Ann Buss Art

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The best thing that happened to me in terms of my art was moving to South Africa in 2000 and finding teachers and mentors who trained me. I wish I could make everyone feel as good and as free as I started to be when I moved paint around on paper and canvas.

I have worked to open doors for other artists in that way by teaching Julia Cameron's principles about unblocking, as detailed in her marvelous book, The Artist's Way. I've taught art to children and to adults in SA and in the US and I hope to do more of that, setting people free to create.

In my own work, I keep coming back to themes about solitude--lots of studies of things on their own, be they people, dogs, horses, or trees--a sturdy, self-reliant kind of solitude, but sometimes a more vulnerable kind, too. I'm also drawn to a kind of portrait-making because I love characters. I try to put paint down in a way that is freeing to look at as well as to do, letting accidents happen, or at least opening the door to being led by a higher power who guides my brush.