Experimental I

Exclusive to SoLA, Creative Practice was developed by executive director Peggy Sivert who was inspired to offer artists an opportunity to meet up with fellow artists and receive honest and constructive feedback while also building meaningful relationships with them.

“Artists oftentimes work in isolation,” says Sivert. “When I was a young artist, I never got feedback from other artists. I always wanted the relationship of other artists, but not be controlled by it.”

Unlike other organized critique artist groups, Creative Practice offers a lot of freedom and experimentation for artist interaction. Participating artists meet in the beginning of the year, bring in their art, get to know each other and organically break off into groups of varying size, art practice, age, race, depth of experience, background, etc. Next, each self-driven group organizes a plan and are encouraged to be creative in how they will collaborate and inspire each other’s progress over the next twelve months. At the end of the year, an art critic is hired to review everyone’s work and a group show at SoLA wraps up the experience. For many of the artists, the group show is the first time their work has ever been on display.

“Experimental I and Experimental II are not your typical art shows,” continues Sivert. “It’s not so much about the artwork as it is about appreciating human connections and celebrating the personal growth and creativity because of them. One of our groups has five artists, and each of them started a new sculpture which they all took turns working on and rotating throughout the year!”