Announcing The Artist's Family a novel By Elicia Burton

The Artist's Family: A Tale of Love, Loss, and Unbreakable Bonds

The Artist’s Family is a fascinating journey through Elaine’s life, consisting of love, loss, and rediscovery. After a traumatic robbery prompts her to reevaluate her existence, Elaine goes on a soul-stirring adventure along the California Central Coast.

As she faces the twists of fate, Elaine encounters her true love and finds the astonishing truth about her father, a renowned artist believed to be lost. The narrative deepens as long-lost family members, including a brother and Baby Sister, resurface, setting the stage for a touching reunion.

The family’s interconnected bonds, akin to the sturdy roots of the Redwood trees portrayed in her father’s painting, are put to the test when Baby Sister, now a celebrated actress and musician, faces a harrowing kidnapping for ransom. The family rallies together, showcasing the resilience of their unity.

In an unexpected turn, we go into the past, hearing the untold story of Mom, Dawn Jones, a teen model who reached the pinnacle of success only to see her career end abruptly in her early twenties. A house fire separates the family, and Dawn’s subsequent decision to flee Child Protective Services (CPS) leads to a nomadic life in her car, marking a tragic chapter in their lives.

Set in the 1960s through the 1990s, The Artist’s Family is a profound exploration of family ties, resilience, and the enduring spirit that binds us together through the highs and lows of life.

Artist Biography:

My name is Elicia Burton, I live in Upstate New York, I grew up in California, and I have a Bachelor's degree in Art and a Master's degree in Educational Leadership. I'm an older woman now, I grew up in the 1950's. I am retired, but I still do many things I always have done, buy and sell Antiques and collectibles and find art. A few weeks ago I published my first Novel The Artist's Family. It is not a story about anyone I know, but the story and characters came to me as though an obsession, I wrote it in my brother's basement, but I feel that it wrote itself. The characters are vivid, they tell their stories in first person throughout the book, you as the reader really will feel like you know them, as they go through growth as a family through many tragic events. I am an author.

I am an artist; I enjoy the process of painting on canvas with acrylic paints, Abstract Landscapes, people, woodland animals, and nonrepresentational works of art.

Elicia Burton Artist Background

When I graduated from Pacific University with my Bachelor's Degree in Art I was handed this little book called Art & fear, Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Art making. The quote in the first chapter sums it up so well, from a very old voice from long ago. The nature of the problem is this,

“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.” -Hippocrates (460-400B.C.)

I went away from college, having also studied for 2 years at Sonoma State University, in photography with Marsha Red Adams. I had my eyes opened during that time, with many classes in drawing and art history, by instructors of great merit, who taught with enthusiasm. After a challenging divorce, I found myself going to the Strawberry Music Festival up in the high Sierra near Yosemite National Park, held in a wonderful environment of camping, and musical jamming. I played the violin in the grade school orchestra and string quartet, so I pulled out my violin and learned to fiddle, enjoying the comradery of friendships that developed there, eventually bringing me back to California.

I attended a Master’s Degree program in Educational leadership and graduated in 2006. I went on a 23-day tour of Europe and enjoyed seeing Art Museums in every country, standing in front of the originals and not just in a printed book was thrilling. Walking through the streets of Venice, Paris, Rome, and Florence, the countryside in Switzerland, and the Alps was a total marvel to me.

I went back to live in the Santa Cruz Mountains and played my fiddle with several bands. I did a little of everything, substitute teaching, and pet sitting, buying and selling Antiques and collectibles in local antiques store, and did some flea and antiques markets, while also selling online through eBay, which I still engage in today. While in the Santa Cruz area though active, I battled a long severe illness, which culminated in a couple of surgeries. I needed to relax and get well, but there wasn't time to relax, I moved to Washington State and helped my mother for a few years after my father passed on. I continued to work as a pet sitter, selling on eBay, and teaching at a Music Academy teaching violin and also taking up viola; I played at a few jams around town. I was also driving back and forth to Santa Cruz, gathering my things, and making stops for pet sitting and music gigs.

It was a busy time for me when I was stuck down again with yet another illness. My brother David took charge and I moved to his home in New York, where I live now. During this time out, my brother helped me get back on my feet, and I began to paint, shut downs around the world took place and I found myself once again driving across the country. Then another year later we were on the road again, getting Mom, who needed our help. So, now we all live together.

I feel settled somehow, I have a home. I paint daily and try to list new paintings weekly on my website and eBay. I now have space and time to follow that long left-behind path of making Art.

Here's the thing, Life is short, there's never enough time and energy, or money to do all the things we want. If we even know what we want. I have to know what I want to get generally speaking. I have pursued making art, for classroom assignments, and I never believed I was any good at making it. I held myself back, time, money, energy, imagination and focus being frightened by not making some masterpiece. Art if you dig deep, and maybe wide can be many things to many people, traditional, abstract, realistic, representational, photographic, wild, loose, historic, idealistic, political, decorative, religious, the product, the procedure, the materials, the viewer, the maker and the year it was made, the price, about the artist, the portrait, the landscape, the ism; the subject of art is long. I have found that my opportunities for making art have been fleeting, I loved going to school, a great excuse to make art, but I was afraid of it too. Could I ever be good enough to make it in Art?

Experience treacherous and Judgement difficult, Hippocrates wrote. Indeed, the showing of artwork is very scary, what if they don't like what they see? What if it all goes unnoticed? What happens then? Stop making Art, decide you are no good, no one cares? Or work on it, grow through it, experience it in all of its horrors. Yes, dare to make Art. Do what my hands, eyes, and soul dream of doing. Make the colors, and the marks, allow myself to explore. Paint over a painting or keep a painting, allow a painting to become what it will. Enjoy the painting, expand my eyes. Build on what I know, and learn what I don't know through doing, through allowance, through further study. Stop and enjoy the creation of a miracle, a modern-day alchemy, an expression of God through my hands, from a blank canvas to a finished painting. The painting becomes my feelings and emotional state, my pure enjoyment of expression are the marks and colors on the canvas, the brush strokes, the built-up impasto of the paint, medium, and brush; far too exciting for criticism.

That was the final agreement I made with myself about making art, I wouldn't allow myself to be critical about it after I declared it finished. I would allow it. I wasn't mad at it. I embraced the freedom of making the artwork. I declared it, I will be an Artist, I will make art. I so much enjoy making it, the hours as they go by, the layers of paint building, the brush moving the paint across the surface, the final image somehow reacting to my senses, and I see that I have finished it. I pull out more paint and more canvas, and begin again, making art is Fun. Life is short so I work making art daily, there is a huge long reward in the depth and width of Art as a discipline, time has a way of slipping by, so it's best to use it rather than letting it go, the critics are out there, they can be your voice, overcome the judgments and do it anyway. How many people make art? Not that many, Art is made by those who make it. Why not me?

I hope you find my Art, and dare to collect a few pieces for your home or office. Thank You for letting me share my story. More to come, as I am working daily to make more art.

Feel free to comment on this blog.

Musings

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side is usually the answer. To get to the other side, but it's risky to cross the street these days. It is usual in my area to lock chickens up as many wild predators sneak through the woods, into this subdivision on the edge of marshlands, near the river. The interruption of lockdowns and masks, and lack of punishment for crime, make me stay home as much as I can and not be out in public much. I'm older now and unstable because of my weight and knees, and terrible older back. I struggle.

My mind shouts at me, I'm a Free Bird, not a chicken, which to me means I've always had to find my courage, I couldn't have been that scared, and yet I feel I was always the watcher, not the participant in my early years. Somehow, comparisons took place, a shy me inside had me silent, knowing how little I knew. I learned a lot,

I was a working musician, a fiddler. I wasn't bad I set my niche and was asked to play with many very fine and wonderful musicians. I grew in it, I never completely got out of my shell for many years, having so many hurdles in daily life to overcome, working so much, and burning my candle at both ends, made the parameters of my self-discovery, becoming aware of self-doubt, limitations, and overwhelm, added to medical problems that were not being solved, made me vulnerable, sometimes the wrong people could take advantage of me. I didn't make much art after I graduated college, no money, no time, no place, no energy, and no thoughts toward it. I did admire other people’s talents, but could I even rise?

Many years had past since I had any time or place to make art, or discover it again. I found myself in a small town where I didn't know anyone, I took a class at the library, a drawing class, and a few others. There wasn't a right or wrong way. There were many different ways, the women who shared the class with me were also making art, all so similar in project but unique as the creator. This phrase stuck in my mind, it was something I had been looking for for many years. It spoke directly to the unworthy feeling that had always held me back. In God's eyes, “a flower blooms, it is beautiful, and another blooms next to it and is also beautiful; neither one turns to the other and compares itself to the other, they all just bloom.

When I paint, I have a freedom I have never felt before. I am blooming. I make a painting, I eventually see it as finished, and I go on and make another. The enjoyment and feeling of God's guiding hand on me is so vital to my life. The paintings fill me with excitement, I transcend somehow, I no longer judge my art, I allow it, I'm happy for it, and I share the creation, it is a piece of art. The canvas is out on its merit, it stands as its own painter’s journey, a moving transitional piece of time; the only thing I ask of it “Is it something to go back to? Is it engaging? Surprising? Something to go back to look at again and again?”

I hope you enjoy my portfolio displayed here on my website. Please take a few home, and come and see my latest body of work. Let my work speak to you, Enjoy the art, buy a poster or tee shirt or wearable art tee shirt, and Watch for my new novel. Pick up “The Artist's Family,” my first novel, chat with me, receive an occasional email, and stay in touch.