Art Studio Visit Creates Community!

Lucy and two high school friends mucking about at an "old timey" photo booth at Six Flags in St Louis, MO.

When we are young we spend a lot of our time hanging out with friends. Sometimes in between classes at school or at sporting events or just getting together at each others' homes. However, as we go through life "hang time" slowly gets replaced with obligations and responsibilities. It's almost imperceptible at first, if we go to college we have more intense classwork but we still have time to hang with friends at parties, in study groups, or on breaks.

After college more and more of our time is devoted to work and, if we find someone to share our lives with, we spend time with them and their family/friends. If we have our own children then all our free time ends up devoted to them. By the time we are in our 50s and maybe have a little free time we wonder where all our "hang out" friends have gone.

The good news is that there are lots of ways to make NEW friends! Personally I have found great connections and new friendships through the NM State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMC). By attending their events and getting involved as a volunteer I've met fantastic women with amazing life stories who demonstrate many different art paths proving the point that there are no straight lines in an artistic life.

This past weekend I attended two NMC studio visits. This is a program where member artists open up their studios and talk about their lives, their art, and their dreams. It is a truly delightful way to spend a day and, dear reader, if you ever have the opportunity to go on one I highly recommend it.

Make note of the difference between a studio visit and a studio tour.

Studio tours are not as personal or intimate experience as a studio visit. Often on a tour the artist opens their studio all day to anyone and everyone which means sometimes there are a lot of visitors at one time making a conversation with an artist challenging. Also, most artists are introverts and it's uncomfortable for them to open their studio and talk to the public all day.

Meanwhile a studio visit is an organized trip for a small group of people for a couple of hours. The artist prepares remarks and happily welcomes visitors for a short time which is much easier to manage.

However, both usually require days of cleaning, organizing, and preparing the studio. 😊

NMC Studio visit at artist Patsy Welch's home studio in Santa Fe, NM

At the end of our studio visit yesterday several of us gathered together and spontaneously began talking about how NICE it was to find a community, ie FRIENDS!

New Mexico attracts "transplants" - that's what I call anyone like me who moves here from somewhere else. Most of the stories I hear from fellow transplants include something about how the landscape, the light, the art community, the weather, and/or the "enchantment" of New Mexico calls to them. They often move here without knowing a soul so finding a community, a group of friends, people to hang out with is very special.

Although I know people who have lived in the same place for most of their adult lives, at a certain point in their life they still have a need to make new friends. After all, none of us are the same people we were at age 9. We grow, have different yet somehow universal experiences of life, develop opinions, and have changing needs and wants during different periods in our lives.

And some of us die too early as one of my friends did in the photo at the beginning of this post.

Lucky are those of us who find people who love and support us throughout our lives. If you are one of those lucky people go hug a friend today! ❤️