Art show Inspo

Last Friday I went to an art show at Northside Social in Arlington. If you're in the DMV area, I recommend you take a look. 

I wasn't expecting to leave with the urge to go home and draw.

I met two artists exhibiting their work there...

@steve_fleckenstein makes paper art with a level of precision that feels almost impossible. We talked about the hidden difficulty in his process as every paper manufacturer measures differently, which means working with exacting cuts across inconsistent materials. The results are immaculate. 

What struck me most was how much patience and attentiveness it takes to hold that standard across an entire composition. It's not just craft. It's a kind of sustained faith in the work.

@doomaristudio - Kayoung Lee's watercolor and pencil drawings are something else entirely. enchanted gardens, rendered with a softness that somehow felt completely specific. I recognized one immediately as DC without being told. We talked about recovering from mistakes, she once spilled red on a drawing of a cat and turned it into a bell. That's not damage control. That's creative thinking under pressure. That's what good artists actually do.

Both conversations reminded me of something I've let go quiet.

In architecture school, we were pushed to explore, watercolor, collage, whatever medium cracked something open. I was never exceptional at it, but I did it, and it mattered. Somewhere in the years of professional life, I stopped.

Lately I've been inspired by Sam Evans' abstract character drawings and decided to try something in that direction, The Sopranos, one of my favorite shows. Not refined. Definitely rusty. But I loved doing it. I loved being moved enough by someone else's work to want to make something myself.

I think that's the point. Not to be good. To stay in motion. To keep the channel open between what you see and what you make.

Seeing real artists at work, talking to them, understanding their process

does something that just consuming art never quite does.

It reminds you that it's possible. That you can start again.

(images are from the artists page- the sopranos acrylic are mine!)