. I was able to be so very efficient this year, that I already submitted my taxes and even had a week to go!

For this artist, however, April 15, 2015 brings up a new date. It is a date that I will be closing my studio at 2590 W. 2nd Avenue in Denver, CO. It was a lovely space, it was open and it was grand. Almost 2000 square feet of creative space for all my grandiose ideas. I rented this space for the past 2 years, and what a beauty of a space it was. Anyone that walked into it was in awe, of the high ceilings, the opening garage doors and the wonderful vibe I had going there. I even hosted a few fundraisers and small concerts in the space. But alas, as what happens to most of the artists I know that are at the mercy of their landlord, mine is re-locating and therefore so must I.

Change.

The only consistent in life is that change happens. Over the last 15 years of making art in Denver, I have moved my studio at least 8 times that I can recall. I had 2 different spaces in an old school building that was eventually plowed to the ground to make a parking lot (just like the Joni Mitchell song), 2 spaces in the old Zook building in downtown Denver that was sold to make upscale urban apartments, 2 difference spaces on Inca Street, one space in the basement of a yoga studio in the famous Santa Fe Arts District, and then the masterpiece warehouse at 2590 W. 2nd Avenue in Denver. That's a lot of moving for sure.

So instead of packing everything up and moving again, for the meantime, I'm just going to pack up and store my large pieces and work small scale in my home until I can decide what my next greatest space will be. And even though I stressed about this decision at first, I am totally at peace with it now, because I know a new space will arise when the time is right that will be a perfect fit for what I need.

I actually am looking forward to challenging myself by working on smaller scale pieces and journals that I can sell online on eBayhttp://www.ebay.com/usr/lauriemavesart or via my ETSY pagehttps://www.etsy.com/shop/LaurieMavesARTsy . I will still be taking commissions, as well as working on my pieces for the grand exhibition I am having with Erica Jane Huntzinger at the Frank Juarez gallery in Wisconsin later this year, but I will not have to manage a ginormous studio space and that comes with a bit of relief.

So in a week it will be time to Fliegen - the German word for "FLY." And who knows where I will land next, but I know I must embrace the view along the way.

"Fliegen" Circle Painting from 2014. 24"x24" mixed media on masonite. all rights reserved by the artist. The original available for purchase.

20 and Counting

"20 and Counting" is the proposed title of the collaborative show between Erica Jane Huntzinger and myself that will be exhibited at the Frank Juarez Gallery in Sheboygan Wisconsin 10/24/15 - 11/28/15 with an opening reception on Saturday November 7th from 5-8pm. 

Erica Jane and I met in September of 1995 as we started our quest to navigate our way through the Graduate Art Therapy Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Erica and I were first and foremost artists. And really we just wanted to be fine artists, but really had no mentors to speak of that could help us wrap our brains around what it meant to be part of the professional art world. So we both turned to the field of Art Therapy as a career, knowing in our heart of hearts that using the creative process to help other people (but most noteworthy, ourselves) would be a natural fit for a profession for the creative and caring beings that we were.

here we are on the streets of Chicago circa 1997

Erica and I had become fast friends throughout our time in the SAIC program, and found that our most favorite class projects were those where we could paint, draw and collage rather than study advanced psychology, or learn how to do take downs in mental health facilities.

Art was our being, our knowing, our language. Ever since we could remember.

Following graduation, I decided to leave Chicago and head to the wild west of Denver, Colorado. Erica stayed in Chicago and later moved to Wisconsin.  But even though we struggled with the great physical distance between our homes, we always found a way to continue our friendship and connection. Over time, Erica and I both found our way working as art therapists in mental health facilities, teaching in preschools, working with the elderly, as well as holding positions in galleries and museums. And when the work day was over, we would both head to the studios we created for ourselves to make our own art, be they in our basements, spare bedrooms, closets, etc. Wherever we could find space to make art, we did. We would make our paintings, and show them around the respective towns and cities that we lived in. Sometimes we would show our works at coffeehouses, restaurants, salons, really anywhere that would hang our work, we would pursue.

Art was our being, our knowing, our language. And over the years of going to a daily job, it became more and more apparent that making art was really our true calling. We just really wanted to be professional artists, after all, but taking that leap of faith and pursuing a fine art profession on more than a part-time basis was simply terrifying. We had jobs with security, health insurance and steady pay checks. How could we leave all that behind?

Well, eventually we both did, in some shape or form, and just like our lives, our art has evolved as well, taking leaps of faith here and there, in our work, in our relationships and in our painting.

20 years later we will be celebrating our 2 decade long relationship with our very own exhibition of 20 paintings and mixed media works. With Erica's influences of Cy Twombly, Jim Nutt and Joseph Cornell and mine of Frida Kahlo, Frances Bacon and Basquiat this collaborative show will focus on twenty years of life lessons, of working as artists, being art therapists, and knowing the importance of the healing quality of being a creative has affected the evolution of our lives.

More information will follow as we receive it from the gallery, but we hope you will be able to join us on 11/7/15 in Sheboygan.

Honoring Your True Potential

(also published on LinkedIn)

Well folks, this blog entry seems to come at a time when I would most rather be celebrating. But unfortunately, I just discovered that I did not win this huge album art contest I had put a great deal of personal time and effort into. Some of you know that I had created a large mural painting on canvas for the German Band, Stanfour, hoping they would recognize a "true artist's" work and select an image created by my hands, bushes, paint and canvas, rather than a graphic design image made via the insides of a computer. I had spent an entire month creating this painting and image for the band. I had spent weeks making a time lapse video to share my process with the world. I promoted the band, I tweeted, I Facebooked, I blogged, I sent emails to my client base to support my work and vote for me!

Alas, all for the end result of coming in what seems to be third place (insert losing horn sound "waa waaa waaaaaa") You can see the results here on the Talenthouse website: https://www.talenthouse.com/i/design-the-official-cover-for-the-new-stanfour-album/submissions

For a sold minute, or two, or three, I was just plain pissed off. How could I have lost? I prayed about winning. I was mindful about my work. I had the support of a village behind me. I got "53 hearts" for crying out loud! The winner and second place only got 16 hearts a piece. I had done positive affirmations the past 24 hours that I had "already won" the #STANFOURCOVER contest. And then I logged into my computer and saw I had been defeated.

In my few moments of wallowing in self-pity, I realized that this isn't how I wanted my afternoon to go. I didn't really enjoy the self-wallowing. I really didn't enjoy looking at that webpage and seeing another artist had been selected. So what did I do next? I turned my head from my computer, I looked around my studio and I said a small prayer of gratitude, to the powers that be, to allow me to continue to create. I looked at my larger than life-sized paintings of Saraswati and Parvati (similar to the ones hanging in the image above) that I have a God-given gift to be a creative. And one win or one loss is not going to change who I am or what I do or my purpose on this planet.

I am the one that determines my worthiness.

I am the one that honors my true potential.

I am the one creating my own life's path.

If we continue to define our personal worthiness, by someone else's awards, we will ever only be just that - defined by others. 

So back to the easel, back to the drawing board, back to the studio I go. I know my purpose on this planet is to make artwork, to make paintings, to honor a person's soul with imagery that I create by my own hands. And when others acknowledge my work, then great! But when I can take a moment to acknowledge my own worthiness, my own accomplishments, by own dear true and brilliant existence as Laurie Maves, my soul shines its brightest.

3 days left to vote!!! 4 Circles for STANFOUR, Time Lapse of painting process for the #STANFOUR...

3 days remain in the Talenthouse Album Art Contest for the band, Stanfour. I would be most appreciative of your vote!

the link is here:

https://www.talenthouse.com/i/567/submission/148579/052ca6fb

thank you!!!!

VOTING STARTS TODAY 3/3 :) please help raise me UP

here is the time lapse video of my process for creating the Album ARTWORK for Stanfour



and here is the link to go VOTE for my FOUR CIRCLES for STANFOUR



LAURIE MAVES on Talenthouse