May 2022: Did You Know I’m An Artist?
I’m really excited to share my 1st newsletter! I’d like to begin by sharing with you how the artist within me emerged and what creating means to me, by sharing a portion of my artist statement:
I am a self taught artist that began painting at the age of 43. Art came to me through illness. While I was learning how to survive and cope with debilitating pain, I received recurring messages to paint. I had no idea where they were coming from, especially having not painted since elementary school. Now I understand they were the antidote for my survival.
As my health allowed, I listened to those messages and discovered a passion for creating and seeing life in a new way. Art allows me to breathe, to slow down, to be mindful, and to truly observe the world around me. I'm fascinated by the balance of light and dark and how a painting can transform in front of your eyes with a subtle stroke. This process reflects the balance of light and dark in our experiences and emotions.
I will be sending out a monthly artist newsletter unless something really exciting is happening and I want to ensure you don’t miss out! However, I also know how busy we all are, so I respect your time and promise you that it will be worth your read.
November 2025: My First Solo Art Show!
I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since my art show at The Overture Center opened! Thanks to all of you who came to support me and who visited my paintings when I couldn’t be there. I am so grateful for that heart-opening experience and I’m excited to share that my largest and maybe my most favorite painting, Hello Sunbird, sold as a result. It was such a gift to talk with people and hear how my work moved them. Here’s a few quotes that truly blew me away:
“Your paintings at The Overture are stunning, just want to say thank you. The fragility and dignity of the human experience, on the fragility of bark.” ~Barry Sherbeck
Wooooooow! Your work is outstanding, truly unique, Lael! What a beautiful body of work! I loved your artist statement as well as the statements that accompany the pieces. Brava!!!! ~Alice Traore
“It was one of the most amazing art shows I have ever been to. Your work is absolutely beautiful and so moving and I loved what you wrote by every piece. I knew that what you were doing was good, but this is beyond good. The bark and how it’s so intertwined with the women. Wow!! It makes the art all the more powerful. Congratulations.” ~Pat Calchina
Preparing for that show (2022-2024) took me on an intense personal healing journey as I explored how to rearrange the broken parts of myself into someone unimagined and whole. Surprisingly, it led me back to the beginning of my life and how I came to understand who I am in the first place. This alchemical process helped me integrate parts of myself that have been dissociated from each other for a long time. I spent months connecting with Little Me reassuring her that she’s ok. This inner work is ongoing and I suspect it will be for the rest of my life.
I continue to explore the theme of brokenness in my work. This past year taught me that there’s a difference between feeling broken and being broken open. Feeling broken is the pain of separation, when your soul is shattered into a million pieces, when you don’t recognize yourself, when you believe there's something wrong with you, that you aren't good enough, that you’re unloveable. But being broken open, that’s something else entirely. It’s when your heart cracks open to allow light to pour deeply inside you. It’s when you let go of who you’ve been told you are supposed to be and instead begin to fully embrace who you are. It’s unveiling parts of yourself that have been buried for a lifetime. It makes space for second chakra energy such as joy, creativity, passion, and deep connection.
Given this moment in time and all the cruelty we are witnessing, I believe it’s an act of resistance to create art, to embrace joy, to love who we love, and to nurture community (in addition to direct action, of course).
So, with that in mind…
Please join me for my first solo show, Breaking Into Beautiful
Saturday November 15th, 4-7pm. Artist conversation ~5:30pm
New Rose, 523 1st St, New Glarus, WI
This is a ticketed event with an open bar and yummy food.
Buy tickets here:
December 2024: Breaking Into Beautiful
In the beginning of 2023, I was struggling with a deep level of depression, different from what I had experienced before, even compared to some of the lowest moments throughout my illness. Somehow, in that fog of grief and pain, I was able to submit an application for a show at The Overture Center. A few months later I received an email congratulating me on my acceptance to their winter exhibition in Dec 2024-Mar 2025. I now had a deadline, and a year and a half to create my first intentional collection!
This project took me on an intense personal healing journey as I explored how to rearrange the broken parts of myself into someone unimagined and whole. This inner work is ongoing and I suspect it will be for the rest of my life.
My painting process is very intimate. I spend months getting to know each of these beings and listening to their stories. I am immersed in the details of their physical bodies: how her eyelid crease leans slightly to the right, how her jawline disappears into her neck, how the cartilage in her ear is as unique as a fingerprint, and how the light on her lips can change her expression to reveal an emotion I didn’t see before. Simultaneously, I can feel my own body and emotions shifting, clarifying, deepening, releasing. I am co-creating with the energy of these beings and often I don’t know where they end and I begin. Sometimes I take photos of myself to use as reference when I’m trying to figure out how her arm should look, or where her neck should connect with her shoulder. This truly blurs the space between me and the painting.
Last week I spent the day with some amazing women hanging our show I am sharing the space with pastel artist Elizabeth Tuttle and I believe we were perfectly matched. Since then, every time someone asks about my show I get choked up and tears start falling. This is going to sound whackadoodle, but I’ve made a promise to myself to let my freak flag fly on the off chance that doing so will help someone else feel seen. There’s a lot going on for me behind the tears and I’m still processing what it all means. I keep thinking about this quote by Elizabeth Stone: “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” In this case it was making the decision to share my art publicly.
However, what is most present for me is picturing my paintings alone, just hanging in a dark hallway, wondering how they got there and why I abandoned them. I keep feeling their vulnerability as they gaze across the gallery at one another. Again I wonder where they end and I begin.
If you are in Madison, please do me a favor and go visit them. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Our show, Breaking Into Beautiful, officially opened on Tues 12/10th. The reception for all the winter exhibits will be Jan 17th. I plan to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone so I will be giving my first artist talk (wish me luck!).
June 2022: What Helps You to Remember to Breathe?
I’m really excited for my 1st newsletter! I’d like to begin by sharing with you how the artist within me emerged and what creating means to me, through my artist statement. I know how busy you are so you’ll only hear from me every other month unless something really exciting is happening. I promise future newsletters won’t be as long!
I am a self taught artist that began painting at the age of 43. Art came to me through illness. While I was learning how to survive and cope with debilitating pain, I received recurring messages to paint. I had no idea where they were coming from, especially having not painted since elementary school. Now I understand they were the antidote for my survival.
As my health allowed, I listened to those messages and discovered a passion for creating and seeing life in a new way. Art allows me to breathe, to slow down, to be mindful, and to truly observe the world around me. I'm fascinated by the balance of light and dark and how a painting can transform in front of your eyes with a subtle stroke. This process reflects the balance of light and dark in our experiences and emotions.
As someone who deeply feels the injustice and sadness of the world, I believe art has saved my life by reminding me to see the beauty and possibilities inherent in each of us. My work offers the viewer a moment of deep connection, to feel grief and suffering side by side with joy and hope.
I use portraiture to bring awareness to the full range of our emotions through the faces of women throughout the world. My work gives us permission to live authentically by feeling every emotion, not just the few we’ve been taught are acceptable.
As a Jewish white woman who was raised in the United States, I also focus on creating women of color as we need to celebrate beauty and womanhood outside of the box of whiteness. With all that we balance in life, nature has always been where I feel the most peaceful and grounded. As soon as I am within the trees, I feel my nervous system relax, my peripheral vision expand, and I remember how to breathe. In 2018, a paper birch tree called me to use a piece of her beautiful peeling bark as a substrate for a painting.
Since then I’ve collected bark pieces, each of which are attached to experiences and memories allowing them to hold a special meaning. My work is very intuitive. It usually begins with an image of a woman that speaks to me for some unknown reason. Sometimes, the woman just emerges from the substrate, such as a design I see in a piece of bark or from a background I’ve created. The title comes after my work is completed. Something about the work sparks a memory, a mood, an unknown part of history, or a connection to a personal experience or material. I often find myself in a rabbit hole of research until it clicks and I understand the message coming through each piece.
July 2022: Are You Longing For More Beauty In Your Life?
I am deeply affected when patriarchy and white supremacy rear their ugly heads, when people are otherized and dehumanized. The world can be a very depressing place. The weight of the world can weigh heavily on us all and we may not fully realize its impact. Have you ever taken a moment to reflect on how the latest news affected your day, your week, your general mood?
I lived with debilitating chronic pain and grief for 5,000 days and nights, all while the world’s events kept turning. Art came to me with illness and truly was the antidote for my survival – it gave me a purpose and a new way to see the world when I was no longer able to work or live my life as I knew it. It also helped me to see myself in a new way when I didn’t recognize who I was anymore.
I hope to offer the same experience through my art. When you look at my work I'd like for you to feel that it’s ok to be in the experience of your emotions as we navigate our world, no matter where they lie on the continuum of grief to joy. Although, the older I get the more I’ve learned that these emotions are usually present simultaneously. I hope my art offers you a moment of beauty that can sometimes be hard to find.
August 2022: How Do You Connect With Beauty?
I’m in awe of how we’re given certain things in life to help us move through challenging experiences. Art allowed me to continue going, at a time when I wanted to give up. But for me, it wasn’t enough. True healing was accessible only when I learned how to rewire and heal my brain. This path insists on me cultivating hope by focusing on deep soulful connection, safety, and joy. This healing path is a lifelong journey consisting of daily practices with beauty at its core.
I connect with beauty through art, through gardening, hiking in the woods, and herbal medicine making, through my daily connection with the natural world and with my loved ones. I experience the world through all of my senses, which seem to be very heightened. I notice smells, sounds, textures, and taste. I love foraging for medicinal plants and berries, mushrooms and flowers. Intentionally looking for beauty helps to keep me grounded and present.
We are part of nature even though many are invested in us believing that we are separate. I believe that once we recognize our deep connection with the natural world our hearts are more open to hope, healing and growth.
How do you connect with beauty? How has your connection to nature changed your life for the better? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
August 2024: Are You Longing for Connection and Beauty In these Uncertain Times?
I know I’m not alone in feeling anxious about the uncertainty and precariousness of these times. I often feel like I don’t have an anchor tethering me to the earth. Like I am floating above wondering if and when I will land on solid ground. So each day I try to find ways to feel grounded, even if it's fleeting. Immersing myself in art, authentic connections with my community, cooking a delicious meal, and being in nature. These are ways for me to calm my nervous system and open myself up to beauty. They remind me that joy and laughter, love and connection, and nourishment and renewal are critical for living a full life even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty.
When you take a moment to pause, how do you feel in your body, mind and soul? Do you allow yourself space to actually feel? Do you have support in holding all of this uncertainty? How do you connect to joy and beauty?
I’m very excited to share that I’ve been working hard this year preparing for two art shows:
1) A Breath of Fresh Art: Democracy in Life and Art, September 21st. This is going to be a really special outdoor event where I will be doing my very first art installation. Come see my work hanging in the woods within the trees. I think it’s going to be pretty magical. There will be 22 separate individuals/groups presenting work and about 45 participants, including visual artists, musicians, dancers, and writers. See the links below for more information and to buy tickets. All ticket purchases will support the artists. I’ll be there all day and would love to see you!
A Breath of Fresh Art - Primrose Retreat
Breath of Fresh Art | Buy Tickets in Verona | Ticketbud
2) Overture Center For The Arts, Dec 2024-March 2025, Gallery II. I’m thrilled to share that I will be a featured artist along with pastel artist Betsy Tuttle. We were selected by Overture to exhibit together and the connection between our work and our lives has been surprising and incredibly meaningful. More details to come…
I look forward to spending time together getting grounded and connecting to joy and beauty!