—Systemic change begins with personal change—
In Abbey's words:
I began painting sixteen years ago. In 2007, I started making daily paintings for my blog. Each painting is a meditation on the present moment. My paintings have been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine's "Women Who Make Beautiful Things," Seth Godin's Linchpin: Are You Indispensible?, FOX's Good Day Philadelphia, YaleRadio, 10,000 Hours podcast, American Art Collector, among many others. I was named #5 on the list of 49 Creative Geniuses by Boost Blog Traffic.
Since I started it, my blog has had over a million visitors from more than 100 countries. More importantly, though, painting has become my meditative time and the best part of my day. Feel free to read my "Thoughts on Paint." Attempting to complete a painting every day speaks to my interest in ritual, mindful practice, and classical still life and trompe l'oeil painting.
The still life and landscape paintings I make vary in subject matter and sizes ranging from 3x4 to 16x20 inches. Though I sometimes work in series, developing variations of certain subjects, each painting is singularly unique. I prepare my painting panels and varnish and pack the paintings myself. My collectors comment that I give individualized attention to each painting, taking great care at every step.
In 2003, I started my business, Ryan Studio, and I've used my blog to sell my work over the Internet since 2007. My paintings are usually sold by eBay auctions, and are in over twelve hundred private and public collections around the globe. What I like about selling my work online is that I get to have a direct connection with my collectors; we have a long-lasting relationship that begins with a shared love of painting.
When I'm not painting, I teach painting workshops and offer private painting mentoring (coaching) online. If you're interested, you can read testimonials here (for workshops) and here (for Private Painting Mentoring online).
I am fortunate to have studied with David A. Leffel at the Art Students League of New York, and this experience had a great impact on my work. I also completed undergraduate work in both science and art at Arcadia University and post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Hunter College/CUNY. I was born and raised in New Jersey, USA.
I consider leadership a performance art and the environment the most beautiful thing around. Abbey and I talked about beauty, art, performance, teaching, technique, craft, and everything that goes into mastery. She has little experience with burpees. I have little with painting, but we connected on mastery. I think I can safely say we both look forward to our next conversation. Just after stopping recording we both commented on how much we enjoyed connecting on what underlies all fields amenable to mastery. Abbey has painted a painting daily since 2007. As someone who has done burpee-based calisthenics and written blog posts daily for nearly as long, I couldn't wait to talk to Abbey about the personal growth, community, connection, self-awareness, self-expression, and so on that come from a daily practice. I learned about her from podcast guest Seth Godin's book Linchpin, but watching her videos (links below) showed me the beauty of her work. More than that beauty, I enjoyed watching her connections with people learning art from her.Do you want to make an activity you care about a pillar of your life? Why care about classics and masters? Listen to Abbey.