Laura Spencer Illustrates
2019 Emerging Artist Grantee
Post 01 – An Introduction
TLDR: My name is Laura Spencer, and I Illustrate – Welcome to my Emerging Artist Grant blog. My intention is to provide you with engaging content on my creative process, while piecing together my personal history.
Thank you for stumbling upon this blog – powered by Creative Pinellas – which chronicles the trials and tribulations of my Emerging Artist Grant. In this blog, I’ll be sharing photos, works-in-progress, musings, and inspiration. Most importantly, I want to use this blog as a mean of artistic self reflection. By reviewing my history, I aim to expose insecurities, give voice to the questions in my head, and embody the discipline, timeliness, and accountability that it takes to write a weekly scheduled exposé.
To kick things off, here’s a little sample of (almost) all of the projects I worked on this month – from Creative Arts Unlimited, freelance clients, and personal work.
A Personal Art History:
In an effort to better understand myself and to illuminate the path forward, I’ll be including blurbs on my artistic background. As artists, we are the creative sums of our histories. By reviewing the past I hope to discover the underlying message that drives me today.
Ever since I can remember, Art has been the central focus of my life. I was born and raised right here in St. Petersburg, Florida to a small yet fiercely creative family. My upbringing was humble; far from affluent, but rich in love, encouragement, and imagination. I was always surrounded by tools of creativity and impactful works of art. As a small little critter, my mother often took me on visits to her eldest sister’s home and art studio. I’d wander around wide-eyed and seemingly unaware, taking in her masterful and surreal paintings. As my mother tells it, I began pointing out figures and context within her paintings. Impressed by this moment of visual comprehension, both my mother and aunt decided that I would begin taking art lessons.
Around the age of 5, I began studying under the guidance of my Aunt and Local Artist – Boo Ehrsam – every weekend, without fail. At the time, I was irked to miss out on Saturday morning cartoons. However, I could not have predicted the direction these lessons would lead. The education I received so throughly seeped into my brain that it provided the foundation from which I build upon today. From learning the principles/elements of art and design, to the hand-eye coordination of observational drawing, as well as the basics of perspective – this wisdom set the tone for an enduring sense of discipline and devotion to Art.
The journey that followed this “creative genesis” can only be described as being in the right place and the right time. A future full of unique opportunities that, to this day, I am only just starting to realize their significance. More on that subject in the next blog entry.
If you managed to stick around through all that rambling – I thank you! The next installment will be about a visit with an old professor, and my experiences attending an art magnet high school. Also up ahead – updates on my concepts for the Emerging Artist Grant, and my plans for how to allocate my funding. It will be a long post, so brace yourself!
Until next time…
-LS
On my mind:
Each week, I’d like to provide a list of noteworthy books, articles, music, and media that I’ve perused – I’ll be sure to include links when available. Enjoy!
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- What I’m reading:
Hungarian Folktales – The Art of Zsuzsanna Palkó - What I’m listening to:
Drifter’s Sympathy by Emil Amos [podcast]
- What I’m reading:
