Amanda Pearson Art

It’s that time of year when I am ramping up my preparations for what will hopefully be a busy summer of art fairs. My mind is flooded with all of the things I feel like I need to do. Make a large original embroidery floss piece because it has been a long time since I have done one larger than 8×10! Make small originals because those are fun and whimsical and I never have enough! I have to restock my cards and magnets that are all made by hand! Apply for art fairs and anxiously check my e-mail for updates! I need to dig through my studio and storage to figure out what supplies I need for the summer and order them while optimizing coupons and sales! Sit up straight because my back hurts and I want to avoid a headache tomorrow! Can’t forget to post on social media! I should probably maybe consider cleaning my studio at some point (this always gets pushed to the end of the list).

And that’s just the art list. There is also all the normal life stuff – figuring out dinner, walking the dog, doing dishes, dealing with my driver’s license renewal that is coming up…it never ends.

Juggling all the things a person wants to do in life is of course not unique to artists. But it is easy to get overwhelmed by the physical, emotional and economic demands while aiming to grow creatively and professionally.

I have been doing this long enough now that I recognize and can plan for the rhythm of my year. I know that over the winter I have capacity to do a little more around the house and I do more fun activities on the weekends. But now it is crunch time – I am staring down the barrel of my first art event of the year and there is so much I want to get done before then. I am trying to finish a large embroidery floss piece, and I truly don’t think I will get it done in time. I am at the point where I must decide if I will keep pushing forward with this piece anyways, or pivot and concentrate on smaller original pieces for the time being. In the past this would have crushed me – I put so much pressure on myself to meet my self-imposed goals when really the consequences of not meeting them is not that big of a deal. But now I know I can figure something else out if I need to. The cost to my physical health or the functioning of my household is often too high when I can come up with a perfectly reasonable alternative.

Granted, I still envision that I will spend the next month hunched over my desk while on too little sleep and too much coffee. I have always thrived on deadlines 🙂 I may not live a balanced life, but I spend a lot of time considering it!

So here are my tips for maintaining (or aiming for) a balanced art life:

• Be ambitious with your goals, but give yourself grace if it just isn’t going to happen
• Prioritize what matters because not all goals are equal, but some goals should be moved up the list for a limited time
• Develop systems for repeated tasks to lower the mental demands and take advantage of time savings (like batching)
• Embrace the ebbs and flows to lean into times when your creativity is high or your art obligations have room to breathe
• Plan non-creative art tasks (like prepping materials, cleaning, and computer work) to take advantage of times when you are not feeling inspired creatively

When my husband and I bought our house in 2017, we knew there was a park very close but it wasn’t something we paid much attention to. I didn’t know then that I would spend a lot of time walking around the lake at that park with my dog and that just about every view from the path would end up in my art over the years.

While the park is small, tucked between two freeways, and has planes flying so close in the sky you can practically touch them, my lake is a pocket of serenity. So with my art, you can join me on the walk around my lake through different seasons and many years.

As with many of my ideas for art pieces, this flicker of inspiration came to me at 2 AM when I was laying in bed struggling to fall asleep. There are several ways I use embroidery floss that really make the medium shine, and one of those is in creating a gradient. As I was laying there, I thought about the striking glass roof of the conservatory in St. Paul, Minnesota. I decided it would be interesting to juxtapose the soft blending of the sky through the glass with the rigid structure of the building. This idea percolated in my brain for a while, and then one day in celebration of my birthday my husband took me around town to various places that we had been talking about visiting. He had picked up on the conservatory being one of my projects that I wanted to do, and he made sure that we visited so I could gather my inspiration photographs. Then we went to a restaurant that served cocktails in pineapples, so he did a fantastic job of picking winning activities that day!

Even after getting my inspiration photos lined up, it still took a while before I started this project. Occasionally, on those long nights that I couldn’t sleep, I would scroll through the photos on my phone and figure out what viewpoint I wanted to take. For the months leading up to starting this, I was actually going to take a completely different angle. I was going to include a bench on the side of the aisles more prominently and not feature the wrought iron railing at all. At the time, it felt like an eyesore and a distraction from the soft beauty in the rest of the conservatory. But at the last minute (literally, the day I was starting it), I changed my mind. And I’m so glad I did. In retrospect, this piece is so much better due to the stark contrast between the natural elements and the architectural features. The shades of black provide weight and tie in the delicate sculpture and light fixture details. Making the change from what I had been dreaming about creating to a completely different view, when I knew that the project would take months of my life, was scary. But I had to go with my gut that I was off-track.

This was an intimidating project, but so far conquering something overwhelming that I don’t know how I will actually accomplish it has paid off. I finished this piece with just enough time to get it scanned and cards made before starting my summer art shows. I have been blown away by the positive responses this piece received since I finished it. The conservatory is a special place to a lot of people – I heard stories of weddings, engagements, and special memories with family and friends. While I am so proud of the technical details that I accomplished, it would mean very little if it didn’t resonate with people as well.

The experience of creating this piece will stick with me for a while. It was emotional, dramatic, and deeply satisfying. I am incredibly proud of the result and what I was able to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time, but it came at a cost.

I often have conversations with people about the intense time investment that is required for me to complete a piece, but it is hard to convey what that actually looks like in real life. To say that something takes months is an abstracted concept. What does this actually look like when you have a house that needs to be cleaned occasionally, meals need to be made somehow, pets need to be cared for because they are living creatures that depend on you, there are responsibilities to the people around you…what gets cast aside when there is an impending deadline and it is the 11th hour? For me, the final stages of a project like this is over weeks, not days or hours. That is a lot of time where responsibilities are put on the back burner in order to accomplish the art goal that I have prioritized.

In February 2023 when I decided I was crazy enough to take on this ambitious 16″ x 20″ bookstore with individual books recreated using embroidery floss, I understood that the process would be a marathon. I have been doing this art form for long enough to know that the pace would pick up as I worked towards the background, but I needed to make it through the detailed foreground and middle ground in a timely manner if I wanted to finish it for my first big art show of the summer (the weekend of Mother’s Day). I almost abandoned this multiple times thinking that there was no way it was possible. And then with about a month to go, I decided that I would fully commit and get it done. Every second that I was home and awake I was gluing. I would take a break for dinner that my husband would plan and make and clean up from. I fully relied on him to take care of all of the home tasks that had to get done, and anything that could be ignored for a while would get blocked out of my mind. I had constant headaches and backaches from spending hours anxiously hunched over my art studio desk. I ran out of podcasts to listen to and didn’t have the time or mental energy to find something else to keep my mind entertained. It is a cycle that I am used to by now (and I do enjoy the last drive to the end when it comes down to it), but this was the most I have pushed it to date.

These big projects usually start as a flash of an idea as I am laying awake at 2 AM. But sometimes an idea is sparked as I am going about my normal life and I filter what I see through an embroidery floss lens. That is how this project started. I was at a random bookstore, and all of a sudden I started to recognize the books and shelves as lines of thread. I immediately knew that if I was going to take on an ambitious project like this, it would have to be the iconic Powell’s City of Books in Portland, OR. So months later when I was home in Oregon for Christmas, I made a trip into the city specifically to document the bookstore and take pictures back with me to Minnesota. I had been frustrated because as I was wandering through the maze of rooms and aisles, I had seen an end-cap stating “Learning Boldness” that I thought was interesting, but I couldn’t find it again to revisit for more angles. I was so twisted around and eventually gave up and figured I would make something else work. When going through my pictures once I got back to Minnesota, I realized that I had actually gotten the perfect angle of exactly what I wanted without realizing it. Throughout the process of creating a piece I edit and make many changes from the source image, but I much prefer to root the piece in reality. And it paid off; I have been so surprised at the amount of people in Minnesota who instantly recognize that this is a specific bookstore on the other side of the country. But this piece is about more than the place it was inspired by – it captures the warm coziness of being surrounded by books. The worn spots on the floor where people tend to stand to look at the shelves, the industrial wooden rafters, the chaotic mishmash of colors, the signs to help you find what you were looking for or to discover something unexpected…this piece is for people who love places like this.

I can absolutely say it was all worth it.

As the year comes to a close, I am looking back and reflecting on all of the artwork that has been taken home by customers throughout the past 11 months. Many of these embroidery floss pieces were made this year, and some were taken home so soon after I finished them that I never got to post the final framed pieces on my website. I remember each event where these were chosen, and the stories I was told for why people chose to purchase the pieces that they did. In the daily grind and the constant churn from one event to the next, it can be easy to lose sight of what I have accomplished and the amount of work that I have put in to these originals. I’ve been panicking for a while about how I am going to make enough new artwork to be ready for events next summer and to have full displays for each show, but seeing this collection helps give me confidence that I will pull it off. It is comforting to see these in one place since I never had them all at the same time, and is inspiring me for what I will make next!

At this point in my career as an artist, I have gotten pretty comfortable with participating in art experiences. My 10×10 white tent has been set up in parks all over the Twin Cities for many different art fairs, I have submitted individual pieces to juried art shows all over the place, and Northrup King in NE Minneapolis has hosted many events that I have been a part of. I’m always on the lookout for calls to entry and notification of upcoming art events to submit to. A certain amount of getting your art out there in physical venues is a numbers game, so I have to apply for more than I feel ready for. I know I won’t get accepted to everything – over time the sting of rejection gets dimmer because of the understanding that a certain amount of being turned down is inevitable.

But what I have largely avoided was hosting my own event that depended on the attendance of people I knew. It is a tremendously vulnerable thing to do – not only is it scary to make art and put it out there for anyone to have an opinion on, but asking friends and family to take time out of their busy lives to support my art endeavors is a whole new level of exposure. If an art fair has poor attendance, I don’t take it personally and just count it as bad luck. But the fear of having no one come to this event, after all of the effort put in by me and my parents to prepare for it and invite people, was almost paralyzing.

Having an art evening at my parents’ house was something that we had discussed for a while. I am lucky to have a network of people in Oregon that have seen me grow up creating things and been watching from afar as I have continued to make things in Minnesota. We wanted to give our family and friends an opportunity to see some of my large originals in person, and it had been a long time since we had an excuse to throw a party. I was going to be on the West Coast for both weekends of the Camano Island Studio Tour in Washington, so we figured that having some sort of gathering in Portland during the week in between would be doable.

My parents had done a significant renovation on their home a couple of years ago. The house I grew up in is beautiful – it has all the benefits of a shiny new home while also having decades of memories. They have prints of my artwork, as well as various projects and pieces I have made throughout the years, hung in their home on a regular basis. For this event, we found places for the work I brought with me from Minnesota and also set up an area for my prints, cards, and magnets. We made placards for each piece, and it felt like a museum! My dad’s main concern was the food (this is not a surprise to anyone who knows him). We tried so hard to keep it to a simple menu with wine and a few cheeses. I think we kept the menu relatively under control considering how many shopping trips we made, but it ended up being a sprawling assortment of cheeses, crackers, dips, vegetables, desserts, and beverages. There were multiple Costco trips to get wine. My parents are not drinkers, so I think I will be enjoying the leftover wine every trip home for the foreseeable future. Our first guest came 15 minutes before we officially started, so unfortunately I have no record of this buffet!

From the first visitor until the families of my parents’ longtime friends left well after our official end time, it was a flurry of activity. There were no lulls. Every time someone walked in it was a delight. People I hadn’t seen in years came! Neighbors who have lived on the same street as my parents since the house was built, people who knew me as a child from church and watched me grow up, my friends who have been with me through thick and thin since high school, and my parents’ friends who have appreciated my art that my parents are always happy to talk about…it was one of those events like a wedding where all these people from different parts of your life come together to celebrate and reminisce. I was so honored to be able to connect with these people and share with them the art that I have created.

My only regret is that we didn’t prioritize taking pictures of everyone throughout the evening! It went by so fast and was a blur, but the memories of this precious day will stick with me and my parents for a long time. Thank you to everyone who was able to come and enjoy the good company, delicious food and beverage, and support me in this journey!

About 5 years ago, I wanted to make another hole punch piece after finishing the underwater scene of “Discover”. While working with embroidery floss is my favorite medium, sometimes there is an image that I want to create that would be best made with another material in order to really sing. What I like about paper hole punches is that they are also assembled pieced by piece to create the image, but with the layers each circle of paper creates a tiny sliver of a shadow. These pieces are framed under glass like a painting or drawing, but are still three dimensional.

I wanted to create an art piece inspired by a location near Minnehaha Falls in Minnesota where my now-husband and I had our engagement pictures taken in 2014. I often get questions about how I decide what I want to create images of, and I explain that I always have to show some place that I have a connection to or have a reason to spend months (or years!) of my life reflecting. This piece was no exception.

With this piece, I used three sizes of hole punches instead of just two, and I included patterned papers in addition to the solid cardstock ones I had used on “Discover”. I also tripled the size of the piece in comparison to the one I had done before. Because the hole punches are more abstracted than I normally work, a piece has to be of a certain size to give the viewer enough space to see the image come together. However, since I have to lean directly over whatever section I am working on, I am limited by working any bigger than 16″ x 20″. So my solution to these practical issues was to do a triptych. A very large one.

It didn’t take long to figure out that the standard hole punchers you buy in the store are not meant to punch this many holes. They quickly got dull, and started to shred the paper holes rather than cleanly punch them. The smart thing would have been to just buy several punchers of each size. I refused to do that though, so in addition to the time of punching out the holes and gluing each one into place, I also painstakingly arranged each paper circle to be sure that the shredded edge was covered by other layers of paper. Not to mention the fact that I live with two cats who found too much joy in knocking my little canisters of paper dots onto the carpet, and it was easier to get on the floor and pick them up one by one than punch new ones.

When I started this art piece, I knew it would take a while. At the time, I didn’t even know where I would hang it because I had a small apartment and was not part of a gallery. I wasn’t even selling or seriously displaying my art when I first decided to make this. However, as time when on and I had more and more opportunities to get my work out in public, I realized that I did not have the time to finish this and put it away in order to work on other projects. Periodically over the years I did pull it out from storage and made progress, but I could never devote enough time to it to wrap it up. In early 2022, I became determined to finish the triptych and after some marathon gluing days and very late nights, I attached the last dot, made some frames, and hung it on my wall at Northrup King.

Finishing any large piece is a big accomplishment for me, but completing one that has been in process and on my to-do list for years is especially satisfying. My estimate is that 30,000 dots were used in this final piece. That sounds like an overwhelming number, and is one that I’m glad I didn’t know when I started this piece!

After years (literally, years) of anticipating this moment, I am now officially a full-time artist. I have been juggling my incredibly stressful corporate job with making art for almost a decade, and for half of that I have also been selling art. It has been my dream for a very long time to be able to put behind me the days of people crying to me on the phone and moving heaven and earth to meet deadlines that had a lot on the line. I was good at it and doing the work was necessary at the time for my family, but my recent health issues made me re-evaluate how I was spending my time and gave me the nerve to pull the trigger on fulfilling this long-awaited goal.

I had been in a constant state of trying to keep my head above water for so long with having essentially two full-time jobs, but thankfully my days look a lot different now. While I haven’t worked at my corporate job since mid-July and I officially quit a few weeks ago, the new pace is still something I am getting used to. I’m trying to prioritize my health and focus on decreasing stress. I’m pretty sure I have been sleep deprived for my entire life so I am sleeping more than I ever have before – while that is eating into my gluing time, it is for the best. And all of the house-things like cooking dinner and going grocery shopping take much more time than I anticipated. But overall, my life is more balanced and calm, and I am looking forward to seeing how this allows me some more breathing room to create, experiment and think through new projects. There are some ideas that have been put on the back burner for too long that I may finally be able to do something about.

Long story short, this is a very exciting development for me. And it is also quite scary from a financial perspective to give up the steady paychecks and 401(k) match. So, if you have been thinking about getting some magnets for Christmas presents or a framed canvas print for that one empty spot in your house, now may be the time! I am so appreciative of everyone’s support throughout this art journey and as I take this huge leap of faith.

I just completed a process video of my latest 4″ x 6″ that was inspired by the wide open sky and waving grasslands of Wisconsin – I’ll always be a mountain/forest girl, but the Midwest certainly has its perks.

This last month has been chaos. Fantastic chaos. Amazing chaos. But it is going to take a little bit to recover from these two incredible shows.

In mid-June I managed to pack a lot of my art into some suitcases and flew out to Portland, OR. I then drove up to Camano Island, WA with my parents to get ready for the three-day Camano Island Studio Tour. My dad’s cousin and his family run Sunnyshore Studios there and hosted a tent for me at the location along with other artists in the family and from the area around the studio. This event took place during the record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. Thankfully being on the coast made it a little cooler (mid-80s to mid-90s), however it was still quite warm to spend a weekend outside in a tent. In years past I’ve had my work spread throughout the studio inside, but the tent allowed me to show all of my art and cards/prints/magnets in one place and demonstrate for people what I do at the same time. A lot of art went to loving homes during the show including “Adorned”, the piece that I created for the 2019 Minnesota State Fair. The woman who purchased it said it reminded her of art that her father had brought home when she was a child that had been lost to time. This show is typically two weekends including Mother’s Day weekend and has more studios participating, so we didn’t know what to expect this year. The turnout blew us away. People showed up in a big way. It was a lovely and invigorating weekend.

Then this past weekend was the Minnehaha Falls Art Fair in MN. Rather than having to fly across the country, this show was practically in my backyard (which is MUCH easier and I didn’t have to worry about TSA confiscating a suitcase full of magnets or losing my suitcase with originals in it). My dad also flew out to help with this show. Not only was it a long weekend with a total of 21 show hours over three days, but setting up and tearing down a tent for an art fair is a tremendous amount of work and coordination. Its not something I can do by myself, and with my husband’s work schedule it was going to be tough for him to help me with a Friday set up. I really appreciated his help and also made me even more thankful of how much my husband typically does to help for these events.

Just like the show at Camano, this last weekend at Minnehaha was full of people out and about and engaging with artists about our work. The first time this event took place was in 2019 and was only one day, which was traumatically rained out – I wrote a blog post about this 7/22/19. It was rescheduled for October 2019 and also was a cold and rainy day that maybe 1/3 of artists stuck around for. 2020 was obviously cancelled. My husband and I have been referring to this as the cursed art fair that we knew would be amazing if these greater forces would ever allow it to take place. This weekend reversed the curse in a big way. There were so many visitors and many positive conversations and discussions about my work. It was another hot weekend to be sitting in a tent, but so worth it and much better than trudging through mud like in the past! Another large original piece, “Vessel”, also found a new loving home. Its hard to part with these pieces that I have spent months pouring over, but I’m so glad that they will be cherished.

I am grateful to everyone who took the time to look at my work at these events and to share your feedback and thoughts with me. I know that there were a lot of amazing artists and beautiful things to look at, so I am honored by the time that you took out of your day to stop through, had a conversation, and followed up by checking out my website or social media. Experiences like this help me to know I am on the right path and help inspire me to keep creating more!