Jen Fisher is a local artist and art instructor here in Boca Raton.

She joins us to talk about her life as an illustrator working for an interior design firm in NYC, before this was done on computers. Once she was burned out from that stressful work, she created architecture-inspired jewelry, became an art instructor and began painting in an unconventional way! Throughout her life, her surroundings have strongly influenced her process and products.

Her daily observational drawings during the Covid quarantine are a part of the William & Mary Libraries Blog, and her work has been featured on the cover of Art and Culture of Palm Beach County in 2018. She has also been featured in Boca Magazine and the Sun Sentinel.

Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jfishdesign/
Order a copy of her visual diary from 2020: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1093870196/dear-diary-a-pictorial-essay-of-life
https://libraries.wm.edu/blog/post/quarantine-through-eyes-artist

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It happens to all of us every now and then. We get stuck.
But it's all about how to get out of that rut.

In this episode, I talk about three ways to get unstuck:

1. Use a prompt - We read several prompts from the MOMA’s website
2. Movement - Florence Cane
3. Collaborate - play the exquisite corpse drawing game with your family or friends.

All three of these activities will get you started on a new path to finding your creative stride. Sometimes you have to get off of the beaten path and explore some new ways of doing things. What are you going to do today to get unstuck? What new things are you going to try? Let me know!

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What is a cartoon? Did you know that the word comes from Italian and goes all the way back to the 1500s?

In today's episode, we talk about how kids love drawing cartoons, and it's a great form of expression for them. I also reminisce on how the International Museum of Cartoon Art was a place I hung out in when it was in Boca Raton! I even won their cartoon contest!

Original Cartoons from the Royal Academy

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Kendra is a full time artist and founder of Being Sacred Art. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University and has been practicing art for over 15 years. Kendra spent four years teaching art in the public school system but always knew deep down she was meant to be a full time maker and creatress.

Being Sacred is her journey in following her true path of divine expression.

Her inquiry in art and life is a continuous quest to live all movements completely in line with her spiritual essence. Art has always been her foundation. Her work explores concepts of spirituality, ceremony, ritual, sublime nature and the divine feminine. She represents in art what feeds her soul. She connects deeply to the land and depicts sacred spaces and practices that honor, heal and allow the soul to grow and glow.

Kendra strives to surround herself with everything handmade and hopes to inspire others to do the same. She believes objects that are created by hand hold power and bring us into presence. You can follow her story on instagram @beingsacredart.

To learn more about Kendra and her artwork, visit:

https://www.beingsacredart.com/

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Today I speak with the author Jennifer Savran Kelly, whose debut novel Endpapers is about an artist named Dawn. Kelly says that this book is a love letter to art!

Kelly fills us in on what it was like writing about a character who is stuck - not only with her art but also in her gender identity. As she figures out her situation in her life, her art is also finally able to be expressed as well.
Kelly talks about the art classes that she took during the same time as the book's setting.
Listen to learn more about Kelly's advice for anyone pursuing their own art.
Visit https://jennifersavrankelly.com/endpapers/ to learn more about Kelly and to purchase Endpapers!


About the novel Endpapers:

Published by Algonquin Books. Purchase Endpapers here.

It’s 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works in conservation at the Met, she spends her free time scouting the city’s street art, hoping something might spark inspiration. Instead, everything looks like a dead end. And art isn’t the only thing that feels wrong: wherever she turns, her gender identity clashes with the rest of her life. Her relationship, once anchored by shared queerness, is falling apart as her boyfriend Lukas increasingly seems to be attracted to Dawn only when she’s at her most masculine. Meanwhile at work, Dawn has to present as female, even on the days when that isn’t true. Either way, her difference feels like a liability.

Then, one day at work, Dawn finds something hidden behind the endpaper of an old book: the torn-off cover of a ‘50s lesbian pulp novel, Turn Her About. On the front is a campy illustration of a woman looking into a handheld mirror and seeing a man’s face. And on the back is a love letter.

Dawn latches onto the coincidence, becoming obsessed with tracking down the note’s author. Her fixation only increases when her best friend Jae is injured in a hate crime, for which Dawn feels responsible. As Dawn searches for the letter’s author, she is also looking for herself. She tries to understand how to live in a world that doesn’t see her as she truly is, how to get unstuck in her gender, and how to rediscover her art, and she can’t shake the feeling that the note’s author might be able to help guide her to the answers.

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Today we’re going to talk about being the “class artist”. The class artist is what I call that kid in elementary school who is identified as the person who can draw. Everyone knows that if they need something or want something drawn, they would go to that person. Were you the class artist? Is your child the class artist? I was.

Being the class artist can shape a person’s identity, and become a confidence booster! But at some point as artists, and people, we have to know when to draw the line and set limits, even if others don’t like it and you get some backlash from friends or strangers.

In this episode, I talk about how my experiences of being the class artist - the good and the bad - led me to write my first children's book: I Heard You Can Draw: A Story for Class Artists Everywhere, available on Amazon. This book is a shout out to all of the class artists out there!

"Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you." -Oprah Winfrey

https://www.amazon.com/Heard-You-Can-Draw-Everywhere/dp/0989649008/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34IILEJPFQWPQ&keywords=i+heard+you+can+draw&qid=1695164682&sprefix=i+heard+you+can+draw%2Caps%2C97&sr=8-1

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Do you love drawing portraits as much as I do? Do you draw from life, or do you make up faces from your imagination?

William Steig said in 1992, “I often ask myself, ‘What would be an ideal life?’—I think an ideal life would be just drawing.” I completely agree!

In this episode, I talk about how fun it is to make drawings of the people in your everyday life from life. We look at some more of the unknown Ellsworth Kelly drawings that he made of people in his life, and I talk about my renewed determination to draw people around me, and the series of watercolor portraits I'm working on now. You can see my series on my website, MichelleShermanArt.com.

Do you like to draw portraits? Who do you draw the most? Do you draw from life or your imagination?

A Beautiful Place to Start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-dSoNmcZs
Lyrics by John Kavanaugh and Michelle Sherman
Music by John Kavanaugh
Vocal by Jenna Lea Rosen

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Today I'm going to talk about the three things that I love about sketchbooks:

1. You can play and experiment in them without feeling judged. You can create freely. 2. You can document life and your thoughts and your artistic progress over the years, and
3. You can gain insight into other artists’ minds by looking at other artists’ sketchbooks. Some are even published that you can purchase.

If you want to start keeping a sketchbook, or you have a child or student who is interested in art, I have four prompts for you to try:

1. Old is new again. - Find an old drawing in your sketchbook.
2. Research - Choose a topic to research. Fill your page with notes in words and pictures about your topic. Overall, the look should have the feeling of whatever you are researching. Create flaps to lift revealing some pictures or text underneath, cut out magazine articles and photos, make a book inside the page.
3. Add + Subtract - Add something to one part of the page, and take someone away from the other part! The subtracting part could be cutting or ripping part of the page, cutting out a window to reveal a page behind it, adding would be attaching something to the page.
4. Words + Images - Find a quote or lyrics to a song, words to a poem you like. Write it over and over until it fills the page. Then cover 30% of the words to hide it. Last, draw a self portrait on top. When you are done, think about how the words now seem to interact with the picture.

Frida Kahlo Sketchbook: https://www.amazon.com/Diary-Frida-Kahlo-Intimate-Self-Portrait/dp/0810959542/ref=asc_df_0810959542/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312021428070&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1662245998252165347&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012053&hvtargid=pla-450499071264&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=60223809017&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312021428070&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1662245998252165347&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012053&hvtargid=pla-450499071264

Henry Moore's Sheep Sketchbook: https://www.amazon.com/Henry-Moores-Sheep-Sketchbook-Moore/dp/050028072X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3MSWYCY4T61W9&keywords=henry+moore+sketchbook&qid=1693410800&s=books&sprefix=henry+moore+sketchbook%2Cstripbooks%2C127&sr=1-1

Art Spiegelman's three sketchbooks Be a Nose: https://www.amazon.com/Be-Nose-Art-Spiegelman/dp/1934781142/ref=sr_1_1?crid=EN8N9TA4C7E7&keywords=art+spiegelman+be+a+nose&qid=1693410846&s=books&sprefix=art+speigelman+be+a+nos%2Cstripbooks%2C108&sr=1-1

A Beautiful Place to Start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-dSoNmcZs
Lyrics by John Kavanaugh and Michelle Sherman
Music by John Kavanaugh
Vocal by Jenna Lea Rosen

Support the Show.