The process of learning to paint takes years.  Years of painting everything and everyone, often badly.  Now a good seven years into this journey, I decided it was time to clean house.  I hauled out every class project and open studio practice piece and removed the canvases from the stretchers.  Wow! So many!  Amazing to realize how many really bad paintings had to be done to get where I am with my work!  It was a "who's who" of favorite models, friends, fruits, vegetables, and landscapes!  But it seemed somehow wrong to part with this pile of inadequate art.  And then I had a thought... just perhaps, with the help of some really fabulous friends, a mother-in-law with a sewing machine and a very cooperative daughter, this pile of canvases could have a grand showing!  And that is how The pARTy Dress made it to the Chestertown RiverArts 2019 Reclaimed Runway Show.

 

Our little group of Artists, known as the Blueberry Pie and Art Society, gathered and made fashion magic. Our motto? "If you can't sell it, wear it"!  We cut, glued, sewed, and stapled.  And in a few weeks we had turned a pile of bad paintings into its own amazing work of art!  Individually the paintings were nothing, but together they told a story.  My story!  I can't even begin to tell you how I felt inside when my 20-something baby sashayed down that runway wearing The pARTy Dress.  

 

Art is a process.  A journey.  Not one individual piece.  It is built on all the pieces, even the really bad ones, that came before.  And when they are all put together, you get to have a masterpiece!