oil painting

Meditation Opportunity and News

Art, PhD, workshops

Meditation is the perfect balance between alertness and relaxation. It doesn’t matter if you practice in a chair or sitting cross-legged on the floor; it’s all about quieting the mind and stilling the body. It is about finding a still point from which you can look at the world in a different way and discover a fresh new perspective on your life. I am teaching a session to introduce people to meditation on Sunday March 15th. It will involve gentle relaxation and movements all designed to still the mind and to give you the chance to take some of these skills away with you. If you are interested it will be at my studio at 10:30. We will be finished by lunchtime and the link is HERE Please book in advance if you’d like a place.

Details and booking

Creativity Boosting Workshop

A workshop to help you open up your creative soul and find a voice with paint in sketchbooks and on paper. This would be ideal if you have never painted before or you have plenty of art experience but suffer creative block and don’t know where to start.
It’s also a great way to learn to get into the zone – almost like meditation – and out of the chatter in your head!

A relaxed and introspective day to fire up your creative mojo. This is on Wednesday May 13th from 10.30 – 4pm. Investment £37 – tickets and lots more information HERE

There are other workshops including oil painting here on this site.

Please do come back and look again as I do update regularly – there will be another Travel Journals Workshop posted soon.

Meanwhile:

Since the beginning of the year I have been working in almost monochrome – it seems to suit the time and simplifies for value and composition.

working in January February 2020

Some of this work will probably emerge in future paintings I have no doubt.

I have also gone back, after quite a break to working in stitch which I have been enjoying since the weather is so dire and I can happily mix using the sewing machine and hand stitch.

The red thread of soul, soul mate and mate connections

…and finally

As if I’m not already a busy person, I have embarked on a PhD where my focus is the field of “art and meditation”. It’s a massive challenge, undertaken part time, with all my other work and commitments but I’m giving it my best shot and stepping into another world.
So far I like all the academic help available at Wolverhampton University and I have two great supervisors in Professor Ross Prior and Dr. Louise Fenton. I look forward to working with them and others over the next few years! #PhD

You can find more on my Facebook Page HERE

and on instagram HERE

2019 Round Up and Onwards to 2020

Art, exhibitions, PhD, workshops

Well here it is – the blog post that is there because I haven’t yet written all my Christmas cards – who else uses displacement activities?

I’m keeping it brief but just to say it has been a busy year. The first part was taken up with the Japan Exhibition in Ironbridge which then ran from August to November and was really successful.

In between I have had a lot of illustration projects, some commissions and some lovely workshop teaching as well as pursuing development of my own painting techniques and ideas.

Apart from this I have very much enjoyed completing a two year meditation teacher training course which has in itself furthered a meditation practice which I have had for over thirty years.

Zen Garden by Clare Wassermann

So, on to 2020… In relation to the above, I am teaching a morning workshop on January 8th called “A Practical Introduction to Effective Meditation” which will be a lovely taster session to some ongoing sessions throughout the year. Several techniques for meditation will be used plus some easy movement and deep relaxation. These will be held in my beautiful studio in Wolverhampton. Details and booking here: on Eventbrite

Looking ahead to 2020 I am pleased to announce that I am undertaking a PhD starting at the beginning of the year and work is already hotting up for that. I am really excited to be joining a research environment in an art context to develop ideas related to art and meditation.

Other workshops so far planned are my popular “Clare Wassermann’s Journaling and Travel Sketchbook Workshop” – back by request on February 1st – information here and it’s again in Wolverhampton at Newhampton Arts Centre.

The Arabian Deer from Clare Wassermann’s Travel Journals


Ongoing will be Wayne Attwood’s oil painting workshops every 8 weeks or so according to his availability. He’s a busy man as he is now President of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and his painting career is burgeoning. Our next session is on January 23rd and you can find out ore here – beginners and experienced folk all welcome – he’s a great teacher.

Finally I would like to draw your attention to an exhibition. It is in Wolverhampton at the Art Gallery. It is the Centenary Year of the Wolverhampton Society of Artists and this year’s exhibition is very special.

It runs from now until February 16th and has three sections – one for work by very highly regarded alumni, which has been gathered from around the country and national collections, one is a collection of work loaned by the Courtauld Gallery in London (Courtauld was an avid collector of fine art and of course had a rayon factory here in Wolverhampton before taking it further as an internationally strong textile industry).

The third room is this year’s entry for the exhibition which is carefully selected and beautifully curated by the Art Gallery. I am very honoured to have two large pieces in this especially as it is my first time of entering. Here is novelist and Times journalist Sathnam Sanghera with my work when he was guest of honour to open the exhibition last Saturday. Do pop in. Our Art Gallery is one of the finest in the country and is internationally known for it’s collection of Pop Art.

Photo credit: David Hamilton, Express and Star December 2019
…and here is me in matching scarf and painting
a salon hang – nice way to display work here at Wolverhampton At Gallery, Society of Artists’ Show

So here’s to a very Happy Christmas to all of you and to more art and developments in 2020. Thank you to all who have supported and believed in me – you know who you are and it is very much appreciated.

Stay creative in whatever you do!

Comments and suggestions welcomed below.

Best wishes Clare Wassermann

Christmas card Image

Workshops 2019 and other news

Art, christmas, exhibitions, sales, workshops

2019 Plans

Journal and Travel Books workshop with Clare Wassermann

Plans are afoot in Studio 103 for lots of new workshops both hosted and delivered by me. Please let me know if there is anything you would like to see here other than what I have put in so far. I can do my best to accommodate requests and it’s good to know what art folks would like to participate in next year. I don’t know if you don’t tell me!! 

There’s art jewellery making, felting, lino printing, poetry, journaling with me and more ….

Here is the link

Art jewellery workshop by guest artist Linda Alton

Current Work

I am currently starting a series of new large oil paintings influenced by Hundertwasser depicting Gaia as the Goddess of the Earth. Working as an artist last year at Boundary Way Allotment Project has been hugely influential. Thank you to the Arts Council and Heritage Lottery Fund from the artists- we are hoping to receive more funding to continue this wonderful work in the community next year. 

The piece I am currently working on is Gaia under the Wrekin spreading her rays through the allotment site. The Wrekin is a large hill surrounded by flat land and is very much a landmark all around the area. You can see it from our site and the sun setting behind it is a wonderful thing.

very early stages of Gaia and the Wrekin

The site is wonderful and has a camera obscura, a community garden, sensory garden, a wildlife pond and an orchard. It also has a large polytunnel where we have held art workshops. There are several open days a year and the public are welcome. Here is the link. It’ a beautiful website.

Christmas Cards

I have the new 2018 Christmas cards available in my studio – please come and visit if you are local. Profits go to Compton Hospice (Compton Care) in Wolverhampton where my father was looked after wonderfully over Christmas just before his death last year.

You can buy these cards here on Etsy. 

This is the 2018 design:

The cards are £4 for six cards with envelopes A6 size.

There is another design to choose from too.

Peace Dove – Syria

Saatchi Gallery Visit

Yesterday I happened to be in London so I took myself off to Sloane Square for a snoop around the gallery – I haven’t been for ages. I was waylaid for ages though in the beautiful Taschen Bookshop next door. A whole shop of the most beautifully printed art books – it was a must.

Anyway eventually I made it into the gallery and it was certainly enjoyable even if some of the art was a little difficult to look at.

A major exhibition there currently is  BLACK MIRROR: ART AS SOCIAL SATIRE featuring the work of 26 contemporary artists, open until 13th January 2019.

Black Mirror explores art’s role in social satire, and how political uncertainty has influenced art of recent years.

Using media such as collage, caricatures, photography and installation, the exhibition shows how satire can provide both light relief as well as unsettling commentary on the tumultuous, divisive climate of modern-day politics.

Black Mirror features some of the world’s most exciting contemporary artists making work about the world we live in, exposing anxieties our modern obsessions create. Artists featured include Turner prize nominee Richard Billingham, whose photography series of his parents Ray’s A Laugh pioneered “squalid realism” as he confronted the art world with the reality of poverty; Polish artist Aleksandra Mir who parodies newspapers by crudely drawing them with childlike tools – bringing new meaning to “fake news”; and Chilean sculptor Alejandra Prieto, who transforms rejected lumps of coal into a beautiful, desirable object of opulence, confronting class disparity and the commodification of luxury over function.

At a time of collective unease, Black Mirror emphasises the importance of art and satire in dissecting power structures, questioning societal norms, and visualising political unrest, providing light relief to life’s uncertainties.

The Saatchi Gallery was founded in 1985 with the aim of bringing contemporary art to as wide an audience as possible by providing an innovative platform for emerging artists to show their work. Over the last five years the Saatchi Gallery has hosted ten out of the top 15 most visited exhibitions in London, according to The Art Newspaper’s survey of international museum attendance, and also has more followers on social media than any other museum in the world. Entry to all the Saatchi Gallery’s exhibitions is free.

More info:

Saachi Gallery
Duke of York’s HQ
King’s Road
London
SW3 4RY

OPENING HOURS
10am-6pm, 7 days a week, last entry 5:30pm
Admission free.

I love the spaciousness of Saatchi