Art is Life...and things roll on..BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

Big NEWS
to all my students, parents and friends
Art Life Studio
is hitting the road. 

Announcing...

  

I bought a 1968 International Harvester Metro Mite step van about a year ago...and thanks to the awesome crew and Johnny Crumby at Music City MotorWorks we are almost finished with the renovation of this vintage beauty.  

Art Moves will be ready to roll this Summer...to bring you a complete mobile art experience for your event or party. 

www.facebook.com/artmovesvan

Art Moves is Art Life..... on wheels.  

There are big things ahead for this studio in the tree tops. 

I want to thank you for all the time I got to be there with you - creating memories.

This special place is filled with so many memories. 

So many of you - so many moments when I saw your face light up and REMEMBER something you already knew....that you have a passion to create things...that you are an artist.

 

and you learned.

 and you laughed....a lot.

I have a new vision....it's me and my vintage van mobile art studio, with a new focus.

I want to reach more people in the city of Nashville, and surrounding cities

I want to fill up my own creative well...by creating new work, new curriculum, and generate new and fresh project ideas

  I will focus on special events, on-site art group education, school and teacher in-service workshops, and of course the most unique art parties for you and your friends!

Stay tuned....because new and exciting things are to come.   I wish you all a summer full of creativity and discovery....and be sure to look out for information from Art Moves, Nashville's original art studio on wheels....because it's coming soon!
As always, be inspired.
Look out for life being art, it's all around you.
Find the beauty, find the uniqueness...because
There are no wrongs and rights your creation.
It's just as it should be.
It's your creation,
and you are the artist,
BELIEVE IT.

Thank you for all the memories.
Juli Schumann
artist/owner/teacher
Art Life Studio

Spring Break mini-camp

Spring Break Mini-Camp

Davidson County 

March 18-20

10:00-2:00 daily

Art camps here feel like home.  Our small class size, sunny studio, and generous outdoor space allow fertile ground for creating.  Ages 5 and up can come for most of the day to make art while making friends.  We paint outside, make messy sculptures, create A LOT in clay, and learn about each color we see.  Fine art materials mixed with a rich art curriculum create great experiences and project results.

$135 for three days, bring a lunch!

email artlife@comcast.net for registration

Drawing and Painting {learn to see} Ages 8 & up

Drawing and Painting {learn to see}

Ages 8 & up

$120 - 4 classes - all supplies included (with a take home art supply kit!)

This is a class for your 3rd -6th grader who is ready to focus on the basics of drawing with multiple lessons to strengthen his/her understanding of drawing what we SEE!
Lessons in creating value (light and dark in a drawing), using the right instruments, adding perspective and overlapping, drawing in a gestural/active way, learning to talk about your own work and others work (beginning critique) all in a non competitive nurturing environment!

Classes begin February 23rd - meet for 4 consecutive Saturdays
1:00-2:30
pay a deposit here!

Instructor:  Juli Schumann



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Design and Drinks - Girls Night Painting and Mixed Media parties

Art Camp..spring mini camp in March 18-20

 

Art MINI-CAMP intercession break

March 18th -20th, 2013

  3 days 10:00-2:00

$135

All supplies for a fun filled MULTI MEDIA art camp are included.  Projects in clay, sculpture, tie dye, fabric and sewing crafts, painting, drawing, and collage.

Layers of Non-Commitment

 

Layers.

Heap on the materials.

Anything can be covered up.

Nothing is a mistake. 

Maybe even years later you would want to change the way it looks.

Nothing has to be permanent.

This is good for the artist, fleeting for art...you just might be moved, or covered up.

Is this lack of commitment.  Or is it a feel good approach so that people don't get too serious?  I tell my young students to not be too attached, too concerned about each mark, too anything about what they make.  The process is just as important as the product.  

Sometimes I think that I tell people to just make a mark, to make a mark.  The very act of putting some kind of mark on the canvas sets in motion an energy to create. 

So heap it on...don't be too serious.
Make a commitment to not make a commitment....see what happens.

happy holidays 

dusty books and handmade objects.

I have cleaned house.  I have brought out the old, not used, the not loved, the guilty items (hanging on because so and so gave it to me) and the without a place items.  I am having a garage sale. 
This lesson is so freeing for my children.  Don't hold onto things too tightly.  You don't play with it anymore.  You don't really need it.  Someone else can have joy in it.  Let it go.  Powerful, it's powerful to be unattached to stuff.  You can travel light and be - just be. 
What about the art?  What about some of these things that are just worn out...i am tired of seeing again and again in the studio.  They no longer give back.  I think they would serve someone else somehow.  With the art....the handmade....it's a little more difficult to let it sit between the barbeque set and the dusty books.  For sale with a bright orange $3 sticker.  Placed up for sale with the other oddballs.  It is no longer sitting in the studio with a classy price tag and correct lighting.  I actually plan to give it away today if it doesn't sell for $3.   There is more merit in that anyway.  Giving away, surrendering the stuff...cleaning out so we can welcome more in.  I welcome it all in.

Love Wins.

Love Wins.

Fear loses....not hate, but Fear.  The opposite of love is fear.  For the second year in a row, on Valentines Day I have left messages of love in random public places to help people hear that message....that love wins.

 Little clay tiles on a piece of twine.  Tied somewhere obvious.  Hopefully not to only be admired, but to be captured and brought home as a stolen prize.  My hope is that a deserving viewer who understands that this tile was made for them, would take it.  They deserve it.  What I know about love is that it is not the opposite of disgust or despise or even of disagreement. Love is the opposite of being timid, of being unsure, love is the opposite of "Don't Do That!" it might hurt!  Love is the opposite of being closed off from the world, taking no stand on anything.  Love is the opposite of choosing to call yourself an introvert, being ok with sitting in routine, even though you really feel like you might like to be with people and take a ballroom dancing class.  Love unveils, love uncovers, love is truth and real TRUTH does not have fear.  Love has safety and hope.

I thought about the use of clay as a medium for this.  You have such a permanent material, something small, sometime you can slip into your pocket.  Clay lasts a long long time once it's fired.  It's a magical thing to see something that seems out of place, but is claimed by no one. 

Sitting there, waiting for you to claim it.  Or do you just enjoy it?  Claim it without taking the prize....take the message.  Love Wins.  I think about who might need it at the moment....who might be down on themselves, feel unloved, feeling like nothing works.

I hope that the messages were helpful.  The kids sure liked to play cupid.  They wanted to wait in the wings and see if someone took the prize.  No one in our presence did, but I am sure...almost 5 days after Valentines Day, they are gone.   The process of being in the Love instead of Fear state is simple.  Just believe that love always wins. 

wasting and waiting

"The world is too much with us....getting and spending we lay waste our powers" - Wordsworth

I found that in an old book that I love called Simple Abundance by Sara Ban Breathnach.  Sara talks about people being so spread thin that they can not find their authentic self.  That got me thinking about when I create with people, that I feel like the place where they are "making" art they are actually being "made" themselves.  The very act of being creative stirs a powerful healing to the maker not just the tangible of the art which was made.  The potter on the wheel creating a pot from nothing to something...made.  The painter who comes into the studio to make something with their children, leave the studio more sewn together.  The choice to sit and knit on a very tired afternoon, will give life and energy rather than put someone to sleep.  People leave the studio more connected to themselves than when their frazzled ends came in.  Let's face it, life unravels us.  Spending, getting, striving, meeting, driving, figuring, deciding, disciplining, cleaning up all the needs of the world...leaves us spent.  Wordsworth was talking about the world's demands bringing us to a place of depleted empty but POWERFUL beings.  The powers we have to create and love and be in this world are pulled apart by the demands.  Our call, as we try to live in this world, is to own our power and own who we are.  

How could you spend your time so that you feel more "made" and more powerful?

What are you wasting that is powerful within you?

Building Beliefs

When you make a clay box, it takes a couple days.  Ideally, you let the clay slabs (aka large clay pancakes) that you roll out sit for awhile.  You let the soft clay that so easily twists and turns - become harder and less mobile.  The reason you do this is so that the walls of your box will stand firm, and not droop.  No one can work with droopy walls.  The clay becomes what is called leather hard and it's really a beautiful state for clay to be in.  I actually like it best...it can be carved, painted, shaved, cut, and handled with ease.

I was thinking about how building clay walls is sort of like building belief systems.  A belief system is a set of core values assigned by yourself to yourself for living in a way that works best for you.....a sort of road map of safe places and not so safe places.
Beliefs are built by experiences in the world, experiences in the world are built by trial and error, your interpretation of experiences and people, and "bumping into" everyone else's beliefs.   Some of these experiences are not what you think they are.....and a wall goes up.  A belief takes shape.  No one can get in.

It takes time to build beliefs.  You core values take life experience to solidify the list.   Beliefs - and clay's shape - will not be instant, it will be a string of moments....and I want to enjoy every moment.  

What beliefs have you built that are UNchangeable for you?
What beliefs have you built that might need breaking down?

Collage College

Lucy's 4th Birthday Party

Art Life is really a special place for birthday parties.  One of the things I love about it is we get to make some really BIG messes....but it's not the kind of mess that comes with loud bangs, and high pitched screams, and kids making messes just to see the kind of face the grown up might have when they see it.  It's a real mess, the kind where you are so involved with what you are doing that you don't realize that an entire plate of glue has just dropped on the floor...or confetti is stuck to your cheek.  In fact, one of the things that children often do is sort of get upset if they make a mess, thinking I might get upset.  It's not often you hear an adult say....don't worry about the table....the more paint on it the better. 
I don't say that to challenge the average parent who says..."keep it clean"  I tell my kids that in our main house, it's just that an art studio doesn't follow those rules.  An art studio says....don't worry about the results....just create.  I titled this post "collage college" because of the collage work I did in the studio this weekend with a great group of kids.   I also had my first discussion about what college is all about with my 6 yr old.  He wanted to talk about when "he goes to college"  The things I have told him about college (on a 6 yr old level) are things that only college can teach you...1) you have to show up to make it 2) things won't get done unless you do them ( i.e. the laundry) 3) you are free to make the experience what you want it to be, a good one or a miserable one.
College is kind of like working with the confusing medium of collage.  So many choices, you better decide quick, look at your neighbor to see what they like, think fast!  I literally put about an acre of raw random materials on the table for the parents and kids....and they DUG IN!  As any 4 year old would do...if it's shiny...it's mine!  I appreciate the unbridled zest they have for experimentation with art materials.  It's easy for a 4 yr old to show up, do it so it will get done, and to create an experience of freedom in the art materials as only the little ones can. 
Granted it was supposed to sort of look like this when it was done....and resemble a dog.

or this

but most of them looked like one big "piece of glitter-beaded-pom-pom-mosaic-collage"

no more dog.

Just as they wanted it, because that's what being 4 is all about.

Happy Birthday Lucy.

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transformation is just a moment away

I worked with 20 painters last night, they were ending a conference weekend with a fun event and a celebration together (with me). The focus and goal was to help these folks let go of limitations by literally burning an old word and painting a new word. They were asked to turn the page. The new word was painted on the canvas, the new word was given a place of honor with color and paint. I saw people changing...as they painted and thought with a fresh perspective. The simple act of saying them out loud, changes. Most of the participants last night had never painted. I told them to pick a color that was out of their comfort zone. I told them to write a word that was out of their comfort zone. I told them to paint and not think. I told them there are no mistakes only things you would do differently next time...things can be fixed...everything can be painted over....things are not permanent unless you see them as that way. Things are not tragic and black and white and wrong. Things are just what they are, and if you don't like it, well change it. By providing the place, the challenge, and the simple act of taking something old and worn out, and painting over it with a new word...a new color, a new word, they were transformed. Some people left a lot messier than they thought they would. The ones that spoke the loudest about not being creative...were the most transformed. It was a letting go that helped those most transformed. It's really nothing you DO. The act of creating something transforms...a creative process is a spiritual process, the two can not be separated. Try it, it just takes a moment...but you have to set the stage. What can you do that feeds your creative self today?

there is a war - creative bandits

I am notorious for being optimistic and seeing the good in people. My high school class voted me "Most Gullible" -really? I was in the running for best legs, but it seems people saw me as deeper than that....thank God. My legs may have changed since high school, but my ability to believe people as they present themselves has not. There are events in my creative journey that have made me a little jaded. There are "traumas" that go along with pursuing a creative life. Today I am challenging myself to write about those who may (without knowing it) try to sabotage. People are going to try to steal your thunder...your creative velocity. They may not always be recognizable, they may come in sheep's clothing, they may be in your house. They may be at the grocery store, or worse, in your art class. The bandit may come as a teacher, a friend, a spouse. Staying true to your creative path may resemble war at times because it's a LOVE for what you want, the LOVE for a creative life, and the LOVE for yourself that may threaten these bandits. The thing to remember about the bandits is they are full of FEAR. Their fear is driving their comments. The comments are not grounded in LOVE for your creative path, but the FEAR of losing theirs. Th ey are not always intending the robbery, but nevertheless, the crimes are committed.

What do these crimes look like? What do they steal? These bandits try to steal that part of you who believes you can DO IT! They are not stealing your ideas or your work. These bandits are much more covert,. They may or may not know they are even stealing. When you leave the bandit's presence you feel a little naked. You feel like you had the gold, and now just straw. These bandits try to steal the pure part of your creative self. These bandits try to steal your enthusiasm, your velocity, your innocence, and your instinct for your next creative move.

"Wow...I am so excited to have finally finished that painting"
"That must feel good...but I think it's hard to tell if a painting is ever really finished, you may or may not know when it's done...when the time is right I listen and then I know.....blah blah blah...."

There are also the know it alls....those who throw facts about things that might be wrong, go wrong, or any terrible trivia that might try to scare you.

There are covert words that might injure your artist....take care of her. She needs to be protected from those words just as you would a child. Appropriate material and words for the appropriate time. If it feels like you are in the presence of yucky, zapping energy....you probably are. PLEASE trust your instinct and politely excuse yourself. Your artist has better things to do. Remember - everything in the world is either FEAR or LOVE, decide today what you are going to bring inside. Get rid of the rest.

slip and slide

The first sign of summer to me came in the form of a slip and slide. I felt the carefree freedom of letting kids be kids, the extra need for a cool drink of water, the throwing out of the clock. I felt free. The school year is full of demands on parents and kids, the summer is our playtime. The summer allows it all to slip away and get rid of the "shoulds", the "coulds", and "if you woulds." I look forward to the summers camps we are having at Art Life. I am finding new projects that will take the ordinary object to a new level of art. I want the kids to take their time on things, I will encourage the use of all their patience. Children are natural artists but they are also natural competitors. I often find myself telling them (especially my boys) that it's not a race...it's about what might happen if you experiment just a little more. When I look around at my paintings, i always find something that I see I could add or take away. I have even been known to work on a painting that has been hanging on the wall finished- for years. Sometimes I believe my paintings are never done...they are just at a really good resting spots.
So, the summer begins, i need to remember to slow down. I need to remember it's not a race, and that it's all a work in progress. If I just experiment a little more, i might just get some different results. It's a busy time for the studio, but then again, the studio is a place to slow down - i am really excited to get started this summer...oops...i mean, to take it easy this summer.

Look around today, you might just see your first sign of summer. What will it be?

Trust the Paint to Dry Without You

I have heard before to "trust the process" when making art. Art making is 98% process, and the remaining 2% lies in results and opinions. Some of those opinions are ours, some are from others. But we all know that opinions are the opposite of being in creative process...because opinions are left brain "thinking" processes. The creative process dies when we think. When you think about it....if we had the future opinions in our ears of others while we were in the middle of the creative process, it might not ever be. It might not make it off the drawing table. We are so quick to say...."well, it's not done...don't look" "I have so much more I'd like to do to it." "I was thinking about adding this or taking away that." You know....that IS the art, right there. Making it, thinking about it, and frankly sharing it. But art is best when it's shared. What can we do with something that is stuffed under the bed? We can't enjoy the things that have never been painted.
Talking about art was one of the most difficult learning processes for my freshman design college students to grasp- they went kicking and screaming into discussion critiques. No one wanted to discuss their own work, no one wanted to talk about areas that they thought needed improvement. And if I asked them to talk about some one else's work???? Forget about it. However, with time, and mandatory requirements, the students understood that critique was more about an understanding of our fears, of making the ego smaller, of comparing our work from the work we used to do....to see how we have improved, and talking about work that could have been changed, and how.
I am drying some clay pieces in the studio now. There is nothing to it, just let it be. Some really flat pieces should be slightly covered in the winter heat of the studio as to avoid warping. Some were just left where they were to dry. I am also waiting on an oil painting to dry...with the aid of modern mediums, will be ready in another day for more layers of oils.
In the meantime, I wait. I wait for the next step...the next move toward the completion.
I let go while that process takes place.
Soaking, drying, firing, mixing...a pause in creation, so the creation itself can go on with out the creator...to do it's thing.
I like to think about that painting or clay piece sometimes, upstairs in the studio, doing it's work without me so that we can move on towards completion.
It sounds silly, but i even love that part, the part about watching paint dry.
The reasons are because i have been that wet paint before, drying and deciding....hoping that no one disturbs me. Hoping that I can just sit here, and dry. As the creator/artist we are always deciding what our next move is. Although that path is not always clear, we walk away and let our creations be. When the time is right, we will know our next stroke of paint, our next mark on the clay, or our next word to write. In time, if you trust that you will know, you will know.