February was set aside as “At Home Residency” month for me. I adored my “At Home Residency” Month, even with less time for actual art-making than I would have liked. It was such a gift to my practice and my artist-self to immerse my brain in art-think and set other things aside. It was a reset for my practice. I took time to both step back and take in the big picture and leaned into fresh momentum in the studio for the coming year.
Important themes bobbed to the surface again: Freedom, Naming What Matters, Starting Small, Experimentation, Light Touch, and Following the Bread Crumbs.
I spent extra time during the month focused on my outdoor and indoor studio practice and my art-making, thinking, reflecting and creating habits.
I cleaned my studio, revisited past work, made space for new work, took notes, jotted down insights and generated ideas, enjoyed a few nourishing and luxuriously long studio days, and pursued some long-awaited material experiments that had been brewing for a while. And I made space for play! I’m enjoying some of the experiment outcomes and look forward to following those threads.
These are a series of images from my outdoor studio time at Eagle Rock Lake in Questa, New Mexico, the village closest to where I live. Walking, sketching, photographing, observing, wondering and gentle curiosity are all practices that help me feel more alive, connected to my home place and connected to myself and purpose on this planet.
I’m excited about the evolution of this outdoor studio practice and multi-faceted project. More updates are coming soon!
I am so grateful for the reset that this “at home” residency has provided for my practice this year, despite juggling a very full schedule all month! I have never regretted setting aside an envelope of focused time for my arts practice and although it turned out differently than I’d planned (doesn’t it always!?), I’m pleased with the points of reconnection, reinvigoration and experimentation that emerged during the residency.
Thank you to Anna Pancoast @anna.kathryn.pancoast, LeeAnn Love @leeannlovestudio, Anna Keleher @annakeleher and Nicole Thibodeau @doublelizardstudio for embarking on this At Home Residency project together from our various places around the globe! I am so grateful for your accountability, inspiration, encouragement and camaraderie! 🌱🌎🖌️🖼️🌞🏠
#clairecotearts #sketchbook #artistresidency #questanm
