Hello and welcome!
I’m so excited you’re here. I’m Lana Kitcher - artist, photographer, and writer. Here on Substack I share my creative adventures: journal sketches, painting practice, photographs, and written reflections on the world and my experience in it.
For me, sharing here is sharing my process. I am very much a beginner at “art.” I never went to art school, and I have very little art education except for the few community classes and online courses I’ve taken only recently.
The shortest version of my story:
I was a very creative kid, but all of my creative outlets fell away by the end of college. Especially when finishing my degree and getting a practical full time job took precedent. My life went in a more “logical,” data/organization-based direction rather than a creative one. I started my own business which allowed some creativity, but in a different way. Fast forward to having children, I started to lose all sense of myself. There were a few years in which I knew I needed to find myself again, but I knew that I’d lost that version of me long ago and it was going to take some digging and experimenting to get to which direction to turn. In a random turn of events I inherited a few painting supplies from a relative through marriage and with those, decided to take a few local and online classes. That’s when it all started to click…
The biggest feedback I’ve gotten and what I’m hoping to accomplish:
When readers tell me why the subscribe to “Follow Your Art” they say it’s because I inspire them to pick up their craft - either for the first time (something they’ve been wanting to try) or revisit something they once enjoyed sometime in the past. I don’t inspire people because I’m good, actually, quite the opposite. I inspire people because I keep going even though I’m NOT good. I try to do something small every day, or every week - push through the discomfort of being bad, keep learning, and keep trying. Of course I wish my art was good already, but I know it’s the small daily practice that will make me better. I also know that good art is great, but it’s not why I do it in the first place. Doing art (or other creative activities) makes me feel more whole. It makes me feel calm. It helps me connect to others. I hope we can make art (or insert your creative pursuit) do and be this for you, too.
