Art Date #1 - NMWA

The Artist’s Way is “a course in discovering and recovering your creative self” by Julia Cameron. Using the book as a guide you can do the exercises solo or in a small group. It’s a 12-week spiritual commitment to your creativity. Author, Elizabeth Gilbert even did the course (one of many times) before writing Eat, Pray, Love. As someone with an abundance of creative ideas, my intention for this course is to have a more intentional, organized art practice.

Part of what you commit to in doing this course, is taking yourself on an artist date once a week. After my fellowship with IBé Crawley, an artist whose work is currently on display at the museum, and after many missed opportunities to visit, I knew that my first solo art date needed to be at the newly reopened National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

Fit check. I love this jean jacket it’s become a comfort item to wear whenever it’s the perfect temperature.

Franklin Park. (Super Bowl) Sunday was a great day to go into D.C. many of the parking garages were closed but street parking by the museum was easy to find and free.

Once I was inside the museum, and after I marveled at the incredible selections in the book shop, I went to the very top floor where the Book Arts exhibit was. Over the course of my art fellowship this past summer I got to see and touch the piece above by IBé Crawley.

My fellowship task was to design IBé Crawley’s first book of artworks which was available for purchase at the reopening of the museum. For more information on IBé Crawley, visit her website www.ibearts.org.

Suzanne Coley

In Bloom, 2023

Sonya Clark

Cotton to Hair, 2009

Faith Ringgold

American Collection #4: Jo Baker’s Bananas, 1997

This piece was quite large. It’s acrylic paint on canvas with a fabric boarded. This quilted painting reminded me that canvas is fabric.

The first but most certainly not the last Kara Walker art I’ve seen in person! Untitled de Kara Walker, 2014

Mickalene Thomas

A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y, 2009

Please zoom in and read more about this piece.

Remedios Varo

La Llamada, 1961

Of course this spoke to me as someone who works with the unseen and tries to always follow “the call” of my spirit guides and ancestors.

Beverly Penn

Maelstrom, 2011

Flora cast in bronze. Illuminating how climate change negatively effects plant life on earth.

Deborah Butterfield

Big Horn, 2006

This was Bronze and huge. Pictures don’t do it’s elegant moment justice!

Close up of Acid Rain by Chakaia Booker

The entire piece takes up almost a full wall and weighs over 2,000 pounds.

As you moved down the marble staircase to the next exhibits there is this massive painting by Kiki Kogelnik called Superwomanan.

Things got wonderfully weird as this sculpture absolutely captivated me!

All sculptures are created by Ursula Von Rydingsvard. They are made of cedar wood and being able to smell them made experiencing them very intimate.

With all the thoughts constantly running through my head and the urge to “make sense” of things.. this gathering of sculptures didn’t need to be dissected. I just understood. The experience of taking myself out of my comfort and into something I deeply needed quieted my searching, anxious, creative mind. As I walked down the marble steps, out of the museum and into the rainy D.C. street I felt calm, a little reflective and very very brave.

For more info on the National Museum of Women in the Arts visit www.nmwa.org

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Art Date #2 - Adjourn Studio with Colored Girls Liberation Lab

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Beginning Again