Workshops & Writing services

WRITING FOR ARTISTS: a four-day intensive

Location: Arvada, CO
Dates: 10am - 4pm, four consecutive days TBA, 2020
Cost: $400

Does the idea of placing 26 symbols in a row in an attempt to represent the same ideas as your paintings make you slightly nauseous? Do you put off updating your artist statement for months (okay, years) at a time? Or…perhaps you’re pretty comfortable with writing, but just need a reboot and the momentum of a community focused on the same project, with structure, guidelines, and inspiration specifically geared towards writing for art and artists.

If this sounds familiar, please join us for a new four day workshop, coming summer 2020 to a studio near you! Join a group of fellow artists to spend a day brushing up your writing skills and acquiring a few tricks of the trade designed specifically for visually-minded people. We’ll then spend some time brainstorming and interviewing each other to help those tough, abstract ideas flow, taking notes, extrapolating, and clarifying your ideas. I’ll then lead you through a day and a half of writing “sprints” interspersed with tea breaks and doggy play sessions that take the pain out of staring at the blank page (screen…), and we’ll spend our final day working though drafts—writing is re-writing after all—and polishing your final product. You’ll go home with a completed artist statement (both a long version and an abbreviated one for publication), as well as some high-power journaling and essay-style prose about your work to use for articles, websites, interviews, or whatever life throws at you.

Or…literally…WRITING FOR ARTISTS

If you’re not sure you are personally ready to take this leap but still need an artist statement, fear not! I will happily write it for you! I began offering this service in 2019 and so far the results have been excellent, with artists truly delighted by their new statements after an extensive private interviewing, drafting, and revision process with me. Please contact me for details if you’re interested in this service.

Testimonials and Examples

I couldn't be happier with my professionally written statement from Robin. Her thoughtful questions and clear minded edits created a crisp and personal insight into my work and my process that I am thrilled to be able to share with collectors, galleries, and publications. She writes in a straightforward way that I feel reflects my own voice and and presents an accurate and sensitive story. I highly recommend her services!

— Elaine St. Louis

Elaine’s Statement (short version)

At a fundamental level, my paintings of bird nests address relationships. They are about our relationship with the natural world, but they also speak to the subtle relational currents between people or families, often evoking deep and unexpectedly unearthed emotions.

I am passionate about the way the unexpected scale of these paintings—monumental images of something so small and plain—changes the viewer’s relationship to the subject. It’s partially about revealing unseen details, but at this scale it is difficult not to be mesmerized by the movement. The creation of this effect and the slow development of luminosity through layering glazes are both a project of working my way concentrically around the piece in much the same way as the original avian architect.

There is a kinship and a beauty in this emotional connection to the process of building and application. In a sense, I experience this as a working prayer, and sometimes a meditation. I often make these nests for someone specific, and through prayer and creation, they end up woven into the piece. I enjoy both the outward reach—the way viewers see their individual journey, emotional growth, or transformation reflected back—and the inward, in the sense that this process is also for my understanding, my relationships, and my spirit.

Robin came highly recommended by a professional artist friend and mentor. From our very first emails, I had the feeling she knew exactly what I was looking for. During our conference call Robin was very thorough and professional and her questions were very specific to me an my work. I felt very comfortable and open speaking with her. I couldn’t be more happy with her work, and I would definitely hire her again!

— Christina Dunzinger

Christina’s Statement (short version)

I paint animals because wild creatures present themselves simply as they are. Theirs is a raw beauty without artifice, the primordial connection with life clearly visible. In this connection, I encounter my own humanity at a deeper level. My portraits portray animals in a respectful way, aware of their otherness, avoiding any trace of nostalgia or sentimentality. The background is devoid of details: nothing distracts the viewer from the animal and its presence. I emphasize the eyes, their gaze directed at the viewer as if to say, Look at me. I am as alive as you are. I have needs just as you do. I feel that someone needs to represent them—to create a bridge, to be their voice in a society that continually disconnects us from nature and its inhabitants.

Though I am always in search of realism, I find the wild to be very mysterious, and I choose to echo this by leaving certain passages untold, unclear, less rendered. Drama and chiaroscuro are important to me in creating this sense of mystery. I believe painting to be one of the most beautiful of human expressions, and I feel I have an enormous responsibility to say with my brush what cannot be said with words. In the studio, I can be myself, express myself and the larger, divine force that I feel moves through my hands on a deep level. From the beginning, my paintings have been—and still are—an invitation to look outside one’s own window and into the wild.