The art of learning: Four painters share insights at La Conner gallery

Four artists, including La Conner's Eve McCauley, painted vivid word pictures describing the career journeys each has taken during a 90-minute discussion at GalleryW on North First Street Thursday night.

McCauley was joined by Susan Cohen Thompson, Heather Martin and gallery co-owner Don Wesley for a briskly paced Q&A session that dealt with the artists' perspectives on creativity, motivation, commercial pressures and means of measuring professional success.

Wesley and Parisa Sadeghi opened the gallery in March 2022. It exhibits the works of a wide range of artists, including home grown talents like McCauley and Jay Bowen, as well as Thompson and Martin, who got their starts on opposite coasts.

Thompson, with artistic roots in New England, is a painter familiar to gallery-goers throughout the Pacific Northwest. She said her best work is often the result of letting go of a project's outcome and instead focusing on the process.

It's not always an easy prospect, though, she confided.

"I have an inner critic that is hammering me all the time," Thompson explained. "That's the perfectionist inside me.

"I need a large amount of time," she added. "I work slowly. Getting started with it is the hardest part. But then, I'll think of devoting an extra 15 minutes to something and end up with a three-hour project."

Martin, who keeps a project journal and holds a finance degree from San Diego State University, said she occasionally finds herself working on several pieces at the same time.

"It's a comparative process," Martin said, noting that she often draws inspiration from the works of others.

Still, it's her own best judgment that she trusts most.

"When I'm painting, when I start with a concept, it never works," Martin related. "I always have to start intuitively."

Wesley, an avid runner and cyclist who maintains a studio at Day Creek, said he measures success in being able to do art full-time.

"We didn't have a plan for this," he said of GalleryW. "We moved into town after COVID. The premise of the gallery is connecting through art. Having the gallery has been a learning process. I feel like I've earned a master's in fine arts this year having this gallery."

After growing up in La Conner, a community long recognized for its embrace of the arts, McCauley went on to study at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Her "Fox Finds the Flame," which she says represents the courage and curiosity to venture into the unknown, is currently on display at GalleryW.

She, too, reflected on several motivational factors, most notably those that span the need to create and express to paying the bills each month.

"Being in the flow and letting go of expectations (fosters ideal results)," she said. "You have to allow yourself to trust and create."

Project deadlines are likewise compelling, said McCauley, especially when juggling life's other demands.

"Time is my No. 1 challenge," she said. "I may not be in the mood to create. I might have five other things on my mind. You need to be in the right head space.

"Producing artwork that has commercial acceptability puts food on the table," McCauley continued, "but it must be something that's relatable and inspiring. Our responsibility as artists is to produce art that impacts our society. Whether that sells, I'm not sure."

Success and income aren't synonymous.

"Success, to me, is ever changing," she stressed. "Right now, I feel successful because I'm committed. Just being prepared to paint and being in a good place is successful."

And for the artists and their audience last Thursday, GalleryW was that good place.