I was delighted to have recently been featured in an article on The Art of Social Media – in Breeze Magazine Central Coast…
source from: Breeze Magazine by Jessica Gledhill
The rise of social media has been a game changer for the Arts, toppling ivory towers and redefining arbiters of taste. It’s even become the very stuff of arts practice, with “social media art” a recognised movement in itself. This radical reshaping of the Arts in the age of social media has had a ripple affect globally and locally. It has seen artists harness the potential of social media to better connect and grow local arts communities and economies, and one such doer on the Central Coast is Felicity O’Connor – artist, art coach and art therapist.
Felicity now calls the beachside suburb of Avoca home but she grew up in the village of Sassafras in Victoria’s scenic Dandenong Ranges. She remembers a “beautiful upbringing” surrounded by nature and creativity, attending the local Rudolf Steiner high school which nurtured her passion for music, visual arts and literature. After high school Felicity studied a BA in English Literature before applying to study at a Melbourne Arts college. Despite being accepted, Felicity turned down the offer; “I thought that artists were all poor, struggling and chaotic … I wanted to be famous,” says Felicity, laughing.
Around this time Felicity discovered Art Therapy, a relatively new area of study in Australia, and opted to study an MA in Art Therapy at the University of Western Sydney. Throughout the course Felicity developed her arts practice, regularly participating in life drawing and painting classes. While participating in classes at Willoughby Art Centre, Felicity was tutored by Tony Tozer a highly respected artist and teacher who introduced her to abstraction. “I immediately became excited by that language.” However, her first tentative steps into abstract art needed some encouragement from her tutor; “Tony would say to me ‘Yes, you can do this, it’s a thing!’ … And then it was instant … In love … Boom … That was it! I thought to myself – scribbling, pushing the dynamics of figures, constructing and deconstructing is a thing, I can do this. – Art just kept seeping back in. It’s almost embarrassing looking back now, because it was obvious art always going to be me.”
To Read more, head on over to the article – http://www.breezemagazine.com.au/the-art-of-social-media