Catchall Creatives Goes International!

There will be a new art museum opening in June 2022, and Catchall Creatives is making the hop across the pond to ITALY!! More specifically, Sicily! I was asked to create a piece to be hung for when it opens, and so after the whole process of narrowing down what in the world I would paint, what medium I wanted to use, and studying all kinds of art techniques for inspiration, I ended up making two art pieces to submit to the museum coordinator. I want to share more about this experience and talk about the paintings I created for the museum, so here we go! Be sure to comment any questions on this blog post if you wanna know more :)

When I first got asked to paint something for a museum in Italy, I had no idea what I was going to paint - so I immediately went to Pinterest for inspiration lol I kept thinking, "I want to make a painting that is 'worthy' enough to be hung in a museum". And I realized that was really holding me back! So I told myself to paint whatever makes me happy. So both of the paintings I created were landscape paintings - I LOVE paintings that take me places. Like when you look at it, you can feel the peace of actually being in that place.

I also love how art can spark amazing conversation between people with how they interpret art. It's an amazing opportunity to bring the joy of painting to others and for people to look at my art and interpret it - and it be a completely different interpretation from my thoughts about the painting! How crazy cool is that?!

So all that to say, I wanted to create a painting that embodied those two things, 1) something that makes me happy, and 2) interpretive potential. Knowing that landscape paintings make me very happy, I made it simple and went with that! I recently went to the van Gogh Exhibit in Atlanta, Ga, and the experience was extremely eye opening. After seeing, and experiencing, van Gogh's paintings, I was so inspired by his style and his landscape paintings. So I stopped worrying and second guessing myself about picking the "perfect subject" to paint. I went with something I knew would make me happy :)

"Mountain Ridge Sunrise" - First Submission

After painting my first piece that I submitted, I was obsessed with it haha it made me feel like I traveled to another realm and I didn't know if I was on the edge of the world or running towards it. I told myself that it was a sunrise behind the mountains, but I also noticed that it could be a sunset too! After I got done with the painting, I definitely hit my second goal of having "interpretive potential". There are sunrise people, there are sunset people, and some like both - each person has their reasons for liking one of those experiences over the other, and that perspective is what makes art so incredibly interesting!

"Harps In The Meadow" - Second Submission

Moving onto the second painting I submitted - it was another landscape painting, on a much smaller canvas. Truth be told, the first painting I did was on a 12x16in. and there was a chance that it was too big to make the trip to Sicily, so I painting a second piece on a smaller, 8x8in., canvas so that the museum coordinator had options (he's planning on taking it over to Italy with him when he makes the trip from the U.S.). But that made this a more fun experience since I had to get my creative juices flowing again.

I know I wanted to paint another landscape for the second piece, but I wanted it to be different from the first. Honestly, Harper (my dog) was the inspiration for this one! I wanted to paint a meadow that I could see myself step into, make a picnic and watch Harper run around enjoying life. That's why I named it "Harps In The Meadow"! I call Harper "Harps" all the time, but not everyone knows that. So if someone thinks of literally harps in a field of flowers (like the instrument), it just adds to the whimsicality of the painting :)

The Family History Exhibit in Valguarnera, Sicily is on track to open in June 2022 and this gives me the perfect excuse to travel to a place I've never been before! I'm very excited about this opportunity and can't wait to see what's to come!

Comment if you've ever been to Italy or if that's a place where you'd like to go one day! :)