Welcome Wanderers

Allright, so from now and for the next two months or so, I'm working on a wintersession independent study here at home in Minnesota. The work I'm trying to do focuses on wildlife and landscape and (sortof) folk art that I remember growing up, and I hope to produce some art that communicates something new or at least interesting about my home during the winter. Emphasis on hope.

This blog will cover my thoughts and activities related to my winter project. There are, however, all kinds of other stuff raining down on me right now that will continue to be documented on my livejournal (http://damalia.livejournal.com/), so go there to read up on more personal stuff. Due to recent events, I feel that there needs to be a separation between my work and the rest of my life, although given the current circumstances, there will undoubtedly be some overlapping.

So for starters, here's the basic gist of it all as plucked from my initial proposal:

I come from a town called Rochester in southern Minnesota. Rochester has a very small urban area, and includes miles and miles of farm and wilderness land surrounding the town. There is a great abundance of wildlife in the area, and I grew up practically outdoors with it. Growing up in Minnesota has influenced me greatly as an artist, in my interests, tastes and ideas about art, and my aspirations as a fine artist. As much as I love my home state, and as much as it's affected me and my work, I never really took the time to do work about it or featuring it. While I have done wildlife and western-type painting in the past, very little of it (if any) has been from direct observation, I’ve mostly worked from photo reference—I just never had the time or reason to really draw from my own experience.
My wintersession proposal involves a series of work (paintings, color studies, photography, etc.) about the Minnesota winter, or more specifically our wildlife in the winter (one of my favorite parts of being home is the abundance of wildlife in our area). I want to make work that captures my feelings and nostalgia for my home, and represents our wildlife and landscape in a genuine and meaningful way—to pursue wildlife art as a serious art form, and not a convention or genre.

I'll be posting more as I think to add it, along with pictures or at least links to photobucket or flickr galleries of my reference/exploring photos. This online documentation is mostly for the benefit of my mentor, Nick Jainschigg, as he is undoubtedly busy in Rhode Island and probably doesn't have tons of time to gab to me on the phone. Besides, I suck on the phone and I forget things. This way, Nick, you can just post comments for me on the individual entries so we can cover pretty much everything so long as I'm good about updating.

That's it for now,
Beth