School started back this week after the Easter holidays. I have been procrastinating and spending too much time scrolling on social media, when I know I have a really long list of things to do for my business. I am committed to working my butt off this year by promoting myself and creating more art.
So here goes…
One of the things on my "to do list" is to blog regularly. I have a very long, ever changing list of blog topics, and the most pressing one is to let you all know about the services I offer and see if any of them speak to you.
I should probably give you a little bit of background information before we get started.
Who am I? For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jade Forder, I live in the Blue Mountains, Australia and I wear many hats. I am a mum to 3 boys, I am a partner, I have a part time job that I have been in for 13 years this year which is not very creative, but I always find ways to get around that. My purpose in life is to create, and share it. That is what I was born to do. I am a self taught mixed media artist and I set aside one day a week to create, just for me. I regularly enter local art shows, I have had 3 solo exhibitions and have another one booked for June next year. A few years ago when I home schooled my own children, I discovered my passion for teaching kids, which lead me to start teaching art classes.
This is the shortlist of what I do in my creative business:
· Make mixed media art
· Sell my art
· Take commissions
· Facilitate kid’s art classes – groups or one on one
· Run kids holiday art workshops
· Facilitate Art Classes for Busy Mums
· Host “Drop in Friday” art journaling classes
· Adult and child classes
Here is each one in finer detail.
I MAKE ART
Making art isn’t just a creative outlet to get paintbrush to paper. It pushes you and challenges you. It takes you to places you hadn’t thought of. It makes you listen to your intuition and overcome any negative voices. It is daunting and frustrating and is beautiful and rewarding at the same time. It can be intentional or unintentional. It can be healing and help you overcome. It can be familiar or be a learning curve. It can be grounding and an anchor when things around you are changing.
Making art for me, is all these things and more.
“I make art to show my soul I am listening”
I set aside one day a week to paint with my painting buddy Cindy, which we have been doing for 3 years now. I have had a huge shift in my personal life in this time and it has grounded me, especially when I had my son almost 2 years ago. Being an artist is who I am. Just because I was pregnant or had had my baby, didn’t mean I was going to let that part of me go. On the contrary, it was more important to keep that part of me as I was giving the rest of me to everyone else. This is a whole other blog topic! My almost 2 year old has seen me do this every week and sits at the table with me whenever I paint, with a pencil and paper. I love that it is normal for him. He tells me what he is drawing, or I ask him to draw something and he is so serious about it. It is so cute!
Making art is also a release. Quite often I fill the blank page with words before I start an artwork. I purge whatever is going on in my life and get it all out before I start. It is uplifting and freeing and gives me space to move forward to make something positive. This process has helped me through all sorts of situations.
My artworks are almost all mixed media. I LOVE texture! My paintings have layers upon layers of collage paper, acrylic and water colour paint, ink, washi tape, pens, sometimes beads or jewellery and anything else that tickles my fancy.
I paint female portraits and abstracts.
My girls are Goddesses. They are strong women who have a story to tell, they are feminine yet don’t conform, they have secrets, they have an inner peace, they are self-reflecting, they are manifesters of their desires, they make the rules, they are compassionate, they have lessons to learn and lessons to pass on, they are spiritual, they are lovers, they are loyal, they know what they want.
The other art I create is more playful. It uses the abstraction method.
What on earth is that you ask?