The question I found myself asking, as I settled in to work on my collection for the Creative Pinellas Emerging Artists’ Exhibition, is what makes a series an entity of its own? This project is the first series I’ve ever made and the first time my work will be displayed in a gallery. Naturally, I was both nervous and excited, as well as feeling a bit out of my depth.
A little research and a quality conversation or two with my mentor and I thought I had an idea.
A series is about a theme. It’s both the subject presented and the medium used in a way that makes the finished product more than the sum of its parts. It gives you room to expound on the conversation further than you were able to on that one canvas.
For me my art has always centered around nature, predominantly water in nature. There’s so much to be said there; so much to experience. The gentleness, the harshness, the healing, the death, and the fresh life. In this series the waves roll in and roll out in the same way the tides of my life change, ebbing and surging, always changing and yet predictably steady.
Our lives are a series in the same way this art is, each scene, every phase, a chance to expand our skills and expound on the conversation we want to have with the world.
I was incredibly thrilled, and honored, to be able to participate in this event. I know I will take the things I learned here forward into both my art and my life.
