The Master’s Class
Elder Eve Triumphantly returns to the Garden of Eden. Oil. 16x20
I recently completed a 3 month class sponsored here in Tucson at The Drawing Studio (currently closed for the virus restrictions) called “The Master Class” taught by Pat Dolan.
The description of the class was “Based on the Arts Students League in New York, this class is or experienced student-artists who are ready to develop a regular independent art practice and commit to intensive study with the instructor and each other. …Discover your passions and personal voice, gain confidence, experiment with a wide range of mediums, and be part of a small supportive community of artists working alongside the instructor, a master teaching artist who brings humor and a sense of play and adventure to her students.”
Having only moved to Tucson recently I was anxious to meet some new art friends and there were things in this description that I knew I wanted and needed. I had always wondered who I was as an artist. Why did I do such divergent work at times? Why did my style and choice of subjects look so diverse? And why did I lack such confidence? After all for my last year in the Santa Fe, NM area I was showing and selling work in a gallery in Taos and my work there was well received. But something was missing for me. There was a dissatisfaction with my typical work I was showing. It lacked authenticity in my mind and was flat and uninteresting. I knew that but I wasn’t able to change.
My problem was that I had over the previous 20 years on occasion produced art that was not related to the outside world but was spontaneously created from my inner conflicts. These works were done in an automatic state where I would just let my hand move without thought. And they would always end up the same style and almost always show figures and a story that was from my past. These paintings would make me cry and I rarely showed them to anyone. Just after I had moved to Tucson and created a wall in my new studio that displayed some of these, I called it my “wall of shame” when I showed it to a friend. And in the Masters Class when we showed our work to Pat and to the class I brought a few of them and called them my “art therapy”. I was very nervous about showing these. And Pat immediately said “Don’t call them art therapy. All art is therapy. These are expressive!” And the class seemed to like them too. And one of them got in a show there that was at The Drawing Studio and I got a lot of good feedback from people on it.
This was life changing for me. I finally owned part of myself which I had until now denied being allowed to surface.
Pat Dolan and all the other students in the class - thank you so much for really seeing all my work and helping me bring it to light. Pat is a wonderful teacher and brings out the best in everyone. I can’t recommend this class enough.
I still don’t know how to integrate the several different styles and subjects that I work in. I feel schizophrenic at times. But now I know that I can work in whatever style I want. Some artists work in one style and then morph into a new style. Perhaps for me my styles are going to last a lifetime and that I will just do my styles not one after the other but one and the other. I am just continuing to go with whatever I feel like at the time. I can’t control the art I make. It’s source is mysterious.
