cassandrapages' photostream

I've been an active blogger (http://www.cassandrapages.com) for more than six years and think of myself mostly as a writer, but art has been a big part of my life since I was a child. Professionally, I'm a graphic designer and publisher, but at one time was making my living as an illustrator and calligrapher. Lately, after a long time away, I've been getting back into drawing and painting, and finding a lot of joy in the exploration and fresh outlook.

Back in the 1980s, I was painting in watercolors and oils, and doing some large-scale realistic airbrush paintings too. I had a show of this type of work in the early 1980s and it did very well, but the emphasis on technique and lack of emotional content became pretty unsatisfying to me. After some sessions with a teacher who was very hard on me I began exploring a much looser style but the problem, as he had known, wasn't in the artwork but inside me. Eventually I gave up painting entirely, and didn't touch my brushes for five or six years. Instead, I started meditating and studying Zen Buddhism, and looking deeper into myself and into life. Hard work and a lot of shedding, letting go; it was, for lack of a better term, a period of internal crisis. At the end of that time I started painting again and did some much more expressive watercolors.

Now, after a long period of change and transition from the U.S. to a new life in Montreal that includes a spacious studio and a whole new visual landscape, I'm starting up again, inspired by artist-friends online and especially the work of other Urban Sketchers. I understand now that realism is part of who I am, and that emotion can be conveyed in all forms of art. Who knows where the path will lead me?

Other places you can find me online:
MY BLOG: www.cassandrapages.com
MY SMALL PRESS: www.phoeniciapublishing.com
LITERARY ZINE I CO-EDIT: qarrtsiluni.com