mindset and art making…

Written By Claire Harmer

“Create work you love” “take time to explore” “find your audience” “start a new series” “take time to play” “stop and reflect” sooooooo many prompts run through my head every day and the truth is that I spend more time with admin tasks and designing / delivering workshops than creating my own original work. The first 12 months of freelance I was giving everything a go ….18 months later I now know a few things for sure:

I LOVE RUNNING PAINTING COURSES AND WORKSHOPS

I LOVE SUPPORTING OTHERS ON THEIR OWN PAINTING JOURNEY

I LOVE HAVING BIG CHUNKS OF TIME TO DIVE INTO MY OWN PAINTING

I LOVE PROJECT WORK

I don’t love marketing (but I DO recognise the value)

I don’t love lugging art supplies around (I need to use my trolley more)

I don’t love a messy studio (I need to keep it usable)

I don’t love making a loss (I need to stop under-selling myself)

So I’ve made a few decisions to….

  • Run FEWER workshops, however, those I run will be A-MAZ-ING with limited spaces, great value and as much time for our own making as I can make possible.

  • Choose to work in my home studio or campervan MORE = less moving around & MORE art making

  • Schedule in ‘tidy up’ time into my working hours rather than rushing to the next task and leaving chaos to sort another day.

  • Connect with organisations that are looking for a enthusiastic painter with 20+ years teaching experience and a socially engaged approach.

Another wonderful (for me - the writer - and you - the reader) decision is to BLOG! I really do love writing down and sharing my thoughts in a conversational way (although it’s more monologue I guess).

DEVON OPEN STUDIOS 2025 is approaching and I’m SOOOO excited to be working alongside Rose Elliott at red5, Galmpton Creek. We’ll be open every single day from 6 - 16th September and I have LOADS of brand new work to make! I do love a GOAL and this is such an exciting one! Let’s see if I can be back in a week with another blog post with the latest!

Claire Harmer