My surprising lessons from live-painting

One year ago, I walked into Nevada Sunset Winery on 4th Street in Reno. I’d never been. Going into a new environment alone always gives me low-level anxiety: I don’t where where I will sit; are there norms I’m unaware of; what if I say something stupid, etc. And this time, the stakes were higher because I was trying to sell myself. I had a hot-off-the-press Alli Harvey Art booklet advertising my paintings for business’ walls. The Winery was the first business I’d “cold” walked into to pitch.

Both owners, Kate and Craig, happened to be there. They were warm and welcoming, and effusive about the potential of my art on the walls. They had purchased the winery not too long before and were in the process of renovating/decorating. Kate accepted a booklet and said she’d get back to me. I sat down and enjoyed a wine tasting for the next hour or so, settling into the environment and taking in the ambient conversation around me. “This is a cool spot,” I thought. “I want people to discover this place.”

Fast forward to now. My art has been up on the winery’s walls for about the last year or so. Kate likes to tell the story of how self-assured I’d seemed coming into the winery; she emailed me after to ask how many other businesses in town were already displaying my art. She didn’t want to be redundant if I was already well-represented. “Actually, you would be the first,” I emailed back. We struck up a rapport, and an agreement, and I started coming in when I was in Reno to grab a glass of wine, catch up, replace/update the display, and dream/scheme with Kate and Craig.

One of our ideas was to do some kind of an event where I could share both my art and my process. This coalesced into a month long live-painting event concept as part of Reno’s annual city-wide Artown event.

How it has worked: every Thursday from about 3-6pm throughout this July, I’ve been working on a large form (3’x4′) painting featuring a photo reference solicited from an online contest. The subject? Lake Tahoe from Skunk Cove on the NV side. I printed out two of the same photo – one for me to work from; one to share with onlookers. I show up and get to painting, occasionally pausing to chat or answer questions. Folks set up wherever they’d like to drink wine, catch up with each other, and watch me paint.

I’ve never done an event like this before. I just finished the painting yesterday (completed image below, based on the above reference by Elisabeth Linn). I have some surprising lessons to share from the whole thing!

• I thrive painting in an environment that includes other people. Ideally I’m not fully engaging with others or talking. But I enjoy passively listening to conversation around me while mostly focusing on my painting. I like the low-level feeling of accountability to others, the energy I get from external curiosity and feedback, and the permission to do my own thing while still being around people. I think this might be at least in part due to how I learned to paint, which was in an “art room” setting at my school with others constantly milling in and out or focusing on their own projects around me.
• Pressure to complete my painting in a finite window of time pushes me into a state of flow quicker. This one surprised me the most. When I tallied up the hours in July, I realized I had only twelve hours to complete this massive painting. For me, that’s not a lot of time. To manage it, I did a couple things: 1) I mentally divided the painting into rough segments to focus on for each painting session. The first three-hour session/Thursday, I got rough shapes and broad undercoats down on the canvas, ensuring nothing was left blank. The second session, I got close to completing the sky. Etc.; 2) I coached myself to keep a positive orientation and mindset; not to lose myself to perfection, detail, or worry. A lot of times in painting, I can have bouts of analysis paralysis: is this working?! I don’t like how this looks – will I ever?! But for this project, I didn’t have time to second guess myself. So I focused on where I wanted to go, made bold and confident brush strokes, and trusted that it would all add up in the end.
• Live painting requires a sort of showmanship, and I’m up for it. Typically when I end a painting session for a day, it doesn’t really matter where I leave off in my piece. Sure, I like to leave off at a point where I’m satisfied and not frustrated. But it’s only me that’s coming back to it later. But with the painting publicly on display at the winery throughout the days between Thursdays, I had to be strategic about where I left off in the work. Ideally, it would look good, or at least interesting between sessions. I found this helpful for me, too, because it helped me retain interest and enthusiasm. I wanted to return to the painting, because I’d left off every week at a new, exciting point.

Finally, and this will probably surprise no one, but hands down the best part of this whole project was about the people. I got to know Craig and Kate, the winery owners, so much better over the course of the past month. The space they have curated, not to mention their wine, draws in good people and creates a positive, community-centered vibe. This has helped me forge my own happy association with the winery and this project. Yes, it’s work for me to get my ass up and painting every week. But it feels good. It feels aligned with who I am and want to be. It’s meaningful.

And the people – my friends, family, folks who are new to me and/or the winery – who have joined throughout, filling the winery with conversation, coming by to take in what I’m doing, ask me questions, and share their stories/perspectives, have filled me up. I don’t know how else to say it. Yes, the painting process itself has been very fun and cool. But paintings are nothing without others there to witness and respond to them, and what I’ve been lucky to receive is a steady and affirming uplift.

What else could I want, from art, from life, from people? I am content in this way, and glowing from the month’s worth of these weekly sessions.

So the overall lesson in my life continues to be: take the risk. Do the thing, even if it’s a little daunting, scary, or demanding. Just try. I wouldn’t be riding high on this experience if I hadn’t shyly walked myself into the winery last year to ask if they’d like art on the walls. The little/big step had such an outsized outcome.

This painting is done as of last night, but I’m going to officially sign it and hang it next Thursday, 7/31 on the last day of Artown. It’ll live permanently at the winery! I’ll be on site from about 3-6 (ok, let’s be real – probably more like 7pm) and will also have the Airstream Mobile Art Studio for tours. If you’re here in town, I hope you’ll join! And even if you’re not, I know many of you are here in spirit – and you know I’ll share pictures!