Meeting Time: 10:00 AM, Monday, June 12, 2017
San Antonio Garden Center 3310 N. New Braunfels Avenue, SATX 78209.
Come at 9:30 for refreshments and creative networking! Authored by Lyn Belisle.
MOLLY BEAUFAIT will be talking about what is new, what her peers are doing, what is challenging as a new artist, what she would like to gain from us, more experienced artists.
Molly is a young practicing artist at the University of North Texas, with an expected graduation date of December 2017 with a BFA in Fiber Arts. Beaufait has been featured in several group shows, including the UNT Union Gallery Show, and the Weaving Stories Kuwait Exhibition, as well as having batik samples on display in the Dallas Museum of Art.
Her personal art focuses on ideas of mark-making in relationship to systems of thought, specifically in relation to overcoming obsessions and anxiety, and frequently takes the form of mixed media art quilts. Beaufait wants her art to be a joyful expression that is represented in both the artist and viewer.
I believe that it is a human desire, a need even, to make. Anyone and everyone, regardless of physiology or location, has the innate desire to create, to make, to turn raw materials into something that they value. Making is part of what gives intelligent life purpose. Since childhood, I have suffered from an immense desire for control, often causing extreme anxiety when I lose control of situations, or when things happen that I have no control over. Making things, slowing down to pay attention to details is and always has been therapeutic for me.
As I developed as an artist, process became incredibly important to me for this reason. Here is something that I can control, become absorbed in, plan, and obsess over. However, in dyeing warps for my weavings or creating textured surfaces for art quilts I am giving up a certain amount of control over the outcome. The therapeutic aspect comes when I am forced to accept the unexpected that occurs as an inevitable part of art-making. Because most of the processes I use involve creating unexpected results, I frequently don’t know what the finished piece will look like until it is completed. Because of this, I am forced to accept each piece as it is. This finality is a part of the relinquishment of control that I must undergo with each piece. Here I am, faced with something that has escaped my control, but in art I am able to resolve, to adapt, and to accept in a way that I am slowly learning to do in my life.
Therefore, the contrast between order and disorder is fascinating to me, and is a crucial conceptual aspect of my art. I am discovering that this is allowing me to experience my own work more appreciatively than I could with something that I truly did have full control over. In this manner, my work is also where I feel my most joyful and freed from the unease of everyday life, and I would like my audiences to similarly experience the excitement and joy that I find so freeing in my pieces.
