Be Vulnerable

I’m jazzed and bursting at the seams! Just came back from a three day workshop called Artfest. It’s held at Fort Warden in pretty Port Townsend. About 500 plus artists who practice all mediums come to take cool, edgy art classes from a talented bunch of teachers. Imagine if you gave yourself permission to go back to your childhood where you had no fears of how good or bad you were at anything. You simply tried all that came your way. You sang with unashamed joy as loud as you could because it felt good. You attacked kicking a ball and scribbled on paper with brash strokes of color. Well, we had a chance to experience our childhood this weekend and it was oh-so-joyful. I believe that everyone is hugely creative. As we age, we know what we’re better at and we stick to those things leaving behind the things we’re not so good at. Everyone gets uber specialized by their middle years. “I don’t do Spanish wines.” or “I’m too old to learn a musical instrument”. If you’re not singing when you’re 50, you’re sure as hell not likely to start now!


Now I didn’t step too far out of my comfort range because it was still in the arts, however, I did stretch. I am a realistic painter, a “fine” artist. So naturally, I took a class called Silly Drawing where you had to draw blind, draw with your left hand, create a 3-d bird out of wire, cover it with strips of material, then draw it again. Half the class had a fear of drawing and their drawings were the most interesting! In another class, we finger painted! Indeed, with our whole hands! We doodled on it with pencil and pastels and what we created had to come from inside ourselves. Whoa. That’s scary. What if there’s nothing in there to pull from?

The experience left me reeling. I see clearly now that it’s imperative for growth to push yourself into trying things beyond what you know. Try something outside your field of expertise. It’s a brain shake but in a good way. Become vulnerable and see what it gets you.
That's the key.

First Avenue

Some Thoughts on Commitment


How committed should we be to a commitment? At what point can a commitment be broken? Is it sometimes necessary to make changes when the wind changes course? These are all questions we have to contend with everyday. If I told someone I will commit to go to their event and then another, even better event comes up, do I need to keep my commitment to that first person? You do. Have I broken that rule before? I have. What if we made plans several months ago to take my son on a college visit. When his team’s game schedule recently came out, we noticed that his team is playing a game that night. Should he stay with his college visit, his original plan? His coach decided for him; drop the college visit or don’t plan on playing in the game. In this painting, we see a couple moseying down the street together. If they are married, they are committed for life. Can you really commit to something or someone for life? Statistics tell us that half don’t stay the course.

Sometimes, it becomes irrational to “stay the course” though. Things change all the time and we need to be able to bend with these changes. It drives me nuts when the talking heads say, “the president said he’d do this and now he has not”. Well, look at the big picture. Why did he change his course? Did circumstances change? On the other hand, when someone says they’ll go to a concert with you, the tickets are bought, you’re waiting for them outside the door and they call to tell you they can’t make it….that’s enough to make you crazy…and you’ll probably keep your distance from this person when it comes to planning another event.

Think of three people who always do what they say they’re going to do. These are the people you can count on and you hold them dear to your heart. If they say they’ll be by at 3pm with the book, they will be there. Now think of three people who often let you down, the ones who are like water running through your hands. You just can’t nail them down! Now think of three people who are as rigid as boards. They said X and X always stands…no matter what. Yuck. Who wants to hang around someone like that? No discussion, it’s always X. That’s no fun at all either.

Where are you on the commitment scale?

First Avenue, Oil on board, 24x36”, Original by Joanne Shellan

Looking in all the Right Places

People spend a lot of time looking. We spend a lot of time looking for the right school for our kid, the best heater for our house, the right medicine for our cold. All day long, we’re looking hard and making decisions that impact us. But I sometimes wonder if our heads are spent looking down too much, intent on getting where we’re going. What might we see if we stopped and looked up, opened up to the world and what it might bring? I have a friend who is an inspiration to me in this regard. She is open. You can see it on her face and in her relaxed manner. When you talk to her, she really listens. She has time to relax with you without looking at her watch. And because she is so open to the world, the world opens up to her. She is always meeting the most interesting people and having these incredible experiences through the people and experiences she creates. They seemingly fall into her lap but I know that it’s due to her way of taking time looking in all the right places.


This original oil painting is titled “Cannon Beach Beachcombers”, 11 ½ x 16”
http://www.joanneshellan.com/

Can you have it both ways?

Some days you feel overwhelmed with life. Your list of necessary tasks looks as big as an elephant. You hurry, you spill, the computer gives you problems, miscommunications happen, upsets follow and at the end of the day, you want to hide under the covers and never come out. Other days flow seamlessly like the tide over the sand. The mail brings good news, the deal goes through and the bread rises just right. But the two days need each other like water needs thirst. Where would light be without the darkness? I had to rub my sleeve in orange oil paint and drag it all over the house in order to appreciate that I have loving friends. The hard disk dying on my laptop gives me the opportunity to enjoy hot, homemade soup on a cold day. They seem unrelated but they are.


Twenty one more days until my show opens at Scott Milo Gallery in Anacortes. My task list keeps me focused and working with intention. My show, called Celebrations is about finding those sweet spots in life and remembering why life is good, even in the midst of the overwhelming bad stuff. Sitting on a bench in the sunshine in the winter and getting to wear red cowboy boots is one of those moments.

"Benchmark", 11x14" Oil on board

Celebrations, Joanne Shellan's show, opens at Scott Milo Gallery on February 4, Friday night, 6-9pm. Share some wine, appetizers and see me do a demonstration.
The show remains open until the end of February.
Joanne Shellan Fine Art

What is it about Lighthouses, Anyway?

Lighthouses are popular. They’re iconic. They’re collectable. There are lighthouse calendars, lighthouse statues that have real lights inside, lighthouse salt and pepper shakers, and lighthouse designs on socks. Why? What is it about these flashlight-like buildings? They’re not even being used much anymore now that ships have more technical gadgets than a Best Buy Sunday newspaper ad.

Some old things are never reminisced over. You don’t see little ceramic salt and pepper shakers that replicate old black and white tv’s much. Nor do you find pictures of butter churns on socks. And those were both as useful as lighthouses.
Lighthouses are symbolic for lots of folks. People think security and safety when they see lighthouses so insurance companies and the like might choose it for their logo. Lighthouse International is an organization for the blind that chose the lighthouse as their symbol. Wikipedia informed me that lighthouses are “often interpreted in dreams as beacons of truth or as male fertility and influence.” It always comes back to sex, doesn’t it?
I can’t even tell you exactly why I chose to paint the lighthouse near Port Townsend except that I simply wanted it and that windswept tree rising above the horizon. Perhaps all or none of the above reasons are why. It’s been framed and up for a year and just recently, I’ve been illuminated as to what wasn’t quite right in the painting. My original sky and sand were too dark. Here you see the brightened up version- a little light shed on my painting.
Enjoy it in person while it’s up at Kirkland Fine Art Gallery, 122 Central Way, Kirkland, WA 98033. The gallery is open every day Dec. 4- Dec. 24.

Composition and the Crossword Puzzler

Composing a group of figures is to painting like a crossword puzzle is to a puzzle-maker. It's a matter of fitting all the pieces together in a pleasing manner that makes logical sense with a bit of fun added in. It has to feel right as well as lead the eye around the painting. Some crossword puzzles have pretty simple layouts like a single person portrait; a head somewhat centered on a canvas. Then there are the New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzles which are the hardest of the whole week--that would be like composing a whole army on a battlefield!

I really like painting small groups of people which must be like the Wednesday crossword puzzle; challenging but do-able. I like feeling the relationship between the people and then trying to portray that in paint. I remember when my own sons were young. When they entered a new group of kids, there was an initial period of "circling around" the group, watching for an "in". I felt like this tentative boy in the lilac shorts is looking for his in-road. Aren’t we all?

My boys are big now and I've found myself circling around the subject of youth, painting kids more often than I intend! Competently fitting together parts of a painting and creating crossword puzzles can give us in-roads to our psyches and great satisfaction when we master a skill.

http://www.joanneshellan.com/, www.facebook.com/JoanneShellanFineArt, http://www.kirklandfineartgallery.com/

Commissions; Pleased to be Working, Working to Please

Artists have a love/hate relationship with commissions. Truly, we artists are thrilled to be working and it's lovely to know you'll be paid for your efforts but sometimes things can go wrong in commissions. Here are a few ideas that might help your commission work go smoothly.


• Decide ahead of time the size/ price/ framing/ expected delivery date/ who will do the delivery/ etc. In other words, decide every detail ahead of time and make sure it's all written down. Emails work fine as written back up. The more expensive the piece, the more details you want to write down.

• Be a good observer and a good listener. Look where the piece will be placed, look at the other colors nearby, talk to the client and listen carefully to what they say. Learn to re-state what the client says back to them. It's a great skill to accomplish and helps people feel they've been really heard.

• Don't bite off more than you can chew. Make sure you can do the work you're asked to do & make sure you can fit it into your schedule. Sounds simple but lots of people either procrastinate or don't have good grasp of how long things take. Things always take longer than you think they're going to! That's my motto.

• Figure out the best way your customer likes to communicate. If they don't answer emails, try texting or phoning. People seem to have a preference. Figure out which one is your customer's and use it.

• Say yes. Always find ways to answer yes and be positive. No one likes a negative, complicated answer. If you need to, sandwich what you can't do in-between two sentences telling what you can do!

Above is a 30x40" oil on hardboard of a recent commission. My clients had been on a trip and held dear memories of this little beach bar. They wanted spots of greens and oranges to match their living room and gave me photos of the beach bar and from around the area. I noticed how tickled they were with the handmade furniture and knew they would have a place in the panting. I went to their house armed with tape measure and comers to see exactly where the painting would hang, what kind of light it would have on it, and what frame would match their furniture.

There is nothing more gratifying than delivering a commission to a satisfied customer. Sometimes you even get tears which is really, really cool. The customer of the beach scene sent me an email a week after delivery that said, "We absolutely love it! I see something different each time I look at it and when the lights are out and the moonlight shines in, I feel like I am there at night. Thank you for all the effort (and talent) you put into the picture."

Check out my webpage or http://www.joanneshellan.com/
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