Linda Joyce Ott

I AM - My JourneyTo A Creative Life (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Ever dreamed of quitting your job to pursue a more creative or entrepreneurial life? After surviving 5 cardiac arrests in one night following a minor accident, the author vows to ditch her career and live the rest of her one and only precious life writing fiction, making photographs, and creating art.

Wanting to make sense of her decades-long frustrating quest for an artistic life and to discover how creative work became her salvation form the rationale behind this intimate memoir. Digging deep into her memory cache and sifting through five decades of journals brings to light the author's Sisyphean attempts to break free and follow her bliss.

On this perilous journey of self-discovery, she learns how her relentless pursuit of career success and making money, of doing and achieving, repeatedly eclipsed her cherished creative dreams. Along the way, she explores the source of her ambition, her chronic anxieties, and her habitual coping mechanisms.

In a collage of styles (journal entries, emails, poems, lists, and postcards interspersed with narrative passages), the author takes the reader through the rollercoaster highs and lows, the joys and fears, the successes and failures that represent her life as a passionate, restless, constantly re-evaluating artist. As befitting an artist's memoir, the narrative is punctuated with images of her art.

Synopsis: After setting out her state of mind and the events leading up to the great catastrophe of her life, Linda begins time travelling.

"My Beginnings 1950-1967" presents disquieting memories about growing up in Hamilton in the 1950s and 1960s. She relates how a culturally deprived child of immigrants, growing up in the north end of Hamilton developed an outsider's mindset and became a keen observer with a relentless urge to write and make art.

"Filling The Well 1968-1975" sketches out her first experiences at university and at her first job as an advertising copywriter in Toronto.

"Travelling 1976" documents 10 months of travel abroad. The trip begins on a freighter that takes her and her husband to Morocco and ends with selling their car to the Greek government. Highlights include attending the Cannes Film Festival and living in a camper caravan for 2 weeks near Loch Ness without ever spotting the legendary monster.

"Searching 1977-1991" includes details on writing her first novel and short stories, being appointed film columnist for Hamilton magazine and Canadian correspondent for Horizon magazine and becoming a mother. This flurry of creativity ends, and Linda's dependence on alcohol grows, when she sells out her dream life for a 9-to-5 job.

Two miscarriages and a toxic work environment send Linda spiralling downwards in "Breaking Out 1992-2005". A dream, inspiring books and teachers coalesce and Linda crawls out of her depressive state to embrace her creativity. Making image transfers becomes her initial passion. She enrolls in Humber College's Correspondence Course in Creative Writing. Her mentor, Paul Quarrington, praises her short stories. As a 50th birthday present to herself, she registers for an Alternative Media Techniques course at the Ontario College of Art and Design. This leads her to painting workshops with Canadian painter Harold Klunder as her mentor.

"Creativity Coaching 2006" uses Linda's year-long correspondence with a creativity coach to depict the rollercoaster process of making art.

Attending a 2-week painting residency starts off this creatively fertile period of Linda's life in "On My Way 2007-2010". She enjoys several solo exhibitions, moves back to Hamilton after 35 years in Toronto, and gets an Ontario Arts Council grant to attend a month-long creative residency in Vermont. Then as 2010 draws to a close, feeling as if she's finally living her dream life, she nearly dies.

The "After Notes" section details how making art helps Linda recover from...

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Linda Joyce Ott
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. März 2023
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781777733742
• Artikelnr.: 69742281

Autorenporträt

Linda Joyce Ott is the author of a memoir, "I AM - My Journey To A Creative Life", the dystopian novel "The Naked Law" and a collection of short stories "Open Wounds, Secret Obsessions". She is also an award-winning multi-disciplinary artist working in photography, painting, collage, textile art, assemblage and video. Linda lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Linda honed her creative writing over the course of a successful career as a writer, editor and communications consultant. She has an Hons BA in English from McMaster University. Mentored by the late Paul Quarrington, she earned a Certificate in Creative Writing from The Humber School for Writers. Linda also took part in a workshop with Isabel Huggan at The Humber School for Writers.

Linda has published sixteen photo art portfolios: "A Rainbow of Irises"; "All Dolled Up"; "Auto Parts"; "Flowers of Hope"; "Hard Core: Hornby Island Rocks"; "Hood Ornaments"; "Hood Ornaments 2"; "Magnificent Mums"; "Mexico Obscura"; "Orchidaceous!"; "Outside Art"; "Signs of the Times"; "Strands of Time"; "The Earth Laughs in Flowers"; "Transcending Time" and "Tree Totems". They are available print-on-demand from lindajoyceott.magcloud.com

Linda's art and photos have been exhibited in solo and group shows in Hamilton, Toronto and Alberta, including the Female Eye Film Festival, Artist's Inc, Index G, the Toronto Outdoors Art Exhibition, Hugh's Room and Visual Arts Ontario. Her photographs have been published in Art Focus, Photo Life, and Camera Canada magazines, and in The Hamilton Spectator.

In 2019, four photos from Linda's Orchidaceous! portfolio, juried into the Royal Botanical Gardens' Annual Orchid Show Art Exhibit won 1st, 2nd (2x) and 3rd prizes in their categories. In 2018, four photos won 1st and 2nd prizes in their categories. In 2017, the photo White Orchid won Best in Class (Photography) and 1st prize. In 2016, two photos placed 1st and 2nd in their categories at the exhibit.

In 2015 Linda was selected to be the Featured Artist at McMaster Innovation Park 's18th juried Art in the Workplace exhibition (Aug - Nov 2015) in Hamilton.

Linda received Ontario Arts Council exhibition assistance grants for five solo exhibitions at the Hamilton Public Library's Gallery4: Strands of Time (2017) Orchidaceous! (2016); All Dolled Up (2015); Urban Fresh (2013); The Earth Laughs in Flowers (2012).

In 2011 "Auto Parts", her photo portfolio of de...