benladieuart - 2023 recap
12/26/2023
benladieuart - 2023 Year recap
Hello everyone! This year has been a year of many things good and frustrating. On the good side, I made a few very solid works of art this year and had some success at shows. On the frustrating side - see below for my long winded tale of trials and tribulations.
The Good:
To start, I did the Hershey Hummelstown Art Tour where I prersented my work at my mother’s studio where I sold 3 pieces. At the York Art Association 2023 juried show I sold all 3 pieces I had on display which was quite a feat as this was the first time I have ever sold a piece from an exhibition. I have my piece - Winter Tubs in the Forest shown at the Pennsylvania 2023 Art of the State show at the State museum which is an honor. The show is still up and you still have time to see it till January 7th. Finally, I even had an online interview you can check out here: Voyage Baltimore
Overall, these are some decent milestones achieved for the year.
Now the frustration.
I have been working most of this fall and winter on my Path series with little to show for it. I have been trying and failing to make work that lives up to the standards I have set for myself and I have not been able to live up to them. I have produced 4… yes 4 pieces that I do not wish to release to the public. Well you can’t see 3 of them anyway as only one survived my wrath of destruction. This has been very hard on me and I am starting to lose faith in myself as an artist. Can I cointinue to make good art or was this all just a bunch of nonsense? My hope is that my latest work is able to pass my sniff test. It is about 3/4 done and I feel like it is on the edge of recieving my wrath, though I think I can make it work.
If I fail yet again, I think I will just move onto pencil and my series of 6, 4 x 12” drawings for the Path series will only be 4 drawings, as I do not think I can continue with yet another attempt. Having 4 pieces fail in row can really crush your ego, mood and motivation let me tell you.
Unfortunately the nature of pen and ink will not let you correct major mistakes. Small ones you may be able to salvage, but fundamental flaws in composition, shading, and values cannot be undone. I am especially struggling (still!) with value, drawing generally too much dark and exccessively overfilling the paper. Sometimes my brain just stops working correctly it feels like. Putting the pen to paper often feels like my hand will not do as it is told.
Funny enough, I really struggle drawing lines straight. My lines are crooked, almost jagged and it drives me nuts. I wish I had the steady hand of pen and ink artists I see on instagram with their almost perfectly drawn lines and perfect compositions, but alas I have to live with what I got and make it work somehow.
So as for now, 2024 is startying off in a tentative state for my art. Even if I do manage to finish my Path series at the beginning of this next year, I feel I must take a break from pen and ink regardless. The constrains of the medium I think are almost too much for the way I work and for how I work. If I know one thing about myself, it is that I make mistakes…..alot of them. Pencil is much more forgiving in that aspect so I think going back to pencil for a while will be a welcome change for me and my sanity.
I hope everyone had a decent 2023 and will have a great new year in 2024! Thanks for your support and interest in my art this past year. It means alot. That’s all for now. I’ll catch you on the next one.
Ben
Check out my shop! https://www.benladieuart.com/shop
I keep my blog updated pretty regularly, so stop on by and see what is happening. Check it out here:
https://www.benladieuart.com/blog
If you would like to hire me for a commissioned piece, you can email me at ben@benladieuart.com