Posts Tagged: creativity
Collaboration is Key to Creativity
You Are Light 60×40(2) © Melynda Van Zee 2018
I recently created several colorful paintings for a lovely home. One of the great joys of working on this project was the opportunity to collaborate with the owners of this home. I really enjoyed working closely with this family as they studied my work and decided which colors and sizes they would like for their original paintings. After we discussed the many options and possibilities and made final decisions, I went to work in the studio to dive into making their vision come to life.
You Are Light 60×40 © Melynda Van Zee 2018
One facet of the commission process that I particularly enjoy is that my clients become like an art director for the project. Their likes and desires and favorite colors and settings all play into the creative process. Together we envision the finished work. Collaboration is a key to creativity!
Wind and Waves 48 x 36 © Melynda Van Zee 2018
I’ve had so many fabulous experiences as I’ve collaborated to create unique and personalized original work with the insight and direction of my clients.
Wind and Waves Detail 48×36 © Melynda Van Zee 2018
If you are looking for more color and gorgeous artwork in your work or living spaces, please contact me here in the studio at [email protected]. I’d love to collaborate with you to add inspiration to your life.
What does it mean to live free?
“Harmony Shift” and “Flourishing In the Darkness” at Art Sail Clear Lake, IA July 2017
Dear Creative Friends,
Over the last days and weeks I’ve been revisiting my “WHY?”
Why do I paint?
Why do I feel the deep need to create?
Why do I share my art?
Why do I love to inspire you to create?”
While it is not out of the ordinary for me to go back to these fundamental questions, I’m well aware that this latest bout of deep thinking has intensified since I’ve been faced with deciding on a title for an upcoming art show at the Ankeny Art Center in October. Over the winter my goal was to concentrate on painting, but now I’m at the stage of stepping back and looking at this body of work and pondering such things as “Is there a cohesive theme here?” and “What are the common threads?”
The reoccurring thought that hasn’t let me go was the word “FREE”.
Close Up of “Unraveled Fears” painting to be featured at Ankeny Art Center show October, 2017.
What does it look like to paint free?
What does it look like to freely live an abundant creative life?
What does it feel like to live and walk in internal freedom?
What does it mean to live free?
I hope I’m never done exploring the answers to these questions. I hope I revisit them over and over again coming to deeper conclusions and convictions. But, for now, I’m acknowledging that this, too, is a journey and I don’t need to have all the answers today.
What I do know is that I long to continue to say yes to my creative freedom, to say yes to painting freely from that which is within me waiting to come out in line and color, and to say yes to living my life free to make choices that are healthy for me.
I’m also keenly aware that the the contrasting side to this journey involves simultaneously exploring the things that stop me from living and freely creating with passion. It is within this juxtaposition that we live as humans-this is where the juice is…the messy middle as we each walk our pathways toward freedom.
With Passion,
Melynda
Mark your Calendars now: Please join us for FREE: Pathways Toward Freedom, a solo art show by Melynda Van Zee at the Ankeny Art Center,
1520 SW Ordnance Rd, Ankeny, IA, October 3- November 29, 2017. Artist Reception Thursday, October 12 5:00-7:00 pm.
The Battle of Creative Courage
Dear Creative Heart,
This is the time of year that I am spending hours in the studio fighting the battle of creative courage. It is the time of year when all the time spent dreaming and reflecting about what I will be creating in 2017 starts to unfold.
When the sun is shining and light is pouring through the windows of my upstairs sunroom studio, it helps me to find the inspiration to put the brush to canvas.
You can also find me this time of the year in my basement studio. This is a much bigger space so I have room for canvases in various stages from beginning to end. Some are drying from a layer of gesso which is the very first layer I apply to canvas. Some canvases have just had the clear line work laid down, and some have reached the finishing stages-ready for the sides to be painted and the multiple protective layers of isolation coat and varnish to be applied.
So many pieces are in progress right now…but still I work from this place of not knowing. It is in this place of not knowing where the battle of creative courage intensifies on an hourly and daily basis.
This is the place where I have to remind myself time and again that listening to what is in my heart is the way to taking the next step.
This is the place where I am deeply grateful that I have to opportunity to wrestle with translating thought, feeling and experience to the canvas in vibrant color.
Keep creating friends.
Keep ushering art into your life in all its various forms.
Look for the light, it is waiting to be found.
With Passion,
Melynda
New Year and New Art “Unraveled”
“Unraveled”
Detail of first painting of 2017
48 x 36
Acrylic on Canvas
Melynda Van Zee © 2017
Dear Creative Heart,
This new year has brought the first large painting of the year “Unraveled”, the beginning of a new body of work, local art exhibits and an “art show application season” in full swing. It is hard to believe we are already a month and a half into the new year.
“Unraveled”
Detail of first painting of 2017
48 x 36
Acrylic on Canvas
Melynda Van Zee © 2017
Hard at work in my Downstairs Studio
Winter days in the studio are finding me adding a layer of gesso (white undercoat layer) to canvases, designing and laying down the line work for new pieces and applying to 2017 art shows.
As you can see…canvases are spread out everywhere this time of year…
Melynda Van Zee Art exhibit at Edgewater Retirement Community in West Des Moines, IA.
I’ve also been enjoying sharing my work in some local art exhibits over the winter months. I’ve shared my artwork in a retirement community, an art center members show and a coffee shop. It is one of the best joys of being an artist to share work in places where people congregate as a community for fellowship, healing, growth and conversation.
“My Everything” by Melynda Van Zee Ankeny Art Center Ankeny, IA
There are many different responses we can choose when facing the multitude of changes, transitions, fears, and unrest that we have been dealt as a nation. One of the things I have decided to do is to choose creating and sharing art- focusing anew on creating beauty, joy, vibrant color, hope, and community.
“Emerging Through” by Melynda Van Zee
Ankeny Art Center Ankeny, IA
I’ve decided…
- to commit to picking up my brush again
- to commit to expressing my own creativity
- to commit to growth that comes from reflecting deep within
- to commit again to inspiring those around me to express the fullness their artistic creativity
With Passion,
Melynda
“Spheres of Completion” by Melynda Van Zee Ankeny Art Center Ankeny, IA