Abstract Painting

Letting Go
48 in by 48 in by 1.5 in
Acrylic and Watercolor Pencil on Canvas

Please note these Art Shows Coming UP!

My art show at SYNC Gallery will be in February!
SYNC Gallery (in Denver’s Santa Fe Art District) will be exhibiting my work from February 14th until March 9th. I would love it if you’d MARK YOUR CALENDAR for my show’s Opening Reception Friday February 15th from 6-9 pm, or First Friday Art Walk on Denver’s Santa Fe Art District, March 1, 6-9 pm. I really believe that my new work is my best yet!

Pop-Up Show in Lakewood, CO in October
I recently found out there’s going to be a pop-up art show very near my home and I am hoping to be part of it.
Mark your calendars to see some great art – OCT. 13th, 1-8 pm at The Graham House, 2345 Routt Street, Lakewood CO.
Find out more and view artists work at https://theartproject.co .
I am so disappointed because I am going to be in Santa Fe, NM (art retreat and gallery hunting) during this but I have some good friends and neighbors going (who may be reading this) so I’m hoping to get some good photos (hint hint)!

So… Maybe you can relate to having some times when it seems like a bunch of bummers happen in a row. Well, I had one of those months last month. First a good thing happened: I found a beautiful home for two of my favorite paintings. They were two 36 by 48 inch paintings and this home was on the East Coast and so the paintings had to be shipped from Colorado. I’m not going to give you the gory details, but the bottom line was that the shipping went horribly wrong and the paintings came back to Colorado, after I had paid them large sums of money (mostly to insure them). Now, I was prone to temper tantrums when I was young, in typical youngest-child fashion, and I proceeded to have an adult temper-tantrum on this big company that lasted a couple of hours – via person, phone etc. I am sure most of you have been there.

If there’s one thing I hate it’s letting someone down, so I felt terrible that my client hadn’t gotten the paintings. I had to find another company to ship them.

Then the next week, I had another issue with a painting, which I felt terrible about. Of course, I got to work remedying the issue for my wonderful collectors, but I was also frustrated and wondered why things were going wrong when I felt like I was doing my best and moving in the right direction.

What I realized I needed was a re-frame – and thankfully a couple of wise friends helped me with it. One reassured me that in doing business, there will be mistakes … and that there are some things that you just can’t be taught; you just have to learn through experience.  In the last few years, I have been working on re-framing “failure” or “losing” as learning so I guess I got some more practice last month.

I so wish I had figured out how to do this when I was young! It would have saved me a lot of bruises from beating myself up. If you are like me and sometimes ask yourself, “why did this happen?” or “why was I such an idiot?” you could try to change it up and ask yourself “what do I need to learn from this?” and then see the failure as another step along the path towards getting better. How cool would it be to be thankful for the hard things in life?

Because, really, what fun would anything be if it was easy?

As for shipping those paintings, I found shippers, Craters and Freighters, and they were amazing- So now, I have my “go to” shippers in the future! Learning? CHECK!

“You can’t skip the Chapters.
That’s not how life works.
You have to read every line, meet every character.
You won’t enjoy all of it…”
-Courtney Peppernill
Best,
Liz

Liz Lautrup Fine Art
www.lizlautrup.com
lizlautrup4art@gmail.com