Cat Bennett's Blog

Very excited to be going to Chicago to be doing a full weekend workshop Saturday, October 21st and Sunday, October 22nd at Bari Zaki Studio which is located not far from Wrigley Field in downtown Chicago!




First, I love Chicago and haven't been there for years! Long ago, I had a bit of a life there so this will be like a homecoming for me. Second, I met Bari Zaki for the first time this spring and she is a wondrous, upbeat, creative being who is a master bookmaker, shopkeeper of pure magic, and a beautiful artist. Does it get better? I'm so happy for the opportunity to work alongside her. And, third, I love teaching art and nurturing others on their art journeys. It's one of my greatest joys. We're all in this together and art, in all its amazing forms, moves our culture and consciousness forward.




We're offering three separate classes. The first class on Saturday morning is Drawing with Line: Freeing the Hand . Drawing is the foundation for so much of what we visual artists do and learning to draw with a sense of freedom and joe de vivre is transformative. Drawing isn't just about what happens on paper but what happens inside us too. Let's draw like children again—without self consciousness or any need to get it "right". Let's discover who we are.






The second class on Saturday afternoon is Drawing with Shapes: Simplifying . This approach asks us to think in a big picture way. What are the shapes that are the basis for our image making? When we think this way we begin to abstract our vision and connect with what is essential in what we're saying. It clears the clutter, creates clarity and is very empowering. And, yes, again, drawing and art making affect our being as much as what we produce.






On Sunday morning, we'll move into Painted Paper Collage: Getting Bold . We all have boldness in us—it's our essential nature though often, on the way to adulthood, it gets a little lost in life's mishmash. Inside, we often think there's more, and there is. Working with bold colors, drawing without hesitation with scissors, learning to up the contrast, we will make bold and vibrant images, both abstract and representational. We'll surprise ourselves.






On Sunday afternoon, there will be a free session for anyone who has participated in any of the other classes. This one will be a more relaxed discussion of where and who we are as artists and how to keep our energy high for the journey ahead. We'll work a little in complementary Flexi sketchbooks provided by Bari Zaki Studio.




If you're in the Chicago area, please join us! It will be a truly energizing experience as it always is when we come together to explore in an open and dedicated way. If you're not in Chicago, please consider hopping into your car or onto a train or plane and meeting up with us. (Airbnb is making it all easier once we arrive!) All are welcome and I can say from long experience teaching, these classes reward all skill levels. If you have the desire to learn and grow your art and vision, you will find lots of inspiration here and we'd love to see you!




Follow the link to Bari Zaki Studio to sign up! Thanks and see you soon!

April, already! These last two months I've made a practice of making a painted paper collage each morning when I come in to the studio. I use many colors to make "one" color and then try to juxtapose colors that might be unexpected companions. I try to make harmony out of disharmony and base everything loosely on a grid. I want these pieces to hold a sense of mystery and peace. I intend to continue this practice for all of 2017 even while embarking on other projects. I like seeing how each day is different.

More "Off the Grid" meditations, color, shape and whatever comes in the moment—how I begin my day in these deeply troubling times and this time in the sketchbook as I couldn't get to the studio. Meditation is a way to balance activism. It feeds the soul to make something out of scraps of paper, a reminder that we can always create good. And so I am making this my practice this year, I begin each day with a visual meditation to gather my energy for the hard work ahead and the magic we will and must create.

Hello! Like everyone else on the planet, I've experienced a little anxiety over the dire political developments of the last couple of months. I want to keep positive so I've begun a morning art practice. It's like meditation. I come into the here and now and forget everything except for color and how things fit together. I continue until I find harmony using odd scraps of paper. I think of what Mahatma Gandhi said—that we need to be the peace we want to see in the world. Art helps. Here are the first three and I'll post more soon.







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, what a day it was here in Boston and all over the world! Here are the signs I made for the march. It was a thrill to be there and proof that we shall overcome. The women are united! So many great men are with us! Love will win!

I’ve made six posters for my current show, “How To Be Friends”, with my friend Maggie Stern at The Arsenal Center for the Arts. I’ve thought in terms of posters for a long time because I’m a writer too and words so often appear in my art. Posters are designed to make us look and consider information and ideas. In mine, and in tune with the theme of our show, I’m hoping we might consider how we can live better lives.

Three posters I’ve made for this show take off on René Magritte’s famous 1928 pipe painting “The Treachery of Images”  which now resides at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In his painting of a pipe, he wrote the words “Ceçi nest pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”) making the point that a painting is not the thing itself but a representation of something—a conduit for perception, felt experience and ideas. In mine, I add a few words inspired by the painting. Merci, M. Magritte.

 

 

I’ve spent this summer working on a show called “How To Be Friends” for which I’m joining my wonderful friend, Maggie Stern, a very imaginative artist whose work is carried by The American Museum of Folk Art, The Barnes Foundation and many other museums and shops. The show is at The Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA just outside Boston and will be up from September 3rd to November 3rd. The opening is September 10th from 3-5 pm.

The inspiration for the show came for me when I looked at what Maggie had been making for some months. They were playful scenes of people, animals, fish and birds made of painted wood, and also some stitched drawings of the same. She said her work is really about connection. It seemed only logical then to work on the idea of friendship which is not always entirely straightforward.

At first, we’d been given a small space in the Center to show our work so it didn’t seem like a big deal for me to complete my part of it for which I already had a clear idea. I began working in a relaxed way in mid-June amid happy thoughts of a laid-back summer stretching ahead. Then, mid-July, Aneleise Ruggles, curator of exhibitions at the Center, invited us to take over the whole spacious ground floor of the building. And we said yes, and without a moment’s hesitation. Always good, I think, to say yes to yes. Of course, there was a moment or two of panic—the work I’d originally planned wouldn’t fill this larger space at all. What would I make next? Could it be done on time? I got the inspiration to make posters, something I’ve already done, and started drawing and exploring ideas. I love posters because I can approach ideas in them and the making too with some ease. An added bonus is that they’re affordable, a good thing too. Luckily, Maggie also remembered a set of four paintings I’d done a few years ago—”The Mahatma Gandhi Hat Company”—which is very much on our theme. I’m very grateful to The Arsenal Center for giving us the opportunity to both create and share work some of which wouldn’t exist without this support.

Here’s a look at my part of the show waiting patiently on the stairs to be hung. Tomorrow I’ll see how it all looks in the space when hung and displayed beside Maggie’s wonderful work.

I’ve spent this summer working on an exhibition called “How To Be Friends” for which I’m joining my wonderful friend, Maggie Stern, a prolific, authentic and very imaginative artist whose work is carried by The American Museum of Folk Art, The Barnes Foundation and many other museums and shops. The show is at The Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA just outside Boston and will be up from September 3rd to November 3rd. The opening is September 10th from 3-5 pm.

The inspiration for the show came for me when I looked at what Maggie had been making with painted wood objects. She makes such touching imaginative sculptural scenes of people, animals, fish and birds. Her work seemed to me to be all about connection and the joy that is inherent in that. It seemed logical to work on the idea of friendship.

At first, we’d been given a small space in the Center to show our work so it didn’t seem like a big deal for me to complete my part of it for which I already had a clear idea. So I began work in a very relaxed way in late June. But then, late July, we were invited to take over the whole ground floor and we said yes and without hesitation. I love to say yes to yes. Of course, there was a moment or two of panic! Will I have enough? Will I know what to do? There was nothing to do but dive in. The work I’d originally planned would not fill this larger space at all so I decided after some time drawing and exploring ideas to make some posters as well. I love the idea of posters because I can approach ideas in them with some ease. They needn’t be complicated and can be made digitally which suits me just fine. I also love that they’re affordable almost anyone can have them if they want to. Luckily, Maggie also remembered a set of four paintings I’d done a few years ago—”The Mahatma Gandhi Hat Company”—which is very much on our theme as was all of Maggie’s work. I’m very grateful to The Arsenal Center for giving us the opportunity to both create and share work most of which wouldn’t exist without this support.

Here’s a sneak preview of some of the work lined up on the front stairs this morning before its hanging this evening. I include a close up of three of the posters. Tomorrow I’ll see how it all looks in the space when hung and displayed beside Maggie’s wonderful work.

Hello! Early June, I finished up my second online sketchbook class, Making Art a Practice/ In and Out of the Sketchbook, via Carla Sonheim Presents. I’m still amazed at how much we can accomplish together online. We had a fantastic group of artists who participated on the Facebook page and everyone really stretched out. The basic idea was to learn to experiment so we can find what lights us up. Thanks to everyone who joined!

I’ll be working all summer on the art for my upcoming show with Maggie Stern at The Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown just outside Boston where I’m so lucky to teach and have my studio. Maggie is a great friend of mine and we’re calling our show “How To Be Friends“. Because friends are what we all need to be on this planet. The hatred has to end. I’ll be showing drawings, paintings and small sculptural pieces.

Finally, I’m just back from a very brief swing through London on route to a visit with my publisher Thierry Bogliolo in France. (Nice to have a foreign publisher!) One of the things that Roberta Miller, our wonderful new director at The Arsenal Center, is initiating is explorations into creative place-making. Here’s the wiki definition:

“Creative Placemaking is an evolving field of practice that intentionally leverages the power of the arts, culture and creativity to serve a community’s interest while driving a broader agenda for change, growth and transformation in a way that also builds character and quality of place.”

I’m excited to be on this committee to enliven and transform areas of Watertown which is a small and fantastically diverse town with immigrants from all over the world. Until recently, it was a tad neglected but things are changing rapidly and we can be part of making really imaginative changes. I had my phone out in London trying to catch some inspiration. I love the ragtag casual and transitory nature of most of what I found. It has the feeling of life being lived. (And, yes, old London is disappearing fast. Everything is transitory, even cities. Despite the loss of older buildings the city feels really vibrant. We counted 42 cranes and buildings are going up everywhere as you can see in the last shot taken on The Wobbly Bridge in front of Tate Modern. We missed seeing the new addition to the museum, alas, which just opened.)

More soon on all fronts. Thanks for stopping by!

I’m just home from a fantastic week in Seattle filming a new online class for Carla Sonheim Presents. The class is called MAKING ART A PRACTICE / In and Out of the Sketchbook.

Here’s the blurb—

“In MAKING ART A PRACTICE: In and Out of the Sketchbook, we’ll spend two days drawing in the sketchbook with a focus on color, line and shape then jump out of the sketchbook to do a bigger project. We’ll draw and paint the world around us— food, clothes and the objects in our homes, plants and landscape, and people. And we’ll do so in different ways—painting using only lines, making cut-paper images using only shapes, then bringing line and shape together in different ways.

Our goal is to draw and paint in experimental ways and to get ideas for our own work. We’ll mostly work on a larger scale outside of the sketchbook and try things out. We’ll approach everything we do with a spirit of adventure and discovery!

This is a new and different class to the first “Making Art a Practice.” If you missed that one, no worries—this class is for everyone. And anyone who would like to is invited to post work on the private Facebook page for this class. At the beginning of each week, I’ll introduce the class in the online forum and offer some examples from well known artists that might inspire us as we do the exercises. We’ll all share comments and I’ll offer feedback and a few additional ideas every weekday morning.”

Steve Sonheim has done an amazing job of directing the filming of the class. Drawing live on camera and talking at the same time is both fun and challenging. Steve always keeps us on track and heading towards the bigger picture. I’m so grateful to be working with Carla and Steve!

The class starts APRIL 19th! Lots of drawing, painting, experimentation, sharing and fun! You can sign up now at Carla Sonheim Presents. I’m excited to begin and would love to see you there.