Happy New Year!
In preparing to add this Blog, I spent some time to reflecting if I want this platform to be a diary about my creative process or purely a promotional tool. Selfishly I’ve decided it should be equal parts studio announcements and creative musing while enjoying writing about my work. For structure I’ve decided to commit monthly to writing about my studio as an experiment to test the waters to discover how this activity might shape my art practice while publicly highlighting work in progress.
Writing is an essential tool for any visual artist. For me, this sometime comes naturally with the creative flow of making as I leave notes in my studio or on my phone-sketchbook replacing a traditional bored-bond book. Being an artist who works away from the vein poetry or literature, writing for me has often been a challenge while grasping for words to define the message of my work into a cohesive meaning. When I finish putting my artwork into words I feel like it shook me. Similar to working out, the act of writing makes me leaner, meaner, and more focused as an artist.
On this note here is my current studio situation. After taking 4 years of Elternzeit (extended parent leave, not uncommon in Europe) to raise a young child while adjusting to having moved to the other side of the world. I finally settled into another new studio space last July. My current atelier is a shared creative space with three other artists located at Bettackerstraße 10C, 79115 Freiburg im Breisgau.
Shortly after unpacking I started an Artist in Residency in Motherhood. ARIM is a low attendance residency for artists who are mothers. For any artist who has taken the time away from work or shifted gears to be a stay-at-home parent, diving back into studio full or part time can seem daunting. I find the residency outline is a great way to shift my focus back to art making while defining short-term accountable goals for my studio practice. While jump starting a number aof projects I felt creatively starved to return to, I’m currently working on several new bodies of work toward exhibition this year.
Here is a small preview of recent work, including a project in rural forests in northern Europe where I am experimenting with building ephemeral light installations into the landscape as a way of photographically connecting man-made and natural occurring phenomena. After editing and printing the first round of this work for the Atelier open house last November, I’m currently researching and planning a connected sister series in the future months to come. More news and details to be announced shortly!
Erin Harper Vernon, Mythos I - Wandering Star, Ursa Minor (working title)