Dear Reader,
I am happy to share so much good news for this summer + more regular updates for you to enjoy from my new platform of substack
First - some important dates to highlight for June before going off the deep end
June 15 (updated!) - Salon in the artists Studio, RSVP required, 10 spaces available
June 12 - Start of Online flower painting class
June 20 - Exhibition Above and Below Opening reception - Chateau Jolimont, BXL
June 21 - Midzomer Celebration I - Open garden + floral painting workshop - De Innengaard, Kasteel Rooighem, Brugge
June 22 - Midzomer Celebration II - Chateau Jolimont - Music, Performance & bonfire
June 30 - Closing reception of Above and Below, BXL
Previously, I wrote how floating in a boat - the very situation in which the Lady of Shalott closed out her life - has become a healing practice and a source of great inspiration. In my current state of transformation, I seek a conclusions for and closure to the story of a lady who I've painted so intensely about, in a way even adopted as an alter ego.
However, the heaviness of her tale - the seeming inevitable death and hopelessness her history always ended with - has temporarily overwhelmed me. The paintings are now rolled up and removed from my studio. I've set aside plunging these depths of lost/hopeless love, unraveling generational patterns of relational disfunctions, and broken fantasy worlds, etc., for something lighter - flowers, swans and landscapes.
The act of creation has always been a place where I can express feelings and emotions that seem scary, unacceptable, unwanted. It is also a space in which I can connect to beauty and the things that inspire me. Going through the many bodies of creation I have made over the last numerous years for the selection for my upcoming show in Brussels, I realized exactly how much of what I make centers on grief, loss, the seeming inextricability of pain and love, and I find myself growing away from heaviness and wanting only the simplicity of reality; the ephemeral beauty of nature, ever fading and renewing itself through the cycles of seasons, of blooming and fading and falling back into the earth and feeding into new life.
Plein-air painting and working from life have always been meditative practices for me. Drawing in museums is one of my favorite pastimes. Plein-air is an ideal excuse to do exactly want I want - spend hours sitting on the forest floor, in the boat on the little lake, or on rainy days seated before a bouquet in my studio. What productivity results from these meditations is secondary - it’s simply a reason to be in nature, just like drawing in museums is an excuse to spend hours looking at a single artwork.
I am so fortunate that I can share my creative process directly with those to whom it speaks. Currently this is taking the following forms, bringing us to the news and announcements below.
TEACHING
Online - Beginning June 12, I will be guiding a Flower painting class via The Teaching Studios every Wednesday 9-10 AM EST
Learn the simple steps necessary to capture the ephemeral beauty of flowers in painting. Working from live arrangements of flowers, not photographs, students will learn how to quickly capture individual flowers as well as floral arrangements in the medium of their choice - oils, watercolor, or gouache. Live demonstrations will cover the importance and methods of organizing values, establishing color relationships and elegant gestures, and balancing bold and sensitive brushwork within the overall composition.
My Creative Composition lessons are available with or without one on one creative consultations
In Person Workshop - De Innengaard pluktuin, the magical location of my studio, will be opening its gates for a Midzomer celebration the afternoon and evening of June 21.
My Flower painting workshop, held in the late afternoon, will take place in the garden, weather permitting, and in my studio in case of rain.
For more information or to register, email ellen@innengaard.be
EXHIBITION
Above and Below - a two person show emerging from a collaboration with my dear friend Smaël Laurent, will open in Chateau Jolimont on June 20 and run through June 30.
Its a bit strange to be preparing for a show that is not actually about or including (hardly) any of the work/themes of the large scale series I have been developing since my last show, Mimesis (which was also at Jolimont, back in 2021, and can be seen in full here).
My intentions coming out of Mimesis - which was sort-of a retrospective and maiden voyage combined (and some viewers thought was a group show - hello to my hyper creativity/ADHD tendencies), was to develop a whole universe about this one character. To give her as much time as she needed and go as deep and large and grand as possible - each work building onto the one before and after to form a unified whole. World building is something I always loved in literature (Lord of the Rings was an early obsession, I listen to the audiobooks on repeat in the studio when I need extra comfort). I wanted to do something at such a scale with painting, though now I wonder if such an undertaking was foolish, for I am a bit lost on how to finish something taking me years longer than planned. With the Lady of S., I am still waiting for the ending - both a clarity regarding the metaphysical/spiritual conclusion to her tale, as well as the practical situation of exhibiting so many large works together in the format of solo show with a gallery - a complete world that will reach as many as possible, and wherein the viewer can get lost, and found.
Considering this ongoing process + my current decision to set aside the Lady of S. as dead (resurrection pending) + a desire to exhibit as I wait for the ripeness of the show I have been building for so long - I have chosen to exhibit works that proceed and are tangental to my main labors, in a dialogue with a fellow painter who has been an incredible part of my care network since moving to Europe.
Samel’s spiritual and shamanistic practices of art + nature as healing medicines are very much in line with my own mystical ecofeminist practice. He has made a selection from both my most recent nature paintings, as well as my drawing archive and some large scale paper works that until now were unfinished/un-shown but are reaching completion for the occasion. These pieces, along with his paintings that I have selected depicting nature, lovers, and abstract kaleidoscopic wonders, will populate the walls of Jolimont for 10 days. We hope you can join us for the festivities!
For those of you who are creatives, maybe this whole question of when and how to release new work, when to change directions or give something a break, when to share/let go/ hold close are questions you are familiar with. I am always curious how others deal with this, and feel a huge kinship with artist and writers of the past and present who find themselves faced with the uncertainty of when/how to release their creations and labors of love to the world.
Maybe this process and anguish is similar to raising a child, or to knowing when to let go of or commit to a lover - questions that we live out day by day, to misquote Rilke - stumbling our ways into the answer. They give us a means to test our connection to our intuition, to build our relationship with ourselves and those around us in more genuine and honest ways, and to learn trust and love, and compassion.
Somehow related to all of this, yet on another note - I want to share an essay written by my dear cousin, who I love deeply and whose writing and creative practice has been an inspiration to me my whole life. This particular piece contains the following jewel “Because of my reliance on spiritual help to guide me through my own inevitable darknesses, I say prayers for my own creative practice: ‘God, I will take care of the quantity, you take care of the quality,’”
Looking forward to being able to share with you all my work of the last months and years - each at their right moment, and am so excited that one of these moments is approaching soon.
Much love,
xoxo
Abigail