Nationally known award-winning artist Lynn Rae Lowe creates unique metal designs and functional art. Lowe talks about what influences her work. She also shows us how her metal painting is done.
Lynn Rae’s works in bronze, steel, aluminum have been sold at museums, galleries and gift shops around the world.
“It’s up to you how your journey turns out. It’s all in how you see things. Over and over, I’ve embraced each turn in my life’s path and have been blessed with unexpected experiences and creations.
At 5, I joined my mother, a ballerina, and two older sisters in a dance recital. I fell on my face. My sisters said they would never dance with me again. But I learned to face an audience with a grimace that made them laugh with me.”It’s up to you how your journey turns out. It’s all in how you see things. Over and over, I’ve embraced each turn in my life’s path and have been blessed with unexpected experiences and creations.
My first stage appearance was at 9 as “The Bad Seed” with George C. Scott. The audience booed me when my character re-entered in Act III. I learned that all the world is a stage, a mask we can change at will.
By 10 my sisters staged a kitchen protest. I was too slow. I was reassigned to garden duty. Today, I’m a master gardener with a profound connection with Mother Earth.
Saturdays found me at art lessons or the art museum. It was soul elixir and by 20 I had my first one-woman art exhibit.
At 26, I moved to Telluride, Colorado with my family. The Muses were lying in wait. Over the next 15 years I created the first Artist-in-the-School program, became a consultant for Colorado Council for Arts and Humanities, wrote gardening and astrology columns, performed improvisational theater, and became station manager of an NPR station. With my muse and husband Buck, we were raising four children in paradise.
My management company produced the Telluride Jazz Festival and Telluride Film Festival where I began as the caterer and rose to Event and Art Director. I learned to envision and manifest intentions into reality.
Moving to Tucson, I returned to UA to finish my art degree. As a mature returning student, I had years of creativity on which I could draw, sculpt or paint. With my children grown, I could dedicate myself totally to realize my life’s path through art.
Buck and I looked for a hotcake to break into the art market. Instead we found a latke when in 1995 our dancing Sylph Menorah received a prestigious award. Like the menorah, we were dancing luminescent and grateful for our blessings.
In 2000 my world changed. Buck died.
I realized you don’t know how much someone is doing for you until they are gone. Our retail line could not be continued alone. And I knew I would need to stand on my own shoulders to reinvent myself.
I inventoried the basis of my reputation as a sculptor– metal, color and movement. Could I achieve the same success as a 2D artist? By challenging myself to not be attached to my image or reputation, I let go– and broke through to a totally unique, original genre of art, which I entitled “Aluminations.” Years later, the response to my inspirational images of intense color on metal proves growth comes with change.
I have learned that creativity is just accessing your imagination. Everyone has it. I want to share how to manifest your vision of a creative life through my “Drawing It Out” workshops, mentoring others, and officiating ceremonies as a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant®. I am returning the gifts I have in the best way I can.“
~ Lynn Rae Lowe