Home | Free (What Does It Mean To You & Save the Date - New Art!)
In 2023, I took a short solo trip to Chicago for a friend’s wedding. I was sitting on a bench outside of the botanical garden — the sun was shining and warm, a light breeze stirred the flowers, and the sound of drums beat in the distance. I felt home. I was briefly confused, wondering if that meant I was supposed to fly back to Boston and tell my family I thought we should move to Chicago. After a few minutes, I realized that what felt like home was actually freedom. It was the same feeling I get when I watch the sunrise at Nauset Beach; the constant state I was in when I studied abroad in France; how I feel when looking up at the stars.
Since becoming a mother, I recognize this feeling as familiar, yet not always present. Painting and writing became the things that drag me back to myself when I feel a loss of freedom amidst the demands and stress of daily life. When I paint, I lose all track of time, get messy, play music, and just move the energy I need to get out. The flow state replicates the feeling of freedom I crave.
The Home | Free Collection represents what freedom feels like, to me. While painting this work, I was thinking about how many places can feel like home; how what feels like home changes as you do; what it means to feel at home or free within yourself. The series of abstract seascape paintings takes inspiration from early mornings chasing the sunrise on Cape Cod, the place I feel the most at home and the most free. I used acrylic paint and texture mediums to build up carefree puffy clouds, and palette knives and my fingers to create the colors of sunrise lighting up over the ocean. I know I’ve been privileged to have had many amazing experiences that taught me what home, and freedom, feels like.
What does home feel like to you? What does freedom feel like to you?
Everyone deserves to feel this way.
We are living through a time when fundamental freedoms are increasingly being stripped away from so many. Painting is one of the ways I’m able to regulate myself when I feel helpless and overwhelmed while witnessing so much cruelty in the world, amidst my own day-to-day stressors. I’ve also been inspired by these essays from Brandon Kyle Goodman and Gabriella Singh to create my own "coping kit". If you are feeling the same, I hope you are able to find the thing that makes you feel free and gives you the energy to keep going.
I want to live in a world where my individual freedom is not contingent on someone else losing theirs. I know it’s not that simple, that there are compromises to be made, that our individual choices have consequences for the collective and vice versa. There are many resources out there on actions you can take re: the issues most important to you right now, whether that be using 5calls to contact your congresspeople, getting more involved in your local community, caring for those closest to you, or something else. I go back to the concept of reciprocity and the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer — instead of asking “what can I take”, I’m leaning into “what can I give?”
You can listen to the playlist I painted alongside here.
Interested in collecting a Home | Free painting?
- I am excited that several pieces from this collection (plus some other work) will be available at the Galaray House art fair, taking place on May 31 during the Newport Rotary Club Annual Charity Polo Match, hosted at the Newport Polo Club. The following pieces will be available:
- My next online shop release will be June 3-16. Early access to collectors list / founding members will be from June 3-9 (you can upgrade your subscription here), with overall access beginning on June 10. The following pieces from the Home | Free collection will be available. A full list of work available in this release will be shared in the upcoming weeks.
Questions about this release or anything else? Just reply to this email!
Thank you, as always, for your support!
Jocelyn
P.S I was recently interviewed by Heidi Fiedler on Substack in her "Mothers Who Make", where I talk about a day in my life and how I'd spend $1M to make the world a better place.
Beyond the Studio with Jocelyn Elizabeth is an intimate behind-the-scenes look at my creative practice and life as an artist, writer and mom. Here, you can expect to find visual art, personal essays and poetry. My work explores the question of what it means to be alive from the interconnected lens of our human experience and the natural world, and I am interested in how we can live differently and better alongside the earth and each other. My portfolio and more information about me can be found at www.jocelynelizabeth.com.
Here are some ways you can access my art and writing:
- Collect original artwork. My online shop is open 2x/year for 2 weeks, after which, remaining inventory is painted over or repurposed.
- My online shop is currently closed. The next release is scheduled for June 3-16, with early access to Collector's List & Founding Members from June 3-9.
- My Minted.com shop is occasionally updated with works on paper or hand painted products (candles, globes, ornaments, etc.)
- Subscribe to my studio journal to receive my journal entries via email. You can subscribe as a free, paid or founding member.
- For early access to original art launches plus more personal journal entries, referral rewards and free shipping, consider a paid subscription (starting at $5/month or $50/year)
- Want to support an individual piece of writing without subscribing? Support my work via a one-time payment, or forward to a friend!
Thank you, as always, for your support!
Jocelyn
