 Gallery MAR visited the studio this morning to pick up new work. There’s something quietly satisfying about seeing the pieces leave and knowing they’re in good hands. Grateful for the ongoing collaboration.
https://www.gallerymar.com/artists/samantha-da-silva  My first article has been published in 15 Bytes.
Alphabet Soup, and Then Some: On Michael David Sowder’s Sacred Letters is a reflection on a book that asks you to slow down and retune. I’m grateful to Shawn for the invitation and the editing. Read the full piece here  This afternoon I wrote a gratitude list on a 60 by 48 inch canvas with a Sharpie. I poured rubbing alcohol over the words and watched them melt. The canvas is outside now, drying in the sun. Paint and texture will cover the writing. I do not need the words to stay visible. I trust the intention remains in the surface, and that a viewer can feel it without being able to read it.
The list comes from thirty days of writing one before sleep. One line from the journal says it plainly: I like gratitude because it makes me feel good. A mentor once told me the practice is a way of sowing seeds to dream about, and collecting the harvest when you wake. The challenges are still there. What shifted is the view.  My first local author showcase, at the Wasatch Book Festival, held at Park City Library.
The table was the studio, scaled down. Small paintings, the paint-covered boots, a bucket, and jars of iron-rich Utah dirt, salt from the Great Salt Lake, and foraged sawdust. Fearless Artistry sat in a stack beside them. Still a little unreal to see it there. A real pleasure to meet the other authors and to talk with people who came through. Gallery MAR showed up. Owner Maren Mullin was there with her daughter Faye, and Managing Director Leslie Wright stayed to buy books. That is a gallery that looks after its artists. Thank you to the Park City Library staff for such a generous, well-run night. Someone left a card that said, how did I get so lucky to know you. I kept looking at it between conversations.  It’s here, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you. My work is in the May/June issue of Utah Life Magazine, and I feel super honored.
When I arrived eight years ago, I wasn’t sure this place would hold. I began painting almost as soon as I got here, and one of the first things I did was gather what the land offered: iron-rich dirt, salt from the Great Salt Lake, sawdust from a nearby shop. These materials became the way I rooted, and they still are. Thank you to Ariella Nardizzi for “Painting with Earth: Artist Explores Place and Memory Through Salt, Sand, and Soil,” and to everyone who keeps making room for my work. Pick up a copy at newsstands across Utah, or order the issue at utahlifemag.com.  Paint who you are — truthful, gentle, fearless.
A line I wrote for the book. A way I try to live in the studio. Join me this Sunday for a Local Author Meet & Greet during the Book Festival. Sunday, October 4 1–5 pm Park City Library Free I’ll have Fearless Artistry with me. Come say hello.  I have decided to spend these precious hours making paintings for you.
This group came in after rain and after heat: pale plaster, sage, salt-blue, gold, and dark ground. Some hold a single vertical of light. One is a moon completed only when the two panels meet. Another looks, to me, like a bouquet left on a weathered wall. They are earthy and luminous at once. I hope they find rooms where that contrast can live. They have more depth in person. If one of them is speaking to you, I would love for you to stand in front of it.  Gathering of Moons
mixed media on canvas, 48” × 60” The changing of the season is upon us. A time for slowing down, going within, organizing the small universe. Gathering of moons. This painting stood in the weather: gentle rain, wind turning the leaves from green to red and yellow ochre, brilliant sun, and moonlight. The surface is time-worn on purpose. I like it against a modern room. Outside brought in. A reminder of how small we are under a gathering of moons.  Congratulations to 15 Bytes on twenty-five years of writing Utah’s art into view.
This publication helped me get situated after I arrived from Canada and Hawaiʻi. It was one of the first places I recognized a conversation already underway (artists, writers, museums) and felt I could join it. Last night it was a pleasure to meet so many of the people who keep that conversation alive. A thriving landscape is never accidental. It is built, issue by issue.  It was such a pleasure to create with the Red Ledges group.
Thank you for the warm welcome — rain, thunder, and all. |