It is my destiny to study and learn the old master techniques

Artwork by Pamela Becker

(BigVisionArts.com)

Lately I find myself daydreaming about my time in Italy and France when I studied traditional painting methods, portraiture, and even figurative sculpture with the great masters.

There is only one flaw in this memory. It has never occurred. But it is so strangely vivid and with years gone by becomes stronger and clearer that painting is my destiny. And I have so very much still to paint! Three years remain before I turn 60 with no retirement in sight. I am running low on time.

Although I have been an evolving artist on every level my entire life, I am far from complete with my journey. I am at the point where I need help, structured learning from another level to continue. I find myself stuck in repetitive language on the canvas. I received art training early in life, and I have inherent creativity and can discover and develop techniques on my own fairly well, but I need to learn the master skills to take myself to the next level. I have known this for years. I am all over the place with styles, always changing and looking for the next style that will get my art noticed on a higher level. I sense my art lacks clear concepts, master color use, and simplicity. I can get carried away in details, where I need to be clearer in what I want to communicate: a cohesive vision. I see the art I am to create in my knowing bank, and I am reaching for it.

I was an ordinary young woman growing up in suburban New Jersey, when I headed off to Rhode Island School of Design at age 17 to achieve a BA in Illustration, which I use to this day to make my living as a graphic designer, illustrator and print broker. Then at 23, while reading about the life and art of Georgia O’Keeffe, I was driving through the southwest heading to San Francisco to practice my new skills as an Illustrator and designer. That is how the next 16 years of my life unfolded up and down the coast of northern California. At 39, I made the dream of living in Sedona, Arizona a reality and have been in love with the landscape here ever since. Half of my week is spent in my studio creating. But a long half of my week is spent like I am now: on the laptop, filling out forms, paying bills, marketing my fine art, handling client design jobs, and at the end of the day the computer has zapped my inspiration from my soul. I have always lived alone, married to my art. I long to give up the computer part of my life, and live inside my painting many more days of the week. By selling my art on a larger scale, this would be achievable.

I know it is my destiny to study and learn the old master techniques. I literally dream of art study in Europe, but that seems farther and farther out in light of our current pandemic and cultural misfortunes. The only travel left is the inner world. As such, I seek this old-world training and the inner travel of art. I am also aware of the time going by. No longer in my 30s and 40s, I see the time when my body will slow down, and these dreams must be made manifest. Are you willing to assist another in becoming their bigger self? I am, and I have devoted my business, Big Vision Arts to helping children and my clients to becoming their bigger vision of themselves. Now I am asking you to help me do this for myself by giving me this grant to study with Old Masters Academy.

I watched Old Master Academy video yesterday and can not stop thinking about what it could teach me. I agree that these techniques are not taught in school, and these are the techniques I most want to learn, the specifics about how to achieve the old master knowledge with modern supplies. I will add another note to that, that I prefer to use newer non-toxic supplies whenever possible.

Winning the Old Masters course would offer me a boost in my artistic confidence, which I have to admit is something I have always lacked. I don’t have a community of artists in my life that offer me constructive feedback. I truly miss the helpful, competitive critiques that I had from colleagues at art school. I live inside a wonderful bubble, but I really need feedback on my art from a larger well-respected community. My life’s call is to become a master painter. Your vote would give me confidence in myself and my art which are one in the same.