"I am here on this planet to make your painting"

I've had the wonderful adventure of sharing creative space with Laurie Maves for the past 2 years.  Laurie is one of the most stunning, creative, talented, loving and joyful and most inspiring people I've ever known.    We have collaborated on several art pieces, including the very first and limited edition fine art book from the One Million Faces project, Once Upon A Yoga Mat, 2011.  

GUEST BLOGGER : Laurie Maves  "I am here on this planet to make your painting"

This is one of the first images one would see on my website, and one my favorite One Million Faces portraits that Peggy Dyer has taken of me in our basement studio in the Santa Fe Arts
District of Denver, Colorado.

Denver artist Laurie Maves, Nov. 1, 2011

   

As a commissioned artist and live painter, I had found a challenging yet most awesome career for myself. After residing in the Denver metro area forthe past fifteen years, and after showing my paintings in over a hundredvenues, I found that the same clients that would purchase my studio paintings were often hesitant, for whatever reason, to request commissioned work. I gradually discovered that many people were attracted to my abstracted, "pop surrealist" style, but often times had a specific subject matter in mind. Once I opened up my gamut of work to anything and everything at the request of the client, I found my own areas of expertise were increasing. For a number of years, I had been strictly making paintings about poppies and my little stylized lollipop characters.  When I realized that more and more people really loved my style of work, but wanted their own subject matter, and I was open to painting that subject matter, my business increased tremendously.

   Over the past year, I have made a strange variety of paintings about so many different things, with varying degrees of seriousness and humor. I have made series of portraits for individuals, families and for corporate offices.  I have made a painting of a marriage proposal. I have made paintings about Buddhas and parrots, flamingos, owls, and giraffes.  I have made landscapes of Red Rocks, Pikes Peak, the Royal Gorge, as well as the landscape surrounding Arrowhead Golf Course. I have even made a painting about a glittery ham sandwich!  And on a more serious of notes, I have made a number of paintings to memorialize people that have passed or to honor people and their life's work.

   As a commissioned artist, I feel that I am answering to a calling of sorts.  When I deliver commissioned paintings to people upon completion, I often find that my clients are moved to tears. There is something mystical in the way that I am making work, specific work at the request of the client, that touches them deeply and moves them spiritually.  I cannot exactly explain why this is happening, but I do know in my soul that commission work is my duty as an artist at this point in my life.  So this is why, "I'm here on this planet to make your painting."  It is my life's purpose.