Artist Odyssey

Hello World Changer!

I used to tell Rita Vicari the same thing over and over again.

Don't leave so much white showing.

Warm it up. Make it buttery. Push it a little toward gray. Anything but that stark, pure white straight from the tube.

And Rita would listen to almost everything I said.

Almost.

When it came to the white, she would not move.

At the time, I thought I was helping her. I thought I was protecting her from a compositional mistake. But years later, I can see that Rita was protecting something too. She was protecting the part of her vision that no one else could quite see yet.

That white became her signature. It became the space her figures moved in and out of. It became the quiet strength inside her paintings.

I wrote about Rita this week because watching her grow from one of our first Mastery students into one of our most beloved mentors has been one of the great joys of my life.

She is an exceptional artist, but what moves me most is not only what she can do with paint. It is what she does with people.

She helps artists trust what is trying to come through them.

That is also why I am so excited to teach beside her at Composition & Flow in Sarasota. Rita sees composition in a way that is very rare. She sees structure, movement, space, and the part of a painting that is almost working but not quite there yet.

If you have ever had a part of your art that you keep defending, even before anyone else understands it, I think Rita's story will mean something to you.

I want to invite you to read the new Artist Odyssey post here.

With love,

Elli