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.
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