Collectors will ask me if I have to wait for the muse to show up before I begin a painting. The answer is no.
Why? Two reasons. Number one, too often it would be a very long wait. And number two, the landlord will not wait for their check.
The fact is that it’s during the act of creating that I receive inspiration. And the more I paint, the more chances I have to be inspired.
Now if I’m working on a painting and I really feel like it’s working against me, it’s just plain ugly. Then the best strategy is to walk away.
I’ll let it sit and when I return I can see it with much more clarity. This perspective helps me understand what’s working and what’s not.
It’s kind of like life and relationships. I get along with most of my paintings but every now and then I come across a real pill.
And that’s okay because these pills give me feedback and I learn the most from them. After I’ve critiqued the failures I destroy them so that I may release them.
So no, there’s no waiting for the muse if you want to earn your living as a painter. When I show up, creativity and inspiration show up.
Last month I sat with my new advisory board at our first quarterly meeting explaining an Experience of Art & Wine, my new unique and limited offering.
Essentially, my patrons choose their favorite wine and we join each other for a vineyard tour.
Later, I return and capture the colors of the terroir in oils on canvas with a dozen or more field studies painted in and of the vineyard.
Week-by-week my patrons witness the creative process by way of a dedicated online diary at annrea.com.
They choose one of the field studies from the series and I reinterpret it on a larger canvas, sized to their liking.
I deliver the finished painting with a beautiful signed storyboard chronicling the artful experience. This way they can revisit inspired memories.
My advisory board and I realized that this is a lot to explain. I knew I needed a creative solution.
So I reached out to my good friend Paul Maurby at Vintank and he introduced me to a local award winning film making talent, Bret Lyman. Bret has arrived back in his hometown of Napa with his family after time spent in NYC and Los Angeles.
Bret’s agreed to paint my Experience of Art & Wine in film as I create his painting. I’m really excited to work with Bret. His composition is strikingly familiar. It’s very similar to mine! And he understands light as color. That’s very important, this is the subject of my artistic attention.
I’m happy to have creative company that can paint in film and sound, paint what I can only start to explain in words. You know what they say; “talking about music is dancing about architecture.”
In between phone calls today I was sketching. Noodling around with a pastel series that I’m developing of views inspired by the Golden Gate Bridge under the full moon. You can see traces of the Golden Gate Bridge’s glow to the left of the image above.
I live less than a mile from the bridge on the ocean side and the Golden Gate has always resonated with my sense of place, particularly at night.
Pastels are easy to pull out and work with, unlike oil paints, which are much more involved and complicated. And pastels dry instantly, so there’s an instant satisfaction.
I was a bit frustrated by the range and quality of colors that I had available in my studio. Then a sudden yearning struck me. A deep desire for the big Crayola box of 72 colors came ringing back from my childhood. I wanted that pretty new box of unbroken crayons with the built in sharpener in the back. And I wanted it bad. But I didn’t get it then. So I decided I to go for it today.
I ordered a set of 120 Winsor & Newton soft pastels that come in a beautiful wooden storage box. They are precious and lush pigments from a factory in England founded in 1832 that serves by appointment of HRH the Prince of Wales.
This was no longer a frivolous kid’s desire but a necessary tool of my trade, and a tax deduction. I can’t wait for them to arrive!
One of my most treasured memories was painting in a little fishing town in France called Collioure, a small Catalan harbor sheltered on a quiet bay where the chain of the Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean Sea, 15 miles from the border of Spain.
One morning Gregory and I sat in a café sipping espresso in the very same place where painting masters including Picasso, Derain, and Matisse had traded their art, still on the walls, for a meal.
After we left the café I set up my easel on the beach to do a quick study of a small simple white chapel perched on a rocky bluff overlooking the Mediterranean. I put it away and joined my fellow students at a nearby art museum.
Visiting artists from yesteryear had their work preserved in these galleries. It was a delight to see the work of art masters reflecting the environment that I was being inspired by that week.
I turned the corner of the museum and what did I see. A painting by Henri Matisse of a small simple white chapel perched on a rocky bluff over looking the Mediterranean. Just an hour before I had stood in the very same spot that had also inspired him!
I recently found a quote: “In France there is no sky as blue as the one in Collioure…I just have to close the shutters of my room and I have all the colors of the Mediterranean before me.” — Henri Matisse
Leslie, my good friend and book designer who lives in London, is working on the BLAD. This stands for basic layout and design.
I’ll be conducting video interviews of star wine makers to serve as an online companion series to the book.
Yesterday I met with an interested book publisher and distributor, Cameron and Company. Next week I meet with a print broker who has been in the publishing industry for over 50 years.
The world of publishing is a whole new landscape and it’s been really fun to explore. On Sunday I attended the third biennial CODEX International Book Fair and Symposium in Berkeley. It’s an international exhibition that “exists to preserve and promote the art” of the hand crafted book. I don’t think I’ve witnessed so much devoted creativity packed onto one floor. Artists, designers, and typographers came from all over the globe. Each had an artful story to tell.
You may think that the iPad or Kindle is making traditional publishing obsolete. And it’s definitely true that electronic distribution continues to transform publishing. But electronic devices cannot yet compete with beautifully bound textural picture books of large format images that are works of art in themselves. We’re human and we still like to feel things.
A few months back I sat across from artist and entrepreneur Gordon Heuther. We were having lunch at Celadon on the riverfront in downtown Napa.
We talked about our art, drive, lives, inspirations, working with art representatives, and choosing to take the reins and represent ourselves.
Gordon shared his history building his success and I shared my history.
He paused, looked at me, and said, “There’s no reason that you should not be grossing $1M a year.” At first I thought. “Wow. Really?” Then I realized. “Well, he should know.”
On the drive back to San Francisco that day I thought. “Hmm. Now this idea is more exciting because it seems like a very real possibility. Now, how can I make this happen?”
Then I realized that I had a number of people in my circles that know how to make this happen, including many of my collectors. So I decided to form an advisory board to help me reach this goal. To my delight, everyone I asked said yes.
Each of my advisory board members helped me gain perspective on the mechanics of reaching my goal. They freely offered their support and collective experience that I could get nowhere else. And they offered me their confidence, encouragement, and realizations that I could not yet see.
I’m very grateful to each of them. Now I know more than before.
This is what I asked when each brave guest took their turn and stepped up to the canvas last night to help create a collaborative painting, with my guidance.
In celebration of the Post Impressionist Exhibition at the de Young Art Museum of the masterpieces on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, First Republic hosted a spectacular and inspired celebration filled with a full range of fantastic hors d’oeuvres, French champagne, and roaming musicians.
What you don’t see in this video clip is a trio of professional ballerinas performing just to the left. Their tutus, hair bows, and performance were taken right out of the previous exhibition of Edgar Degas, “The Dancing Lesson.”
My role was to invite guests into the creative process of recreated Gauguin’s “Arearea” that is currently on display. I just noticed that the name contains my first initial and last name twice. Ha!
Another synchronistic moment last night was when I noticed the spot light shining down on a beautiful cobalt blue and black ceramic vessel in the adjacent gallery. It was “Jazz Bowel” created by my direct mentor Viktor Schreckengost, the “American da Vinci”, for Eleanor Roosevelt.
For three years Viktor Schreckengost inspired me. And it was a pleasure and a privilege to inspire others last night; including, bankers, brokers, and investors. Each guest took a moment from the frenzy of the festivities and reconnected with their creative selves.
When was the last time you painted, sang, danced, or played an instrument?
Next stop, next week: Bouchon of Beverly Hills to paint with Chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry.
Does that sound like an artist’s creative process? Well, it’s part of mine. Like so many things in life, painting is a numbers game. And the more studies I paint, the better my odds of creating one that I love and one that my collectors will love. I’m working towards a painting that will hold my interest and attention so that I’ll want to explore it further and reinterpret it on a larger scale.
My experience has taught me that the less attached I am to a painting, the freer I can be, and the better the outcome. That tension, or lack of tension, all shows up in my paint. My art reflects my state of being. As an artist, my work forces me to face a deep inner awareness that can be a joy or a complete frustration. The only remedy is to keep working through it and sometimes walk away for a while so that I can return with some perspective and insight.
The other reason I take this “give me twenty” approach is because it’s my strategy to avoid perfectionism. This is a malady that absolutely kills creativity and one that can only/just make me miserable. Nothing is perfect. Nothing I’ve ever painted anyway.
People always want to know, “What do you with the paintings that don’t make it?” I edit them, I destroy them. Just like you crumble up the piece of paper that you jotted down your first bad draft. Doesn’t it feel good? Destruction is part of creation. I wish I had a shredder I could put some of these paintings through. Maybe one of those tree shredders?
Is it time to open the first Ann Rea Gallery? Going down this new road is what I’m pondering as of late. On Tuesday, I met, for the very first time, an artist with the same entrepreneurial drive as me: Gorden Huether. I visited his $3M dollar Napa studio and I was inspired creatively and entrepreneurially.
Although I love Gorden Huether’s work, artistically we are nothing alike. But in matters of vision, how we each want to live our creative and entrepreneurial lives- we had a lot to talk about.
I’ve been toying with the idea of opening a gallery for a while. And now retail space is much more accessible and there is room for negotiation. I was contemplating the pop up store option. That’s where you temporarily take over vacant retail spaces and create a temporary retail installation and buzz. And then you move to the next local. But is that what I want?
Schlepping from event to event is tiring and it doesn’t allow me to cast the best light on my work, no pun intended. The up side is that I’m a featured guest at events and it doesn’t cost anything. But it’s temporary. And I can’t be “open” for very long.
I’m very fortunate to have a collector, and friend, who just happens to be a very experienced retail real estate consultant who is willing to help me chart a course towards my decision. I have to say, my collectors are wonderful people who often become good friends.
So as my mother would often say, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” It may be time to take the show “off” the road and time to establish a permanent presence it Wine Country.
The demands of building a creative business can often leave me feeling pulled in two very different directions. I must attend to the need to continue to build my business and to attract new collectors while I yearn to spend more time painting. These two pursuits can’t be completed at the same time and each deserves and requires my undivided attention. And it’s a complete understatement to say that each require a different gear in my head, the left brain to the right brain.
It’s no secret to those who know me that I devote a lot of time to the marketing end of my enterprise. Why? So that my business can thrive and so that I can spend more and more uninterrupted time painting.
And I genuinely enjoy the marketing side of things. That’s why I started ArtistsWhoTHRIVE, where I conduct marketing seminars to artists and I offer individual coaching and consulting to artists across the globe two Mondays each month. In fact, UC Berkeley phoned today to invite me to teach my artist marketing workshops. And today the head of the Small Businesses Development Center in Oakland informed me that he’s seeking funding for an ongoing series and that a reporter wants to interview me about the record breaking workshop I conducted last month.
I’m excited and happy that I can now announce a number of strategic partnerships with Meadowood Resort, and Beautiful Places Luxury Villa Rentals and Epicurean Adventures. And the good news is that more alliances are in the works. As I align more strategic partnerships I’ll have my wish to spend much more time painting.
By leveraging these relationships with strategic partners I can give their clients a completely unique and memorable experience with my new program “Savor the Colors of the Moment”, more to details to follow. And I can reach my goal of being booked solid one to two years in advance with commissions and corporate and private sponsorships to fund new series and creative directions. Then I’ll be spending more time on the right side.
Is it time to open the first 
