Greetings to the echo chambers of cyberspace from a forgotten blog, marred by the convenience of Facebook, a too complicated platform, the increasing busy-ness of life. I think of you fondly and often. Sorta. Quick and dirty share here. A cut and paste from the thief of time, elections, civility and all the rest of modern life that’s robbing us. Wink. This is an artist statement, hence the weird (for a blog post) third-person voice.
Open to the public.
Premiere: Friday, Feb. 7, 5-7:30 PM”Landscape of the Heart”
©Leisa Hammett
Mixed Media: paint, altered papers on board
18 l x 9 w
NFS
Leisa Hammett is known in art circles here, nationally, and abroad, in part for her advocacy for her young adult daughter with autism, Grace Goad, and her work promoting and advocating for other artists with disAbilities. But there came a time about three years ago—after about a three-plus decade hiatus—that she could no longer deny her artist self or cop the blame on well-meaning parents who so eagerly dissuaded her from all the creative pursuits that were her core being. She found ways of sublimating those loves and ended up working in one of the more practical versions—in communications, as a journalist, magazine writer, etc., including a more recent-ish two-year stint as associate editor of Nashville Arts Magazine when it was first launched in 2006. All the while she dreamed of collage. Nashville Collage Collective gave her a place and a nonjudgemental forum to finally unfurl. She’s so glad she did because it was more than past time, especially as she expanded her wings into late middle age. It’s been empowering. She learned in the process to release her own judgement, that of her parents, to banish comparison and please her own damn self. That it was about what made her happy when creating and not whether she sold or exhibited. Just creating was/is the fodder of life.
PS: She’s sold and exhibited and is working on a series of which this piece, “Landscape of the Heart” is a part, (that’s why it’s NFS). She can’t quite say what’s up with those embedded selfies. (The exhibitionistic quality of them kinda embarrassing her.) They feel like some sort of social commentary, maybe. With multiple layers of meaning, including current culture and the culture of women aging. But what she does know, as she learned through two mentors of her daughter’s art: the subconscious mind creates unknowingly through the hands as the left brain is shushed. And this piece? Note that’s a blue heart in the left upper corner. It’s a bleeding, broken heart. Note the woman leaving a man in the lower right corner. The development of both of those were pure accidents of the conscious mind, but not of the subconscious mind. This was a piece created in the healing of a unexpected severing of a promising relationship with considerable history. But also note the feathers and the flight. As observed by another artist upon witnessing, this was about “Leisa, the Warrior Woman.” Ascension. And, after all, the artist’s spiritual name is “Songbird.” #ItsTimeToFly
