Bosty wanted to explore one of the museums in the Washington, DC area, so he decided to stop by the National Gallery’s East Wing. He was excited to see artwork by famous artists like Pablo Picasso.
As he wandering around the museum, he was drawn to Piet Mondrian’s simple geometric shapes and bold colors.
Wassily Kandinsky’s colorful abstract work also caught his eye, and he enjoyed seeing one of Gustav Klimt’s figurative and patterned paintings.
Wayne Thiebaud’s cake painting made Bosty feel a little hungry. Cake, anyone?
He spent a little time staring in awe at one of Jackson Pollock’s large paintings that was part of the Abstract Expressionist movement.
Wow, is that an Andy Warhol? Bosty is a big fan of pop art.
He also enjoys Impressionist paintings, and was excited to see some work by Claude Monet.
Bosty took a final look around and enjoyed seeing Alexander Calder’s large mobile pieces. He was a little worn out from wandering around every floor of the museum, so he went outside to enjoy the sunny spring weather.
Before leaving the National Mall, he strolled around the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden. It was a beautiful day outside, and it was a wonderful day to see some colorful works of art.
Animals are one of my favorite subjects to tackle when it comes to piecing together my collages. Here’s a piece where I was commissioned to collage a dog that has two different color eyes. I’m thinking my next couple of collages will involve some more wildlife.
In other news, I’m planning to get started with exploring a couple different mediums. As much as I enjoy making collages, it’s always good to change things up every once in a while.
This is a mixed media collage that I made back in high school, “Running Water.” I remember that I made this around the same time I started exploring the collage medium, and quickly grew to love it. This piece is a little more like a traditional collage since you can see distinct fragments that I cut from different magazine images. I also used acrylic paint and oil pastel along with the magazine clippings.
I’ve been told that as a kid, I used to draw an abnormal amount. I’d spend hours with coloring books or craft projects, like making my own paper dolls. When art stopped being a hobby for me and became a part of my daily routine, I noticed a pattern – some people shot down my dreams of becoming a professional artist almost immediately.
When I was graduating from high school, and was getting asked the whole “what’s your plan” question, I remember talking about my creative interests. And I remember hearing a few people tell me sarcastically, “good luck trying to make a living at that.”
And this pattern continued. Later on I decided to pick up art as a second major in college, and started exhibiting my work in galleries after I graduated. Even then I remember hearing the phrase, “it’s difficult making a living as an artist.” Or sometimes, “not many artists can make it big.” And although I had a wonderful support network of friends and family who encouraged my artistic endeavors, I kept having run-ins with people who were trying to dissuade me from the creative life.
So why do so many people feel the need to discourage the artistic lifestyle? Is being an artist really as tough as some people say it is?
Well, being an artist is difficult and so are a lot of other careers. As an artist, you’re essentially running your own business, and being an entrepreneur is a lot of work. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible and that there aren’t people out there who live and work as full-time artists.
For whatever reason, our society likes to feed the idea that art isn’t important, that it’s valued less than math or science. Society tells us this in a variety of ways – let it be the starving artist stereotype or how funding for the arts is usually one of the first things gutted whenever money gets tight. Cultivating this type of thinking gives birth to art naysayers. Or should I call them art un-enthusiasts?
“Moo-ve Out of the Way” Collage on paper. 5″x7″ Order a print
So the next time someone tries to discourage you from your artistic dreams and goals, just remember, you can do anything as long as you set your mind to it. If it’s your dream and passion, then you’ll make it happen. When faced with setbacks and failure, you should never give up – you should pivot or rethink your approach, but never give up. Success happens when you persist. As for all the naysayers you run into along the way? I say you use them for motivation to work even harder, so that you can one day prove them all wrong.
As an artist, I’m constantly finding inspiration around me. Sometimes that inspiration comes from the beautiful sights I see when I travel or go for walks, and other times it comes from unique experiences I have. This past weekend I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the popular Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibit at the Hirshhorn. It was an incredibly inspiring show.
The exhibit consists of five small rooms where two to three people are allowed inside for twenty or thirty seconds. Each room made me feel like I was exploring a new world. The rooms were covered in mirrors and had either lights or sculptures arranged in a pattern that was repeated infinitely in the mirrored walls.
My museum visit lasted hours. My tickets were for 12:30pm but we weren’t admitted until after 1:30pm. The entire show required waiting in line for a chunk of time before we were able to enter each of the five rooms. Although there was a lot of waiting involved, I thought it was well worth it. Only once in a while do I find myself going to an art exhibit where afterwards it leaves me marveling at the beauty of the world. Kusama’s exhibit left me feeling just that- and it left me feeling hopeful, with my imagination reenergized.
So if you have a chance to see Kusama’s work, I highly recommend doing so. Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors exhibit was an experience like no other.
Back in college, I was a Painting Major. Here’s one of the pieces I completed during my freshman year – a myopic landscape. I remember I painted this piece while sitting outside on campus, and I really enjoyed using so many different colors for the reflection in the water. If you’ve seen some of my landscape collage work, you can really see how my work in painting translated over to collage.
This past weekend, Bosty decided to explore the outdoors by heading off to Charlotte, North Carolina. He was anxious to escape the city and get more in touch with nature – so he started off his trip with some kayaking.
When he was tired of kayaking on his own, he decided to watch others paddle in the water, enjoying the sunny weather and blue skies.
Later he strolled around the park and noticed that a sign said that dogs weren’t allowed in the area – oops!
So he wandered away from the signage and into the woods to get some exercise hiking. He loved running around all the trees and kicking up some dust in the trails.
After a long day of hiking around, he took an afternoon break by the water to enjoy the cool breeze and gaze at the beautiful river.
Before long he felt restless again, so he went off to do some outdoor climbing. Unfortunately his paws made it a little difficult to climb, and he couldn’t make it to the top…
Later he went for a stroll and admired the landscape in another local park. “It’s beginning to look a lot like spring!” he thought.
By the end of the day, he was completely exhausted, so he took a nap with a couple new friends he made, the French Bulldogs Maddie and Brady.
This is an acrylic self portrait that I made back in high school. For the background, I used thick layers of paint and then scraped away at the paint with a palette knife. I painted this portrait a little bit after the first self portrait painting that I made when going through a program at a local gallery.
I get asked this question a lot, and every time I hear it, I’m always surprised it was ever asked in the first place.
“I’m an artist because I don’t have a choice.”
I guess it’s hard for non-artists to understand what I mean, and to understand what fuels me to live the creative life. I’m an artist because I need to be one – I have this inherent drive to make things. It pulses through my veins, and makes me fiercely resistant to the thought of ever giving up the artist title.
When you’ve been making art every week of your life for years, the process of art making gets ingrained in your mind. What may have started as a hobby, or something that was “just for fun,” blossoms into something you can’t live without. It becomes a habit through repetition, and when you finally go without it for a few days, you feel like something is missing from your life – the pangs of art withdrawal. It’s moments like those when I realize I can’t live without being an artist in one form or another. Being an artist is what gives me purpose in life.
Art has also been one of the few constants in my life. Even when times have been tough, like grieving the loss of a loved one or coping with the pain of a broken heart, art has been around for me. During those times, art has not only been a creative outlet, but also a form of therapy that helps me through the days when it’s difficult to stay afloat. I guess you could say that when life gets messy, making artwork is one of the few things that makes sense amid the chaos.
When I was growing up, art had a major role in my life, which is why it makes complete sense that it still does. As a kid, I took art classes at local galleries and whenever it was possible at school. I remember back in high school, it didn’t matter how stressed out I was from my other classes, because I could always count on feeling a great sense of relief when I went to art class. I could momentarily forget all my other worries as I focused on drawing or painting.
Although I went to college for creative writing, I quickly realized that visual art needed to have an active role in my life every year, so I picked up a second major in painting. It was at that time that I realized something – that no matter what criticism I received for my visual art, I was always able to bounce back. Rejection is a pretty tough thing to overcome when it comes to an artist’s work, simply because we are putting ourselves out there when we share our art. And even during the worst critiques, when I felt incredibly sad and didn’t know if I should continue making artwork at all, I’d find myself painting in my room late at night and realize it was meant to be.
“National Museum of the American Indian.” Collage on paper. 12″x16″ Order a print
As an artist, you would think rejection is something I get used to since it happens often enough in an artist’s career. Although for whatever reason, whenever a gallery has rejected my work, I still find myself wondering if there is any point in continuing to make art. I’m glad that I’ve never given up entirely because of the opinion of a handful of people. No matter what, I’m still drawn to creating something, let it be a collage, drawing, or painting.
So whenever I’m asked why I’m an artist, all I can think is it’s not something I choose to do – it’s something I have to do. I’m an artist because making artwork is what drives me through each day.
I studied painting in college, and this is a piece that I made that was part of an oil painting series that depicted reflective surfaces. I remember really enjoying the process when I was working on this particular painting, it sort of fell together, while my other reflective paintings were more of a struggle.
I feel like still life was something I always dreaded in school. The compositions in real life that we worked from seemed boring to me – not as exciting as figurative work. The struggle was finding inspiration in old objects that were fished out of the teacher’s closet and strewn about in such a way to create interest for the entire class. Nowadays when I tackle still life, I like to work from reference photos of interesting food and drinks that I’ve seen (or eaten) on various trips.
