ARTIST CONTRIBUTES PROCEEDS TO HEARTWOOD FOUNDATION

Local artist Tanya Sugarman is generously donating 10% of all sales of her paintings to Heartwood Foundation. We thank her deeply for her contribution and her ongoing support. We look forward to presenting her work at Heartwood in the near future. If you want more information about her work, click here to email Tanya.

The Paintings of Tanya Sugarman

From the Artist: The Art and Texture of the Heart

"My artistic path is exploring myth through story: stories heard, stories seen and stories experienced through performance. Through mythic stories I connect to my passion and my vision.

Everyone, beginning in childhood, has felt wounded, unseen or unheard. These experiences write invisible messages on our hearts and bodies. Myths address these invisible woundings, giving them a voice and a vision.

As a drama teacher, I have led my students on heroic journeys, letting them experience the consequences of their decisions at important moments in history so that they may use their power more thoughtfully in their futures. Within our drama structures, I have students share their secret longings, desires and nightmares so that they know that it is part of the human condition to have dreams, fears and fantasies.

Through my mythic collages, I have found another way to help my viewers reconcile the feelings and thoughts that might not make sense to their minds but make perfect sense to their hearts and imaginations.

I am a woman with a vision. I want to merge the tools of my craft, the puppet making, mask making, storytelling, costuming and set design together to create art that speaks to viewers' hearts and souls. I want to make a new series of mythic collages that are visual and written poems that weave into the fabric of the human heart as time is transformed onto a two dimensional plane. My greatest fear is that our children are growing up feeling confused, powerless and angry when they could find, in the world's darkness, gifts of light and understanding through mythic art."

See more of Tonya Sugarman's work at her Chicago Artists' Coalition web site.