On March 1st 2025, our Gallery Director Anna Curnes will be leading by example in her tandem role as a Resident Artist with her new solo art show “It Started in Paris.” As well as chronicling the physical journey of her artist residency in France, it depicts an artist’s journey of re-engaging their voice and a personal journey of self-acceptance.
Ahead of the opening, we are sharing some of Anna’s ideas, stories and musings as she put together the show. It reveals the heart, hope and renewed sense of purpose she shares with us in the artwork, inspiring our own journeys of self-discovery and creative growth.
Paris was the starting point and the final stop on Anna’s artist residency in France. It’s in this historic and vibrant city that she sees the contrast between how she was before and how she is now with a new perspective on life inspired by the great artists of the past.
Anna writes, “It’s not that I came to Paris lost, but rather hurried, tired, with an abundant agenda and a lack of time and space to experience. And the way I left Paris at the end of my trip to France was slower, measured, tied to observing and living in the moment…
“I learned that all artists’ journeys, though snowflake-like in life and execution, start the same: copy and tweaking, exploring, searching for and discovering your voice, seeking out other like-minded creative explorers and coming in with big plans and expectations only to have them stripped away bit by bit to expose the heart of the truth.”
The following is a selection of the lessons she learned and realizations she had between her first stop and final stop in Paris.
Let go of expectations
If everything in life went to plan, life would be quite boring, wouldn’t it? If we stick too rigidly to our expectations, we might miss the wonder and beauty around us. It may not fulfill our expectations but it does have its own value and is worthy of appreciation. Stepping outside of what we can imagine can lead to amazing things.
Anna experienced this in real-time during her artist residency when a location she planned to sketch didn’t result in the artwork she expected. She writes, “I expected lavender to bloom, purple sprouts to parade across the planted rows and reach up to the sky, dancing in the wind. All my research said this was the place, this would be the time, but it wasn’t. Fields of poppies with their healing blooms grew, a pink flower, and even a purplish consolation flower did but the majority of my expectations crashed around me as I realized I’d mistaken July for June, that there’d be no rows of sunflowers around lavender, and barely any lavender at that.
“So I pouted a bit, insisting on drawing the little that there was but was drawn to the olive grove instead. I hate olives – they taste like evil to me, but something about the proud angle of the trees, mocking me a bit, made me laugh, smile and admire the hell out of their calmness. This led to one of my favorite pieces.”
Nurture creativity
Anna was eager to be creative and find inspiration in all the landscapes, energy and history of the locations she visited. It brought to a head a struggle experienced by generations of artists before her. The desire to create, especially when under pressure, can inhibit creativity. Attempts to wrangle it and drag it to the surface are futile. On this journey, she discovered what she really needed was to step back, feed her creativity, and let it flourish in its own way.
It was a lesson in balancing the desire and sometimes obligation to create with the flowering conditions of creativity including time, space and rest. She writes, “We rested, ate great food, read a good book, and the creativity that I’d previously had to force to the surface came alive on its own. It came rushing to the surface and led me to experiment with my materials, approaching with new ways of using, with asking what happens if… and following the thread… Growth needs time, space and rest to flourish. If you nurture it, it will come.”
Embrace yourself
For Anna, this trip and processing it through her artwork brought up a universal struggle not just for artists, but for us all. The denial of self-acceptance. As if molding ourselves around other people’s wants, needs and whims will make us better or life easier. As if it’s worth giving up what makes us great and life good, our true selves, is the answer.
Reflecting on this realization, she writes, “I canceled myself accidentally, making it so I was never a bother. I didn’t outshine my friends or family and made myself disappear in the process, losing what made me – me.”
She triumphantly took back her identity during her trip, particularly after experiencing a visit to where Van Gogh spent his well-known asylum year. She writes, “For someone whose voice has continued to speak to viewers for centuries after his life, Vincent could not recognize it in himself. Can you? Do I?
“Sometimes you just need one voice, one cheerleader reminding you who you are, and while the fields of poppies weren’t that for Vincent, they are for me. They’re a reminder that no matter what’s come before, that I’m here for a purpose, a uniquely gifted purpose – so keep going forward.”
This inspiration from Van Gogh’s life and work threads through her artwork in a series of portraits pairing Van Gogh and herself depicting the struggle of self-acceptance but concluding with the resolute message “See yourself the way you are. Know and accept yourself.”
See the final form of these portraits and uncover the resolutions you will take away from a range of artwork spanning the mediums of watercolor, colored pencils, wax pastels, raised acrylic paintings, and her new “thrown glass” approach for fused glass art. “It Started in Paris” opens at the ALG on March 1st. Get your tickets for the Opening Night Reception and join us on a journey around France, its history, and back to ourselves.
