Thursdays are regularly the best morning of the week at the Ely Folk School. Our Makers Morning takes place on Thursdays! Since 2022, this year-round program has brought together artists of many different backgrounds and mediums into the same space to converse about creativity over coffee. Some people are a mainstay, coming to EFS nearly every week and some join us when they're in town here and there over the course of the year, or when they happen to have a morning off work.
Recently, one of those regulars, Nancy O'Brien, initiated a routine of art critique during Makers Mornings. We hung two bulletin boards by the coffee station and people bring recent works or works in progress to explain and ask for perspective and feedback.
Here's an interview with Nancy about the value of community and critique to her own art practice.
Why do you attend Makers Morning at EFS?
EFS overall is a huge, positive place to enjoy the Ely community. Makers Morning
invites the entire community to learn, participate and engage with other community
members on Thursday mornings. Participants are free to attend and share any creative
works and all ages are welcome.
Tell us about your idea for having more formal art critique opportunities.
Self-critique over time becomes a key to producing your most authentic art. However, in
earlier stages of arts production, the group critique is invaluable to help the artist gain
more clarity through the observations of more advanced artists and even from
newcomers to the group.
All participants gain from the critique sessions by:
Listening
Focus on the primary criteria as stated by the artist (has the artist fulfilled the stated
challenge?)
Be positive and offer comparisons to some of the other pieces to help the artist clearly
identify if there is an adequate range of differences in marks, scale of forms, range of
values, etc.
Remain open to the critique comments from others because you can revisit your notes
later and may gain new invaluable learning. Critique is useful with any type of medium and always keep in mind that others may view your art through their own subjective lens.
Have you had inspiration for your art practice hit because of something another artist shared with you
Yes, this cross-pollination is common and invaluable for artistic, spiritual growth.
Anything else you'd like to share?
Yes! Making art is the oldest recognizable human impulse. To make art is to create
something more beautiful than it needs to be beyond its pure function.
Meet the artist, thinker, and critique initiator!
Introduction
Nancy Lynott O’Brien was born in Virginia, Minnesota and spent formative years in Duluth, Minnesota. From an early age, creating art was a constant activity of interest. As a double major at University of Minnesota-Duluth in design and mathematics, a career in architecture was a natural pursuit.
Over the years as time allowed, arts workshops added other forms of artistic expression including raku and other clay arts as well as hot and cold encaustic oil painting methods. Recent workshops include practice with Cecilia Rolando, Nicholas Wilton and Louise Fletcher.
Now retired from ongoing architectural practice, time is devoted daily to a range of creative work including collage and painting, with an openness to other creative pursuits.
Making / Inspiration
Making art of any kind offers the same peacefulness experienced through gentle yoga and walking meditation. Painting and drawing are expressions of a peaceful spirit: a meditation on broad themes of awareness of natural surroundings. Predominantly, these reflections occur while in a forest, nurturing a garden, out on the water or observing the sky.
Medium
The works are primarily collage/mixed media and on a range of papers, wood panel and canvas. Some work is also produced via phone and computer apps such as Photoshop, ArtRage and Sketches.
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