Hello Again,
Every artist goes through stagnant periods, soft periods and total creativity. You get on a roll turning out, in my case, painting after painting.
After I received my Master’s Degree in painting and started to teach art, I somehow put painting aside and began designing jewelry. When I started there were many young designers. For 25 years I sculpted, soldered and formed the designs from wax and metal. Modern free form designs were popularized and finally accepted as jewelry in part to Elsa Peretti’s sterling silver jewelry at Tiffany’s store.
I started to go into New York selling my work to Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales and smaller jewelry stores and galleries. I also approached clothing designers. Calvin Klein called and my jewelry was photographed with his collection in Time magazine. They were also in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
As time went by more and more imports were being sold. After I left teaching I began working in an Artisan’s gallery that sold my jewelry. The store sold beautiful crafts, handmade jewelry and artistic clothing. I started to design more specific pieces for the customers.
As years went by you could see the change in the industry. Imports were increasing, silver and gold prices skyrocketed; small business designers and I stopped designing. I still felt like tweaking and fiddling, so I used beads to create jewelry but knew I did not want to do this forever.
Then I got this vision to paint. I said, that was 25 years ago what am I thinking. The feeling was so strong I knew i had to start again.
A customer came into the store and we started talking. She mentioned that her husband taught painting classes at the local Museum. I signed up and took classes for a few years. I joined the local art group-entered a few shows and was accepted.
Even though I painted large color field paintings during my Master’s Degree I started to paint portraits. I still incorporated my style of modern hard edge to these paintings. There were people portraits and dog and animal portraits. Here comes the stagnant to soft period. i began questioning what I was painting.
Out of the blue I just said I have to go with the flow. What do I really love-color. Big bold colors like the paintings I created for my degree.
Now I am painting full blown color, calling the collection-Going with the Flow. I am using color to show depth, contrast and feeling, while crisscrossing the colors with black lines of paint-painting lines of squares representing footsteps moving off of the picture plane.
This represents my going with the flow. Those black lines represent all of the events, people and situations that side track your path and eventually you find that path that takes you to your true journey.
Thank You!
Lucia
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