Art Will Find You by Catharine Bramkamp

Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp as she shares with us “Art Will Find You.” Enjoy!

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I believe that art finds us. I believe that when we are ready and exactly when we need it, a supportive, transformative art activity will demand attention. All you need to do is sign in and show up.

Over the last few years, alternative art opportunities – art processes that are not about writing, have shown up and presented themselves to me, and I am grateful I answered the call (okay, the Face Book post.)

Each of these art classes have helped me through my life transitions, and they may help you as well.

Here are my two experiences.

While we contemplated selling our house and moving to a new town, an art journaling class popped up on my radar, and it was conveniently located in my town. I could not say no to the obvious message from the Universe.

Spoiler alert, we did sell the house and moved to the new town. One of the ways I connected with the artists in my new community was to take an irreverent class offered by an irreverent artist called Crap Art. Again, I was good at making crappy art, this would be perfect.

If that wasn’t enough to do, I wanted to try dancing. Enter a inclusive, fun, belly dancing class, yes, a ten minute drive from my new home. I began the class in 2022 right as my mother was failing, it saved my sanity.

What was most important about these classes is they offered artistic expression complexly different than what I was currently doing (or not doing). The process of learning – dancing – and doing – visual and expressive art, were what my brain and emotions needed right at that moment.

My artistic strength is wholly expressed through the written word. When I was young, I was allowed to quit my ballet class because I had no talent. I failed to replicate the pictured project delivered by Craft of the Month Club, and my pottery inventions were stored in the supply cabinet during Open House. It was enough to give a girl a complex.

Except I always had writing, and it was in that space where I excelled.

Most of us needed to choose, write or paint, dance or stage manage.

Writers don’t often inch over the invisible border from the written to visual art, but like dancing, the effort and work can infuse our writing with more energy and promise than we ever thought. We don’t need to become professionals or even proficient, that isn’t the point.

For 33 years I lived in Sonoma County. For 22 years we lived in Cotati, hoping that, as a university town, it would provide interesting events and promote creative energy.

But alas, we outgrew the town, and after our boys moved out, we were on the hunt for a new place that would provide an interesting next phase. I don’t even remember how I discovered the Art Journaling class with Susie Stonefield, two minutes from my Cotati home but I am forever grateful I did.

Up until then, my experience with art classes wasn’t stellar, I took an acrylic painting class at the local community college making a picture that was ostensibly a lake with a boat surrounded by fall foliage.

Apparently, the painting was not successful in expressing my vision since the only feedback the beleaguered instructor could say about my efforts was, “well, you seem to feel very strongly about orange.”

With encouragement like that…

I retreated back to what I knew best: poetry, fiction and non-fiction writing. Which for years went well. Until it didn’t.

I walked into the Art Journaling and was immediately greeted by Susie Stonefield, a cheerful welcoming woman who seemed happy to see me.

The art room was lined with art supplies, paint brushes, paint, pictures, magazines, stamps, ink, spray ink, glitter, you get the idea.

Most importantly, there was constant adult supervision. I do much better under adult supervision, keeps me off the high slide and away from oncoming traffic.

The journal was the critical feature of this project, because unlike placing a canvas on a stand and creating a work meant to be seen or displayed, a journal was private.

The work done on its pages served no other purpose than process: messy, freeing process. After a few weeks of this expressive work, I felt calmer and more positive about undertaking the move, and even better, I felt calmer and more patient with my writing work in process.

I loved the journaling class. I loved working side by side with the women in the class, I loved learning more about what they created and hearing their stories. I was fascinated by what appeared on the page as apparently, my story.

I was sorry to leave the environment but we moved to Nevada City, CA and five years after that, my husband retired – here. While he was still working and commuting (weekly not daily) back to Sonoma County. I had time to look around my new town and try new groups and try new things.

Enter Crap Art.

A lovely woman, Chantelle, held a weekly art space in her garage, that she called Crap Art. And you can imagine why. Like the Journaling class, this was about process, the goal was to spend two hours messing around with paint, glue and glitter. I knew a class called Crap Art would be as generative as the Art Journaling and I was right.

Chantelle was far more irreverent than Susie, but the idea was the same and I experienced a similar connection with women in the class.

At that time, Chantelle was working on an art project in conjunction with another artist both of whom were connected to the Local Arts Council.

I was intrigued and looked into the Art Council, liked what I saw, and joined the board of directors as well as the committee running the annual Sierra Poetry Festival. A brilliant outcome to what started as gluing unrelated images to produce awkward postcard size collages.

Emerging from the pandemic I wanted something new and likely some activity that was as far away from my mother as possible. We had accidentally found our new home just up the street from my mother.

This helped caring for her during COVID far easier, but it also meant as the restriction lifted, I was in charge of driving mother to her book groups, women’s meetings, and the occasional theater performance. I was welcomed into these groups as an honorary member, but I longed for spaces of my own.

I decided I wanted to learn to dance. I found a belly dancing class near by (this is why we moved to this area, small town – a belly dancing class nearby). confident that I would not encounter anyone of my mother’s acquaintance.

I was right.

For the next three years I learned how to move, how to listen to completely different music, how to costume in completely different ways. How to apply glitter to my face.

As we all emerged from the lock down, my poor mother’s mobility deteriorated. As during dance class, I concentrated on hip sways, bumps, hip circles, grapevine.

During one session featuring new finger and hand moves, I must have looked very serious as I tried to master the unfamiliar moves. My instructor, Aruba, walked right up to me, looked me in the eye and said “but you aren’t thinking of anything else are you?”

No, I wasn’t. Saved my sanity. As one does, I used to wake in the middle of the night my head full of, yes, the needs of my dying parent. I lay there in the dark and focused on replacing the circular regrets of childhood with mentally rehearsing the choreography for our upcoming dance performance – reviewing the dance steps over and over until I fell back asleep. That new way of thinking was like a miracle.

Like walking, forest bathing, dancing, gardening, even vacuuming, any other activity that allows your subconscious to commune with your Muse through different channels and outlets is an important.

Art classes are often lead by artists who are committed to sharing or spreading the word about their art.

Our dance style for instance is Egyptian Cabaret.

Blingy, pretty, and specific. The dance style is not as easily expressed by dancers in its originating countries. It’s our job to keep it alive until it can be handed back to the originators.

Artists, me included, also teach classes to hold people’s hands while they sing off key, miss the pickle ball, write bad poems, and in my case, create really bad pictures. All part of the fun.

An art class should be fun. It should represent play, it should be an activity your look forward to, not dread. Sorry, there shouldn’t bet be any should in art. But you get the idea.

Take a ukulele class through the library. Join a game night at the local store (or better, bar). Knit a scarf, build a Lego Tricorder.

I know what you’re thinking. 

What if I end up liking the ukulele better than I like my novel?

You may.

As your writing coach, I’m unconcerned.

What emerges from each of these experiments is either something completely and unexpectedly marvelous and consuming or something that complements existing passions in completely different ways.

What I know, is immersion and process will move us more elegantly through our transitions that most any other activity. Find your class. Discover a new bliss to add to your growing list.

I keep up with Crap Art, which has led me to working with digital collage projects and a summer residency program with Kolaj Magazine that led to my work hanging in a gallery show in New Orleans. Crap Art and Chantelle continues to keep me grounded as well as encourages experimentation.

I dance with the troupe, Jewels of the Yuba the members of which are, to a one, beautiful, talented and supportive. Aruba continues to challenge me to do scary things, like wear B-52 level blue wigs and a mermaid costume in the Fourth of July Parade.

And Susie Stonefield has followed her own bliss and is teaching and working as a creativity coach in Chico, CA. Her New Studio is The Haven. I plan to visit and thank her.

Want more?  Pre-Order your copy of  Out Loud – An Adventure in Writing for Women, launching January 2025.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach, Chief Storytelling Officer, former co-producer of Newbie Writers Podcast, and author of a dozen books including the Real Estate Diva Mysteries series, and The Future Girls series. She holds two degrees in English and is an adjunct university professor. After fracturing her wrist, she has figured out there is very little she is able to do with one hand tied behind her back. She delights in inspiring her readers.