Early Friday morning I got on a plane to head to Plant City, Florida with a pit-stop in North Carolina to be with Plant City's First Baptist Church for Holy Weekend. As I landed around noon in Florida, the expected sunshine was missing and instead there was a torrential downpour. But it was still way warmer than the 32 degree climate that I had left behind in Kansas!
When I do live painting gigs, I get to meet new people and communities. The people in Plant City embraced me with open arms. I so enjoyed talking to the different families and people who I was performing with onstage, riding in their car as they volunteered to drive me to the church, or those who came up after the service to meet me and talk further about my art. I truly had so many connections and meaningful conversations, it's hard to believe I was only down there for less than three days!
One of my favorite things after I do live paintings is hearing what people see in the paintings before the reveal or how my art had an impact on them. The congregation was so receptive of my addition of live painting to the worship service and many had stories to tell of their experience with the arts.
I came back from Florida feeling refreshed and full of joy and love. Then I had less than 24 hours - which happened to be my birthday - to finish and turn in two projects and sit through critiques before I turned around and drove out to St. Louis for ShutterFest 2016.
As I arrived to the hotel room that already had four people scattered about on Monday night, I had no idea what I should expect for the following two days.
ShutterFest is an UN-Conference that is "about growing as an artist and being around like-minded people who share the same love and passion" for photography. With Union Station as the stomping grounds, there were classes and sessions with peers and leading professional photographers and educators as well as spontaneous and scheduled shoots of all kinds.
I was there as a model and was chosen to model for two classes on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. One was a fashion hacks class and the other was Dark Arts - both taught by photographer, Sarah Clements. I was styled for the first class in a red curtain for a dress, poinsettia flowers in my hair, and makeup completely done with just a tube of lipstick. For the Dark Arts class, I got to levitate. For both classes, a group of maybe 30 photographers were there to learn from Sarah and make cool pictures.
Aside from the two classes, I popped in and out of the hotel room that was cluttered with wardrobe, wigs and makeup, changing outfits and went back and forth to Union Station to connect with photographers. From morning till night, I networked and met so many creatives and made tons cool pictures on the fly.
It was energizing too be completely surrounded by likeminded creative people in this surreal hub; To be creating and improvising and not knowing who you were working with next was truly invigorating. I made genuine connections with photographers from California, Missouri, New York, Virginia, Colorado, and probably more that I'm not even aware of. I made new friends. And I made some killer photos with really talented people.
Part of me was sad when I returned to Lawrence only to go right back to work at the dining hall in my hairnet and scrubs, but most of me was so thankful for those 6 days where I was reminded in Florida of the innate impact art can have on people and where I was fully immersed in the creative soul in St. Louis.
Looking forward to my next creative adventure,
Annika Wooton
Miss Wooded Hills 2016
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