The Adventures of Tara...

I’ve been putting this blog post off…and off…and off. Can’t blame it on covid because I have plenty of time. I’m going to blame it on my fellow blogger and artist Tara Bell. We decided to write blogs about each other and Tara’s was posted first. She is just too wonderful a writer! She writes from the heart, from her feelings, from what her antennae pick up. Tara just sets a very high bar for me to do justice to her. But here we go.

An accomplished and published writer, she’s also the artist behind Dream Circles which features her wonderful dreamy pastels and colored pencil drawings of creatures both real and fantastical. She’s also accomplished at turning her pieces into all sorts of accoutrements – earrings, ornaments, pillow coverings and so much more. So I was interested in hearing how this covid downtime is affecting her work.

“I have changed,” she says. “I feel much freer to experiment. I’m layering, using acrylics, inks. I still have to have the dream element but I’m working more abstractly. I began to feel constricted by being known only as a colored pencil artist and I wanted to get past the cuteness of my drawings,” she notes. Her journey was helped by joining a group of like minded artists who encouraged her. Tara is also writing and illustrating a children’s book that features a wandering cat’s adventures in Harpers Ferry.

Tara misses, as all of us do, interaction with the people who visit the Studio Tour. “You speak through your art and when you share it with others, you’re speaking to them. When someone buys your work, it’s validating.”

So here’s an idea. Why not reach out to an artist you know or whose work you admire (and maybe even own) to say hi and to see how they are faring. You might even be able to have a distanced visit to their studio.