This past November I attended a one month long artist residency in Costa Rica! This was my first artist residency and my goal for this month of creation was to play, create, explore, and allow myself to make bad art and then hopefully some good.
What I didn’t expect was the complete mental/physical healing that came along with the journey. Previously to the trip I was working long and late hours at a restaurant to save up for taking some time off and focusing/funding my artistic practise. Over the past year I have not been sleeping well and I’ve been stressed out. The residency allowed me to return to a normal sleep schedule which in itself changed everything. Right away I started naturally waking at 5:30am with the birds and sunshine each morning, I would walk down to the studio and created artwork until 7:30am, then I would eat the most amazing fresh fruits for breakfast. Some days we would walk to the neighbours yoga studio and take in a session that would end with a little dip in their pool. I have very little experience with yoga, but the first time we did yoga here I broke down emotionally. So much was released and I became aware of how much stress my physical body holds onto.
First successful painting I created at the residency. Mini painting on paper with gouache and acrylic.
mini paintings- Gouche!