In this new life I am defining forward, I ask myself the questions: what brings fullness to my life, and, what are the “shoulds” and the “oughts” that invite examining? In light of this exploration, before I headed out to Playa at Summer Lake to teach last September, I asked myself: do I like this? […]
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Category: Sketch
Traveling Alone
I wasn’t sure how traveling alone would go. In spring, I visited New York and New Mexico, nearly back-to-back – neither new to me, but new to the newly solo me. First, New York City. There, I wasn’t really alone too much. I was staying with a dear friend in Washington Heights, who handed me […]
Emergent
“The capacity to be alone facilitated learning, thinking, innovation, coming to terms with change, and the maintenance of contact with the inner world of the imagination.” – from Solitude A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr I have been busy in my studio over the past 9 months. As I wrote here back in […]
Favorites: Reads & Listens 2023
I love keeping track of the books I read, to be able to remember them, for one thing! And, also to reflect on the choices, to recommend to others, and to offer myself a warm pat on the back for my self-directed reading program. The total count this year is 58 (8 more than last […]
Grief and Art and Slowness
It’s been a while since I wrote. Understandably. Since March 2023, I tended my own true love through the last months of his life with cutaneous t-cell lymphoma. He died on May 30, 2023. We had it good, we had it grand – we lived in a very quiet circle of love filled with lattes […]
Living With
In 2022, roughly 1.9 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States. All of us are touched by it in some form. Thanks to remarkable medical advances in treatment, many people live with cancer for a longer time than ever before, surrounded by people who love them, who help care for them […]
Views From the Cancer Hotel
Recently, I spent two weeks in Seattle, with my sweet husband Joe who underwent radiation for advanced cutaneous t-cell lymphoma. We stayed at South Lake Union House (aka “the Cancer Hotel”), patient lodging for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and shuttled to UW Medical Center every day. What does an artist do in this situation? Away […]
Some Mornings: The Juncture of Painting ...
“Some Mornings” a solo exhibit of my most recent paintings, inspired from poems by Linda M. Robertson, opens at Northwind Art Grover Gallery in Port Townsend on March 17, and runs through May 30. You’ve seen evidence of this new direction over the past year. In fact, in December 2020, I talked about the first […]
Books & Music: Studio Favorites
The end of the year is traditional for lists….and I am jumping into it with the books and soundtracks that have fed my practice. Maybe they will inspire you too! TOP 5 BOOKS The latest edition to my art bookshelf is “Richard Diebenkorn, Beginnings, 1942-1955,” Scott A Shields, PhD., Pomegranate Press, 2017. I picked it […]
Let now win.
“It is a relief to let go of the need to know. In fact, it is better not to think we need to answer, and to allow authentic responses to arise on their own.” Narayan Helen Liebenson, The Magnanimous Heart This quote (from Narayan Helen Liebenson, The Magnanimous Heart) was my guiding advice as I […]
Look back, look forward
Applying for exhibits, residencies, grants, and opportunities is part of the journey of a working artist. The process can be discouraging to say the least. I’ve heard it said many times: never give up on applying regardless of the chance of success. You never know where your work will land, and every opportunity is so […]
Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?
You would think that with months of social isolation, and now the cold of the season driving us even further indoors, with quietness abounding (and resounding) – that the itch for activity would be hollering to be scratched. That’s not happening for me. It seems that perhaps, over these months, the capacity for quietness has […]
The Walk Home
a small rain seals our talk – the walk home susan lee kerr Living in the in-between. It is difficult to reflect on change when you are in the middle of it. I tend to paint first and figure it out later. I painted pomegranates, then realized I was in a stage of transformation and […]
Worlds in Worlds
Literature and art making are intertwined for me, and yet, when you look at my work, that may not be immediately obvious. My paintings reflect the visible world – through hand, eye, craft and energy – emerging as my visual voice. I don’t directly take words and set to making a painting about them. So, […]
Sketching towards abstraction
“I had to create an equivalent to what I felt about what I was looking at – not copy it.” Georgia O’Keeffe I continue to paint on the themes of trees, waterways and fruit, using sketches as process for visual distillation. My daughter commented to me that she’s noticed over the past 4 years that […]
Inspiration and Collaboration
UPDATE 10/17/19: Download the short summary from this event here:https://artist.megkaczyk.com/wp-content/uploads/Intersection-of-Art-and-Environment-Brief-final-7-19.pdf From my feelings of wondering and helplessness about our environmental crisis, I started thinking about how artists could help. There are many small (but mighty) non-profits doing good work in our region, and beyond. Obviously donating to, and volunteering for those organizations helps in a […]
Painting at Night
Winter is a very good time to be in the studio, especially for one who likes to paint when the sun goes down. There is quiet, and time, and lots of sketches from warmer days to start from. I am working on a few themes concurrently, and loving the physicality of working big. My persistent […]
Beyond Art and Fear
“Vision is always ahead of execution, knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue.” ~ from “Art & Fear/Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking” by David Bayles & Ted Orland “Art & Fear” is a small classic book published in 1993 (which you can download for free here), but new […]
New Neural Pathways
I am still embarked on my madrona series, finding continuing inspiration in the trees’ presence and beauty. Meanwhile, a synergy of other influences has beckoned. First of all, the medium: a few years ago, a neighbor gifted me with awesome Gamblin oils — she worked there and got cast off tubes as a bonus — […]
How I Teach: The classes, the approach
As I get deeper into the practice of teaching, I see how my own approach is present in each of the classes I offer. Whether it is a fun loose evening of art and music, or an expansive series over 5 weeks…whether it is exploring abstraction, poetic metaphor or how to find visual direction… I […]
Living Forms of Grace and Place
“A special place can contain all stories – all of the past and all of the future, all the beginnings and endings.” Bill Donahue I am in love with the madrone family – more exactly, the arbutus menziesii – Pacific Northwest native tree. I love how its presence tells me I am home: the main […]
Turn It Up to 11
The headline is a reference to one of my favorite scenes in the classic movie “This Is Spinal Tap”, where Nigel explains to Rob Reiner that their amps “go up to 11”. After all these years that scene still makes me laugh. Who doesn’t want one more? Recently I have been embarking on my artistic […]
The Roadstead Project
A few months ago, I joined a new collaborative group emanating from the fecund literary community in Port Townsend. We are The Roadstead Project. We are 20 poets and visual artists, coming together to see where our creative exchange and intermingling of pictures and words will go. So far I have worked with a […]
A Sense of Place
Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up From the pages of books and from your own heart. Be still and listen to the voices that belong To the streambanks and the trees and the open fields. There are songs and sayings that belong to this place, By which it speaks for itself and […]
There’s something about a boat
I am not a nautical type. Though I grew up near Lake Huron, walking the boat docks of Grosse Pointe City Park in the muggy midwest summers, and even heading out on a sunfish now and then, that’s about extent of my marine experience. My limited boating expertise is with canoes and kayaks — feeling more kinship […]
Playing with New Tools
I had a lot of fun playing with Autodesk Sketchbook for an Opus Creative project — into the wee hours this last week. Deadlines aren’t so bad when there is drawing involved! Sketchbook combines aspects of Photoshop, Illustrator and has a really intuitive interface. For my part, I was supplying a sketch for part of […]
Enjoying Artistic License
My recent visit to New Mexico was the tail end of a 10-day road trip that went through the Canyonlands of Utah. Santa Fe got added to the itinerary because of a lovely exhibit currently showing at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. I just had to see it. “The Faraway” features familiar O’Keeffe paintings of Northern […]