Saturday, August 22, 2009

Assessing the summer, looking ahead

I just finished a wonderful week of teaching a watercolor course to art teachers. It was a fun group and I think that they learned a lot. They certainly accomplished a lot of beautiful work. Here are three of my favorite projects (among many) that the students created.

The first piece is by Shari Fox, who teaches in Shrewsbury, MA:



The next piece is by Sarah Steinberg, who teaches in Wellesley, MA:



And this piece is by Kristin Clark, who teaches in Marlboro, MA:



That was my last teaching week of the summer. Whew, it has been A LOT of work! I taught my last spring semester class on June 27, and then on June 29, I started teaching a five-week watercolor intensive at Framingham State College. As soon as that was over, I taught a week-long fashion illustration course and a week-long pastel drawing course to high-school students, and finally, this past week, the graduate-level watercolor course, all at the Danforth Museum School. As hard as I worked, I loved every minute of it.

My next college class begins on September 2, so not much time to regroup. BUT with all the busy-ness of last week, a thought hit me through the din: I will be 50 years old in three years. That, obviously, is a milestone!

What do I want to have accomplished by age 50? What are my goals for my 50th birthday, that I can start to work on now?

Like almost every other woman in the western world, I would like to lose 30 pounds. And it would definitely be a good idea to have a goal of how much money I'd like to have saved by then.

But I want to come up with some goals as an exhibiting artist that I can aim for, to have reached at the half-century mark. I've had a lot of luck lately with selling my work, but what about artistic goals? I'll keep working on this idea over the next week ...

4 comments:

DJ said...

Wow. I can't believe I found your blog by clicking "Next Blog" a couple of times.
Love your artwork. Your blue series is developing beautifully.
I'll be back.

Catherine Carter said...

Thank you for the kind words, DJ!

Anonymous said...

hi Catherine,

The other day i was fooling around on the net and came across an artist by the name Cy Twombly. Have you ever seen his work?

Sherrill

Catherine Carter said...

Absolutely, Sherrill, he is a real favorite. In fact, he's one of those "artist's artists" -- artists in general tend to worship the ground he walks on. Enjoy!