Chassily Wakefield's Blog

This interview first appeared on 1st Turning Point

Posted By Chassily Wakefield on February 23, 2010

Interviewed by Chassily Wakefield
1st Turning Point Cabin Girl
Copyright © 2010 Chassily Wakefield and Carol Nelson

I’m delighted to introduce 1st Turning Point’s February featured artist, Carol Nelson.  Carol’s work has been described as “a bold exploration of both realism and abstraction.  Each piece probes the essence of color, surface texture, and structural mass…her abstract compositions often suggest geologic elements with the use of natural and man-made materials such as metals, plastic, and numerous acrylic mediums.”

I’ve known Carol since I was a little girl.  It was a real joy to interview her about her work and have a chance to reconnect with an old friend.  Thank you for being with us, Carol!

CW: Tell me about your background in art.  How did you get started?  When did you know you were meant to be an artist?

CN:  Art was always my best subject in school.  I started out as an art major in college, but was worried that an art degree would not provide me with a sure income.  I ended up changing my major to medical technology, where I knew a job awaited me when I graduated.

When my kids were little, I had a stained glass business out of my home, but it wasn’t until 1998 that my career as an artist actually began, following a chance discovery of Maxine Masterfield’s book, Painting the Spirit of Nature.  Standing in the middle of Hobby Lobby thumbing through that book, I thought, “I can do that.”

I bought all the supplies I needed, and started producing art that was well received almost immediately.  Then followed a four or five year learning period of art workshops with local and nationally recognized artists.  I experimented with different styles of painting and every media from watercolor, acrylics, oils, to pastels and collage.  Gradually, I narrowed my focus to acrylics, oils and mixed media.

CW: Tell me about the type of work you do.  What inspires you?

CN: I love to paint.  My style varies from realism to abstraction.  My paintings reflect my emotional and responsive connection to the world around me.  Nature provides patterns, rhythms and textures that stimulate my creativity, and there comes a point when the energy of the painting emerges and the materials themselves offer suggestions and direction.  My goal is to be responsive to the process and guide the work to an expressive interpretation of nature’s spirit.

As a child, I loved creating colorful pictures.  Now, I make a living doing what I love.  Visit my blog for the latest work, with tips and comments on the painting process.  On my website, all of my work is categorized according to subject matter and style.

CW: Are you willing to modify your subject matter to help promote your work?

CN: My entire portrait project is a promotional effort that has doubled my blog traffic.  I don’t normally paint portraits, but it occurred to me in a dream (true story) that doing 100 portraits in 100 days would be a good promotional project.  I’m about one-quarter done with the portraits and can see my skill as a portrait painter has increased with all the practice.

Some people (my husband being one) look at abstract paintings and don’t recognize the skill of the artist.  They feel painting a recognizable subject, where they know how it’s supposed to look, is the true measure of an artist’s ability.  My portraits are shown right next to their reference photos, so it’s easy to see how well I captured the likenesses.  This has given my work a certain validity with people who only appreciate realism.

I love producing many styles of art.  When I’ve done realism for a while, my inner child calls out to create an abstract.  I actually feel that a well composed abstract is more difficult to achieve than anything that is realistic.

CW: What promotional tools have you used or do you see yourself using in the future?

CN: My membership in an online gallery called Daily Painters has really launched me on the internet, and my internet sales have greatly increased.  When someone sees a painting of mine on DP, they’re directed to my blog, where I post every painting as I complete it.  I often talk about the painting process, various techniques and materials on my blog.  Every painting on my blog has a link to my website, where all my paintings are categorized according to subject.  Paintings may be purchased directly from my website with a PayPal button.

CW: What is your ultimate goal?

CN:  I suppose my goal is to be featured in a national art magazine, but I create my art for my personal satisfaction, not for the notoriety.  I’m fairly well known in art circles in Denver.  I’ve conducted several workshops and demonstrations for local art groups.  It’s satisfying to be recognized by one’s peers for one’s work, but the real joy is in the creating.  I have the luxury of not having to support myself from my art sales.

CW: What is your take on the art world today?  Has the economy affected the atmosphere and sales?  What strategies can an artist use to overcome a tough economy?

CN: The art world, like everything else, took a big hit when the economy went into recession.  Lately, I’ve noticed a significant increase in art sales, so I’m hoping things are turning around.  People have to have disposable income available to buy art, and there seems to be more people willing to spend on art.

CW: Anything else you’d like to share?

CN: Art, like any creative endeavor, e.g. music, writing, must be done for the joy in creating.  If I never sold anything, I would still paint and be happy.  There are literally tens of thousands of people trying to express themselves with paint or music or the written word.  Living in the age of the internet is so unbelievably fabulous.  The opportunities to communicate with others around the world involved in the same creative endeavors are endless.

CW: Very true!  Thank you again for being here, Carol, it was so great to talk with you.  All the best to you and in your work.

Carol’s Representation:

Spirits in the Wind Gallery, Golden, CO     (303) 279-1192
The Bradley Art Gallery, Stoughton, WI     (608) 873-9026

Columbine Gallery, Frisco, CO     (970) 668-5041

West Southwest Gallery, Denver, CO     (303) 321-4139

Contact Carol at:
Email:  carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net
Phone: 303-699-2542

Posted By Chassily Wakefield on January 26, 2010

Anthea Lawson of Fiddlehead Celtic Band
Interviewed by Chassily Wakefield
Copyright © 2010 Chassily Wakefield and Anthea Lawson

This interview was first published on 1st Turning Point on January 26, 2010, as part of our featured artist schedule. 1st Turning Point’s January featured artist is musician Anthea Lawson. Anthea Lawson is the pen name for a husband and wife writing team, co-authors of spicy Victorian-set romantic adventures. Anthea has contributed an article to 1st Turning Point in her role as Romance Author, but she and her husband are also accomplished musicians with their own Celtic band, the popular Northwest group known as Fiddlehead. Lucky for me, she’s also a friend, so I was able to pelt her with questions over brunch.

CW:  Tell me about your background in music.

AL:  I grew up in a very musical household: my mom is a professional classical viola player. It was not a question of if I would play an instrument, but which one. I came home from school in 4th grade and announced I wanted to play…the trumpet! I ended up settling on the violin. In high school, I began to play fiddle music, and in college really got into Irish fiddling. I’ve also always sung, and I love the richness of traditional Celtic songs and ballads.

Lawson took some guitar lessons in high school, then tucked his guitar in the closet when he left home for college. After we met, he called his parents and had them send his guitar to him—it was obvious that he was getting involved with a serious musician and needed to be ready!

CW:  You play music and co-write novels with your husband, not to mention being married and raising a child. How does so much togetherness feed your creative muse? How do you handle creative differences?

AL:  We have the temperaments for working closely together—luckily! Creative collaboration keeps us connected, and over the years we’ve worked out how to communicate about our projects. There’s a lot of similarity between playing in a band, writing novels, and raising a child.

There are inevitable differences of opinion. We each have our own vision of where we’re going. Usually, whoever feels the most strongly about something can talk the other one around to their point of view.

We have to respect one-another’s opinion, recognize we’re both contributing to a whole that’s greater than both of us, and keep the ultimate goal in mind: A solid and lyrical song arrangement, a book that delights readers, or a competent and confident kid.

CW:  You also teach violin. What’s your favorite part of passing on your musical knowledge?

AL: Getting people hooked on playing the fiddle. I love the traditional music idioms (Irish, Old-time, Quebecois, Contradance) and the way people can go out, have fun, and make music socially with only a handful of tunes under their fingers. It’s a very satisfying job.

CW:  Do you have a manager? How is promoting your music different from promoting your novels? Is there overlap between the two fields?

AL:  I manage the band—we’re not commanding the kinds of fees that would justify involving a manager, plus we’re not able to tour extensively. That said, we’ve played all over the Northwest and in Canada as part of various Celtic Music Festivals.

In terms of promotion, we apply to festivals and concert series with a promotional pack that includes a CD, band bio, and glowing reviews. A number of local gigs come our way because we’ve been playing for quite a while, are known in the area, and have a specialized niche. March is a busy month for us, with St. Patrick’s Day celebrations giving us lots of performance opportunities.

We could do more as a band with a website, though we are online at CDBaby.com/cd/fiddlehead, where you can purchase our music and read a little about the band. Eventually, we’d like to make a page at our home site of anthealawson.com that focuses on our musical lives.

I think the overlap between promoting a band and promoting an author comes in the big areas like branding, word of mouth, and taking the opportunities that come your way.

CW:  How has the economy affected the band? Is it harder to find paying gigs? What strategies do you employ for overcoming those obstacles?

AL:  The economy has definitely made it harder to find gigs. We didn’t play any weddings last summer, and usually we do at least a handful of those. A few venues have folded or are not hiring as many bands. Or people want you to play for free, which doesn’t work out that well when you’re trying to make a partial living by playing music. We’re playing less and waiting for things to come around. We still have our regular gigs—St. Patrick’s Day, the Seattle Folklife Festival, etc.

CW:  What are your musical goals, personally and for the band?

AL:  It’s not that difficult as niche musicians playing traditional Celtic music to find work if we’re motivated. I think it must be similar to self-publishing in nonfiction to a tightly targeted market. We don’t need national distribution. Stores that specialize in Celtic items or folk music are willing to carry our CDs. We have played national (and international) music festivals and made a lot of people happy with our music. What could be better? Ok, maybe selling another thousand CDs, but the music is only a part of what we do. We’ve always quilted together a bunch of smaller projects to make a creatively fulfilling life.

CW:  Anything else you’d like to share? Where can local readers see you play next?

AL:  We usually announce gigs on our website at anthealawson.com, so take a look there, especially in early March when we know what our St. Paddy’s line-up will look like.

Thanks so much Chassily and 1st Turning Point for having us back, this time wearing our musician hats!

CW:  Thank you for being here, Anthea! It’s always a pleasure to talk with you.

The Emerald City Writers Conference took place in Seattle on October 9-11, put on by the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America chapter. I have to say it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. As a conference virgin, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. The only other large-scale gathering of a “conference” nature I’ve attended that even came close was LeakyCon 2009 in Boston last May, which was fabulous, but all for fun, not business. Leading up to this conference, I had a lot of worries, despite knowing that many friends would be in attendance.

The first worry, of course, was what to wear. No, not the writing or pitching or meeting scary editors/agents (who were completely wonderful, in any case.) “Business casual” is tough to define, especially for someone who has been out of the official workforce for so long. Did I need a suit jacket? What about the shoes? Luckily, the ECWC organizers had a special email loop for conference attendees where every conceivable question could be answered by the organizers themselves or people who’d been to conference before and knew what to expect. They were an amazing resource, and I know that loop helped calm the nerves of more than a few newbies. The fact that we devolved into comedy toward the last few days before conference helped enormously, and also got us started thinking about scheduling for 2010. Sunday morning PJ & bunny slipper sessions were a popular suggestion, as well as Friday and Saturday night workshops in the bar at 1 AM. It turns out I’m not the only writer on earth who is a confirmed night owl and not a morning person. Who knew?

I carpooled with Kate Diamond (check out her posts on Damned Scribbling Women), which was a blast. We went up to the hotel a day early in order to attend a synopsis workshop led by Deborah Cooke (Claire Delacroix), and to help stuff goodie bags for the conference. Kate was a hoot to drive with, full of great advice and book recommendations. As a double finalist in the Emerald City Opener contest, she was also a great resource to pump for info on craft and the business of writing. That’s a girl who is going places. Remember her name.

Deborah’s synopsis workshop included several “AHA!” moments (and what a gracious lady! She was a pleasure to listen to.) I’m confident that everyone who attended will produce synopses much easier, and the results will be far better, thanks to the information Deborah provided.

I had the pleasure of driving Terrel Hoffman (leader of the infamous Eye of Argon annual Friday night reading – that was another first for me, and quite an experience! Google it if you’re unfamiliar with it. I dare you), Monica Britt and Kate Diamond to the workshop, which took place at the Mercer Island Library, and spawned this all important question: “How many romance writers does it take to find a library?” Answer: “Four, if they have gps and a cell to call Kate’s husband for directions.” Thank you for getting us to our location with time to spare, Mr. Kate Diamond! Monica and Terrel kept us in stitches the whole way there and back, and through our several wrong turns.

After that, it was back to the hotel for stuffing goodie bags and chowing down on excellent pizza in the hospitality suite. What an eye-opening experience! I knew, in a cerebral sort of way, how much work is involved in putting on a conference of this magnitude, but seeing those ladies in action was something to behold. Their organizational skills were incredible.

As a bonus, we also got to scope out the raffle baskets, as they were being put together and final touches added in that room. I put my name on several and tried to tell them not to bother wrapping them up for the raffle, just to send them straight down to my car. That suggestion was uniformly ignored, although I did wind up with the one I wanted most of all, The Plotting Princess, which contained a hand-made tiara along with plotting tools. It was put together by Shelly Shellabarger and Celeste Deveney, who made the tiara, and was completely fabulous! I also scored a terrific basket full of signed copies of Julia Quinn’s novels, which I cannot wait to tear into, I love her work! Yes, you read that correctly, I won TWO baskets in the raffle! I never win anything. Never ever. I still can’t believe two fabulous baskets came my way, it was so exciting! That happened for a couple of people over the course of the weekend, actually. One generous soul donated her second basket back to the raffle, since she’d already won one, but I am far too selfish for that. I won two baskets and I kept two baskets!

Friday began with a meeting of volunteers in the hotel lobby, so we’d know where to be/what to do over the course of the conference, then it was downstairs to registration. From the first moment, any lingering nerves vanished. I was immediately among friends, whether I’d ever met the person before or not. To a man (or woman!), every single person I met was a delight. My only regrets were in not having more time to spend and not getting to meet everyone. What an amazing group of people! Truly fabulous, from the brand-newbies like myself to the multi-published authors, who were unbelievably generous with their time and wisdom. I’m not going to list everyone by name because invariably I would accidentally leave someone off and I don’t want to risk that, because absolutely everyone was just wonderful. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard on the conference itself, and to everyone who went out of their way to make us all feel welcome and comfortable.

There were too many wonderful events over those three days to go into them all. That conference had everything! Fabulous keynote speakers (Christine Warren, Deborah Cooke and Lisa Jackson), wonderful agents and editors (Alexandra Machinist, Elaine Spencer, Megan McKeever, Wanda Ottewell, Steven Axelrod and Peter Senftleben), the incredible Cherry Adair, whom I have heard Theresa Meyers, of Blue Moon Communications, describe as “a force of nature” and now know exactly what she means!

I signed up for Cherry’s Write the Damn Book! challenge this year, which means I have one year from the close of this conference to the start of the next to write and finish a book. The requirements are to start a new novel and finish it within that year, and if you do, you are eligible for a drawing for fabulous prizes. Cherry is incredibly generous! But she’ll hunt you down if you don’t finish and you’ll have to explain to her exactly why not. Be warned! Since I am in the middle of one novel already, I have to finish that one first and then write the one for the challenge, which will be the second in my series, so lots of writing for me this year! That’s a good thing.

As if that weren’t enough, the workshops truly boggled the mind. It was SO hard to choose which ones to attend. Thankfully, the conference was recorded, minus a couple of workshops, so the CD will be a real asset to have, but I still hated to miss anything.

I first attended Elaine Spencer’s “Always Wanted to Know but Been Too Afraid To Ask?” session, in which she was extremely forthcoming about the business and what to expect out of the submission process. Dinner and the keynote on Friday night was followed by Cherry’s Write the Damn Book! awards for the previous year (congratulations, everyone! I intend to be up there with you next year!), and the Agent/Editor panel, during which all six of them answered quite a string of questions, and conference attendees were able to get a better sense of what each agent/editor was interested in seeing.

Then came PitchFest! We divided up by table, each of which had one published author to help us all work on our pitches and refine our delivery. I was lucky enough to be seated with the lovely Gina Robinson and a group of incredible writers. Everyone’s stories were so interesting and fun to listen to, so diverse. Each person had valuable advice to contribute to the table as a whole. The support and generosity of spirit of writers in general never ceases to amaze me. The hope that everyone there would do well and succeed in their goals was a palpable feeling in that room. Every single person was invested in helping everyone else be the best they could be. It was inspiring to see.

I ended up deciding, rightly I believe, not to pitch at this conference. I am just not far enough into my novel. I didn’t want to burn any bridges by pitching something that wasn’t ready, but the PitchFest experience was invaluable. I know I’ll be ready to knock their socks off when the time comes, and I want to send a personal thank you to the ladies at my table for their wonderful and constructive feedback on my story. Good luck to you all!

On Saturday I started off by working the Hospitality Desk. I very much recommend that conference newbies, in particular, volunteer to help with as much as you can. It was an amazing experience, and because of the volunteering, I got to meet far more people than I would have otherwise. Plus, it was a LOT of fun!

After my shift, though, it was time for the workshops. Over the next two days I attended classes given by Bob Mayer, Linda Wisdom, Cherry Adair, Eileen Cook, Sharron Gunn, and moderated for the incomparable Mary Buckham. My mind has been on information overload ever since, but in a good way! I have reams of notes and every lecture contributed such value.

Then there were all the just-for-kicks events. The newbie reception. Eye of Argon reading in the lobby. The fabulous book fair, where I had to practice far too much restraint. It was so hard not to walk out of there with a copy of every book! The Dinner Divas, where I met a fantastic group of women I am excited to call friends. Karaoke! OMG! If only I’d had my video camera! I did get a few pics, all from karaoke night, as you can see, but overall I was just terrible about remembering to take out my camera. Next year I’m going to hang it around my neck or something so it’s always available, and make sure the video camera comes with, because there were many video-worthy moments! Never let it be said that writers are lonely, solitary, quiet-type people. At least not romance writers! These people know how to party, even the shy ones.

What an event! There was so much more, I can’t begin to describe it all, or all the wonderful people. One thing is for certain: ECWC is one event on my “Never to be missed” list. I’m so glad ECWC was my first conference. Any others I ever attend, including Nationals next year, will have a job trying to outdo it. It was a truly memorable, amazing experience from start to finish. I just wish it could have gone on longer! Thank you, again, to everyone who worked so hard to deliver such an exceptional event. You guys ROCK!

Thank you, too, to everyone who went out of their way to congratulate me on this beautiful new website (thank you again, Emma!) and tell me how much you’ve enjoyed it. You guys made my day, everyday.

That is the question. The answer is yes, clearly, because here I am. Blogging. Or pretending to, anyway. This is my first-ever attempt. It may not be pretty.

I spent the better part of two hours reading through the blogging Help articles and have come to one positive conclusion: I need a live instructor. I can write forever, talk longer, but figuring out technology is not my strong suit. It makes me feel stupid, a feeling I do NOT care for, but I’m also impatient with it all. I want to open a screen and have it do what I want, without spending a lot of time figuring out how to make it go. I feel very much the way I imagine some of my characters would feel if they were transported out of the Middle Ages and plunked in front of a computer. You can imagine.

In any case, this first “blog” is about writing something down and pressing “publish” to see how it works, so I won’t continue to waste time and space complaining that it’s too hard. I’ll figure it out, and I hope you’ll bear with me while I do.

If the spirit moves you, leave a comment on how you deal when faced with new technology. Do you dive right in and figure it all out? Avoid it like the plague until forced to use it? Get a book? Get a teacher?

In the meantime, to reward you for stopping by and putting up with my angst-driven blathering for a few moments, enjoy this picture of my oh-so-cute new babies, the three kittens my family adopted from our local Kitten Rescue at the beginning of September. They are just about 12 weeks old now. The black and white one is Captain Jack, very appropriately named as it turns out he’s something of an escape artist and a serious prankster; the fluffy tabby is Mr. Gibbs, and the sleek tabby is Commodore Norrington. Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!