Introduction to this journey

This blog is part of my thesis special project for my Masters of Liberal Arts. I will post the pieces I am working on with a commentary of my process, the challenges and what I learned. At the end of the project, I will have created 30 paintings and hopefully seen an evolution in my art. Perhaps this is a lofty goal, but I am excited nevertheless.

The idea of a blog is to input information daily, but unfortunately, these first pieces were created within such a short time that blogging about them could not be done. So, instead, I will reconstruct my thoughts based on my notes and try to give the truest picture of what was going on at the time they came into existence.

I would like to thank the following people for being so supportive and nonjudgemental during this process - Lori, Amanda, Charlie, Pat, Debbie, Liz, Dr. Great Art and G. I love you all and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your feedback and encouragement. I truly could not do this without you.

Before going further, I think it is important to clarify what I mean when I use the term outsider artist. I am referring to self-taught artists as well as artists who are not part of the social norm, nor the artistic community. These are artists who exist outside of mainstream society either because of mental illness, incarceration or physical isolation.

And we begin...