It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
~ JK Rowling
Communication is hard. No matter if you’re a writer who draws, a drawer who writes, a photographer, a speaker, or use another medium, it is easy for a message to get tangled up somewhere between leaving you and being received by another. If you want to share, you have to try. Feedback can hurt, but you can use it to grow and help your story connect with even more people. It’s all part of that failure-cycle that is mentioned in the quote above. Try, learn, grow, repeat. This week’s local artist listened to feedback from herself, transitioned from one medium of communication to another, and she’s loving it!
- This week’s artist is a local – Heather Martinez – who gets to travel the world creating and teaching her art. Combining knowledge from masters of calligraphy, sign painting and graffiti – she loves communicating in a visual format – and others love it too! Check out more of her work, see what she’s up to, and learn from her.
- This week’s Art Supply House Garage Sale is running from Thursday-Saturday. Everything in the art store will be a minimum of 25% off! Help us clear our shelves for next week’s face-lift/remodel. Next week we will be closed until Saturday for our Grand Re-Opening! New products, acrylic paint pouring demos, an in-store eye-spy, and more! We’re super excited and hope you’ll come join us!
- The Scrapbook Nook has a variety of events coming up: Saturday is National Scrapbook Day and from 10a-10p they’ll have prizes, new goodies available, and an open working studio (a “crop” if you’re a scrapbooker – byo materials and a potluck dish!). Tuesday at 1 will be a garden-themed cardmaking class – don’t forget that you get a discount on stamps if you attend a class.
- Nick has some weeklong kids’ Summer Clay Camps at Colorado Clay running from June-July. Limited spots are available, so sign up now to reserve your spot!
- Commencement addresses are often worth revisiting – the opening quote above comes from JK Rowling speaking at Harvard in June 2008. And I often stumble across this address by Neil Gaiman – make Good Art.
- If that doesn’t sound interesting, how about what trees teach us about belonging and life.
- In addition to commencement addresses, it’s always worth learning from our elders and our youngers.
- Patrice DeLorenzo’s painting workshop at the Seed Studio in the Smiley Building – Creating Color with Simple Techniques – is coming up on May 18th. Find out more here.
- Curious about starting a new medium? Here are a few thoughts..
- This weekend is the North Main Event! All the fun happens Saturday, May 4th from 11-3pm.
- Our third art contest will be announced May 11th to coincide with our grand re-opening.
Sharing is hard. It can be scary to put yourself out there. Frightening to try something new. We’re doing that this week with our remodel – changing our environment to better suit us. Hopefully it will come together and be as good in reality as in our minds (or better!) Either way, we’re trying something new and inviting you to come and give us feedback about the results. We’ll learn from the experiment, together, and continue moving toward and even more creative future.
Cheers!
Matthew & the Art Supply House crew
P.S. – Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If you’d like to receive a weekly newsletter in your email, you can subscribe below.