November is a special month for the Garrett family. Adam and I were married on November 2 back in 1996 and this year we are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. We are having a fabulous party and friends and family from the West Coast to East Coast and even the south coast are all coming up to celebrate with us! So of course this means I need to do a few things around the house to be ready. If you've been to our home before for any of the workshops and art shows that have happened here you know that Adam and I live in a beautiful 1920s historic home. We have spent 16 years of our lives together renovating this house and I grow more in love with it every day. One of the things I've been meaning to get to for quite a long time is recovering the fabric on the chairs on our historic 1919 dining room set. It was so interesting to see the construction of these chairs with their straight screws, super sharp tacks, and metal strap and spring construction seats. It was so interesting to find that what has been fabric for the lifetime we have known these chairs was actually wicker in the beginnings of this beautiful table and chair set! We also found another level of fabric, probably from the 1940s, by the look of it. I learned so much by taking these chairs apart, cleaning them properly and recovering them, most importantly, I learned that hot glue is really, really hot and it hurts when you get it on your thumbnail. I also learned that if you get a drop of hot glue on anything, wood, fabric, carpet, don't touch it! For heaven's sake do not rub it in! Whatever you do, wait until the drop is cold and it will simply pop off without damaging whatever it landed on. It took me a day and a half to recover the chairs and they're really lovely now. I found myself thinking a lot about my art career and in the future how people might uncover me in my journey as an artist, and through my work, see the stages of my journey changing from decade to decade.
In 2022 I will be celebrating my 10th anniversary as an oil painter.
On March 4, 2012, I took my first official oil painting class, a scholarship that was given to me by the Scottsdale Artists' School to learn from the great Romel de la Torre, a student of Richard Schmid. I have here in my home a handful of paintings hanging, one is the third Painting I Painted and several of them are ones that were created in the last year. It's so strange to look at where I've been. I feel like I am (in so many ways) the same person I was then, just someone who really loves great art and dreamed of making it. No matter what kind of recognition my work receives, I will always be looking for my next level of mastery to conquer.
Just as Adam and I are taking time and money and preparation to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary by having a big wonderful party with all of our friends, I feel like I want to celebrate my upcoming 10th anniversary as an oil painter with all of my loved ones who have gone on this journey with me. I have thought about many different ways I can do this, maybe offering a special discount on certain paintings, possibly opening some paintings up as prints, I have even considered taking some of my older paintings and cropping them down to smaller formats. I may even offer a special 10th anniversary book or catalog. I would love to hear your thoughts on how you feel it would be best to celebrate this special time in my art evolution.
I've had some incredible milestones, becoming a teacher for the Scottsdale artist school is probably one of the most important ones. I leave again in January to teach there. I cannot express to you how proud I am to be faculty. I'm excited to say that I'll stay in Scottsdale and enjoy the sunshine through the better part of February. I'll also be stopping on my way to and from Scottsdale to teach at the Fort Worth women's arts club! I'm oddly looking forward to the really long drive where I will get to think long and hard about how I can celebrate my 10th painting anniversary.
One amazing milestone is being invited to teach at the Rosemary and Company brushes estate in Yorkshire, England. I will travel abroad in late August and stay through mid September. I have long befriended Symi Jackson, the daughter of the great Rosemary whose hands-made brushes have changed the face of modern day oil painting. The Rosemary and Company logo that is on my brush set is a constant reminder that my work must be quality in order for this company to issue a set in my name. I also have a personal tie to Yorkshire, England, as my grandmother's family is from Yorkshire. I'm excited to explore this beautiful part of the world that I have yet to visit. Registration is open! Click here!
As I look back at my upcoming 10th painting anniversary, I feel such overwhelming gratitude to all the students and mentees that I have worked with over the years. I have accumulated hundreds of beautiful testimonials from artists around the world. I read them often and it really makes me believe that I truly am doing what I have always been meant to do. (You can read some here.)
This year I am offering my first ever Beginning Photoshop for Oil Painters workshop and interactive video online. I have long wanted to share the details of how I use Photoshop to help me compose and problem solve ages before I ever even get paint or paint brushes out. This intense thought process could be solved without Photoshop but it has helped me visually solve problems for years. Since I have worked in Photoshop since the early 1990s professionally as an illustrator and graphic designer, I am an expert and it is going to be just as gratifying to share with my students how I use this tool to create amazing paintings. I know how complicated Photoshop can be so in this particular workshop I'm including a one on one tech-support session for every artist that signs up in time for the live broadcast. I want to make sure that over the next six months if artists are actually trying to use Photoshop and they get stuck on something they can contact me and I will help them.
Thanks for offering your feedback on the 10th anniversary. I look forward to reading your thoughts!
Love,
Tina
