ARTIST TALK: Practicing Mindfulness with Phyllis Friedman and Tom Dailey
Please join us for our next monthly meeting with the St. Louis Visual Artists Network about “Practicing Mindfulness as an Artist” on March 17th from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Green Door Art Gallery (located at 21 N. Gore Ave in Webster Groves, 63119). This month’s meeting will be a group discussion led by two of our members, Phyllis Friedman and Tom Dailey. Hope you can join us. :)
Creating art requires vulnerability, courage, and a willingness to sit with uncertainty… yet so often our own thoughts become the loudest obstacle in the studio. This presentation is designed to provide tools for addressing the thoughts and beliefs that interfere with our work and our happiness. Participants will learn to:
1. Identify the dysfunctional narratives we tell ourselves about our work.
2. Distance ourselves from the power of these narratives.
3. Move toward work or projects we care about despite what our mind seems to be telling us.
A bit about our featured speakers:
Phyllis Friedman is a retired clinical psychologist who served on the faculty at Saint Louis University for 24 years. She is currently an artist working with exotic wood, paper, minerals, and metal to create abstract assemblages.
Her work focuses on abstract compositions that explore form, shape, and color to achieve a sense of inner coherence, balance, harmony, and visual engagement. In her pieces, she draws attention to objects that are typically overlooked, discarded, or cast aside—such as scraps from a woodworker’s pile, rusted pipe fittings, washers from a salvage yard, and worn saw blades. Through the integration of color and texture, these materials are transformed from the mundane into a new organic whole.
Tom Dailey’s development as an artist has taken many turns throughout his life, ranging from periods of minimal output to prolific creation, yet his connection with color, line, and texture has remained constant. At age 40, he embarked on a serious quest to discover his artistic voice, studying extensively and drawing guidance from numerous mentors.
He has now reached a place where he fully embraces his own voice in celebration of art. Working primarily in acrylic and mixed media, his most recent work explores the genre of color fields and abstraction, drawing influence from artists such as Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Georgia O’Keeffe, and others. Tom brings a personal interpretation to the details of color, line, and texture, weaving these elements together with an underlying rhythm that hints at a deeper understanding of the spirit.
Also check out other Arts events in Webster Groves, Meetups in Webster Groves, Fine Arts events in Webster Groves.
