EXHIBITING GALLERY: Main Street Gallery
TITLE OF SHOW: Innovations 8
OPENING DATE AND CLOSING DATE: September 4th, 2009 – October 3rd, 2009
CURATOR OR JUROR: Kathryn Stullken Hopkins
Main Street Gallery
Submitted by: Anita Bracalente, Visual Artist
- Tell us a bit more about yourself: your location, professional affiliations, personal stuff…
I am a visual artist living in Bloomington, Indiana. I call myself a visual artist as I work in many different mediums and cannot cast myself exclusively as a painter, textile artist, photographer or landscape designer. I formally trained as a painter, but I soon worked in other mediums including stained glass and then returned to painting for 25 years. Beading and specifically knitted beads came very much later. I also do landscape design nearly full-time but the beading fulfills another need of making things. At this time I do not paint, but I do a lot of photography. I am also a writer and lecturer on landscape design and gardening.
- Apart from creating things, what do you do?
There is not much I do that isn't creative, but I am a museum registrar, which gives me access to art all day long. When I am not working in the studio, I like to garden, swim, hike, and travel. My photography comes into play when I am gardening, hiking and traveling. I love to travel the world and I am usually visiting gardens and museums and other cultural events. Otherwise, I cook, but I think this is a very creative act. I love musical events and it is there that I am only an audience participant.
- What first inspired you to become an artist?
- I was 6 years old. I was always drawing and painting, but one day I had some free time (in the first grade classroom) and I was drawing a horse. In this drawing I added the horse's hock instead of drawing a straight leg with a hoof. This pleased me very much. When I came home that day I showed my mother my drawing and I announced that I was going to be an artist some day. That was it and I never turned back.
- What is the source of your creativity? How much is from within? How much comes from outside sources?
The core of my creativity has always come from natural forms found in nature and architectural structures. I particularly like the interaction between organic and geometric shapes played against each other added with contrasting colors, textures, patterns and the unraveling of patterns and structure.
The element of time in landscape design is considered the “fourth dimension” and I like to allow time to cast changes on my perspectives as I work through a piece, whether it is a painting, a beaded work or a landscape design. The important thing being that the final object must have a resonance of logic not generating from myself, but rather dictated from the internal logic of the piece. In that respect I learn something new visually from each piece. My creative ideas are generated from within as I internalize nature and architectural structures. The element of time becomes my external (re)source in the final resolution of a work.
- What helps create a suitable environment for making art?
My total environment must suit me. Our studio is a separate building from our house surrounded by the garden and although my work is portable, it is important that I have this space to go to. This second story studio room is light filled. It is essential to me that I cultivate beauty and live with beauty every day of the year. We have a greenhouse which enables me to grow orchids and we have flowers 365 days of the year. The garden has an extended bloom period 9- 10 months of the year. The element of my personal environment is that I be surrounded by creative and intelligent people every day and that my life is filled with art and music daily.
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