Lois Donaghey is a contemporary oil painter who lives and works in Santa Rosa, CA. In 2017 Lois retired from her job as a School Psychologist and began working full-time as an oil painter. Lois’ art background includes ongoing long-term art instruction at San Francisco Art Institute Public Education. During the early 80’s she was a member of the Santa Rosa Art Guild and the Marin Society of Artists, where she received several awards for her vibrant watercolors. At the age of almost 73 Lois is very prolific painter and has produced over 150 paintings in the last two years. She currently exhibits at Healdsburg Center for the Arts, and at Fulton Gallery in Santa Rosa. She is also a Sonoma County Art Trails juried artist, and she has exhibited her work in several small group shows and juried exhibitions throughout California.
Published on May 12th 2020. Artist responses collected in months previous.
What projects are you working on right now?
I have several projects that I am currently working on. The one closest to my heart involves paintings that come to me via my meditations. These are paintings that belong to me but have not yet been seen by anybody. Sometimes these paintings are complete and sometimes not, so the unfinished are completed while I’m still in the meditation. I have put a couple of these ‘jewels of consciousness’ on canvas for all to see. After my latest such experience in a meditation I decided to look more carefully at these ‘jewels’ and bring them forward, painting them all. I am also working my ‘imaginative landscapes’, and I continue to make larger versions of flower paintings, which I began a couple of years ago. Although I do not find the flower paintings during my meditations, I am definitely in the ‘zone’ and in touch with some other wonderful worldly place. These and my ‘consciousness’ paintings make my heart laugh, sing, and dance. I swear, when I am painting a flower or putting the paintings I ‘found’ while in deep meditation down on canvas, I do feel otherworldly in spirit, and very much in love with art making.
How do you keep yourself accountable in your practice?
My answer to this question is daily meditation, keeping an artwork schedule, and reaching out for art critiques. These things help me stay focused. The meditations help me stay centered and in touch with who I am and want to be as a human who is an artist, and it helps me evaluate what I am and want to be. My meditations seal the deal: marrying me to my art and keeping me in the marriage. I also use social media for informal critiques from artists I admire to keep me accountable. My experience with this indicates the artists in my community that I admire do not post a ‘thumbs up’, ‘heart’, or comment online to any art piece that is not genuinely worthy. So when I don’t see some sort of post from several good artists, I take another look at my painting and seek out critique in a formal art space. Scheduling is also of great importance to my continued artistic growth. I dedicate 4 hours daily to having my brush to my canvas. This does not include time for framing, prepping canvases, mailing, cleaning, or taking care of my website or posting on social media.
How do you stay motivated to pursue your creative work?
To stay motivated I try to bypass the M(otivation) word. I have periods that I work to exhaustion for days sometimes weeks. These times can be depleting physically and emotionally. Once depleted, I find my motivation gone. I look all over for my motivation, but really I am not interested in finding it again. So I avoid looking for the “you need to go back to work” part of my lost motivation. My remedy is to go into my studio and just be there. Cleaning things up, look at my paintings, check my brushes, put things away, sweep the floor, and in general prepare for the time that I do find my motivation. If all of these activities don’t pole vault me into painting making again, I go to my studio with my music on, and varnish, or frame, or prep canvases, or look at an art video on my iPad. And if that doesn’t work, I go to a gallery or museum. In short, I immerse myself in MY studio of art without the creating piece. This is how I facilitate the art attitude and motivation to seep back in.
Where do you hope to be 10 years from now and what would you like to say to yourself?
10 years from now I hope to be more me in the art world, or in my world of art. Sometimes I feel the pull of the will of others. This is an old attitude I both harbor and recoil from. I grew up in the 50’s and early 60’s and I still struggle against the pull of that era’s cultural/social mores. There’s a pull into that whirlpool that finds me resisting the bending to the will of well intended others, both male and female, but mostly male from a time gone by. 10 years from now I hope to be so much ‘me’ the artist that I am out of range of that era’s whirlpool. I hope to have soaked up and spit out so much art that both my artistic skills and intuition have skyrocketed. I hope to be able to share/give of the art in me, and I hope that this all shines thru in my paintings. The words I have for myself in 10 years comes from a question: Why did you keep knocking on the door of ‘maybe’ for so long? You are solid and it’s yours.
What projects are you working on right now?
I have several projects that I am currently working on. The one closest to my heart involves paintings that come to me via my meditations. These are paintings that belong to me but have not yet been seen by anybody. Sometimes these paintings are complete and sometimes not, so the unfinished are completed while I’m still in the meditation. I have put a couple of these ‘jewels of consciousness’ on canvas for all to see. After my latest such experience in a meditation I decided to look more carefully at these ‘jewels’ and bring them forward, painting them all. I am also working my ‘imaginative landscapes’, and I continue to make larger versions of flower paintings, which I began a couple of years ago. Although I do not find the flower paintings during my meditations, I am definitely in the ‘zone’ and in touch with some other wonderful worldly place. These and my ‘consciousness’ paintings make my heart laugh, sing, and dance. I swear, when I am painting a flower or putting the paintings I ‘found’ while in deep meditation down on canvas, I do feel otherworldly in spirit, and very much in love with art making.
How do you keep yourself accountable in your practice?
My answer to this question is daily meditation, keeping an artwork schedule, and reaching out for art critiques. These things help me stay focused. The meditations help me stay centered and in touch with who I am and want to be as a human who is an artist, and it helps me evaluate what I am and want to be. My meditations seal the deal: marrying me to my art and keeping me in the marriage. I also use social media for informal critiques from artists I admire to keep me accountable. My experience with this indicates the artists in my community that I admire do not post a ‘thumbs up’, ‘heart’, or comment online to any art piece that is not genuinely worthy. So when I don’t see some sort of post from several good artists, I take another look at my painting and seek out critique in a formal art space. Scheduling is also of great importance to my continued artistic growth. I dedicate 4 hours daily to having my brush to my canvas. This does not include time for framing, prepping canvases, mailing, cleaning, or taking care of my website or posting on social media.
How do you stay motivated to pursue your creative work?
To stay motivated I try to bypass the M(otivation) word. I have periods that I work to exhaustion for days sometimes weeks. These times can be depleting physically and emotionally. Once depleted, I find my motivation gone. I look all over for my motivation, but really I am not interested in finding it again. So I avoid looking for the “you need to go back to work” part of my lost motivation. My remedy is to go into my studio and just be there. Cleaning things up, look at my paintings, check my brushes, put things away, sweep the floor, and in general prepare for the time that I do find my motivation. If all of these activities don’t pole vault me into painting making again, I go to my studio with my music on, and varnish, or frame, or prep canvases, or look at an art video on my iPad. And if that doesn’t work, I go to a gallery or museum. In short, I immerse myself in MY studio of art without the creating piece. This is how I facilitate the art attitude and motivation to seep back in.
Where do you hope to be 10 years from now and what would you like to say to yourself?
10 years from now I hope to be more me in the art world, or in my world of art. Sometimes I feel the pull of the will of others. This is an old attitude I both harbor and recoil from. I grew up in the 50’s and early 60’s and I still struggle against the pull of that era’s cultural/social mores. There’s a pull into that whirlpool that finds me resisting the bending to the will of well intended others, both male and female, but mostly male from a time gone by. 10 years from now I hope to be so much ‘me’ the artist that I am out of range of that era’s whirlpool. I hope to have soaked up and spit out so much art that both my artistic skills and intuition have skyrocketed. I hope to be able to share/give of the art in me, and I hope that this all shines thru in my paintings. The words I have for myself in 10 years comes from a question: Why did you keep knocking on the door of ‘maybe’ for so long? You are solid and it’s yours.
Find Lois Donaghey on Instagram