We are delighted to start a new series of stories about the great people who support our organization through donations of art, time, and effort. Our first post tells Elizabeth Seaver’s story!
Elizabeth Seaver enjoys making people smile. Her colorful, whimsical paintings, usually of birds, are created by mixing all her favorite media, acrylic paint, paper and relief printmaking.You can see those smiles as people walk down the hall at LibertyTown Arts and first spot a blue-footed boobie staring at them!
But Elizabeth is also a teacher, one who encourages everyone to be creative. “Every human is fundamentally a creative person, but unique. That means each person who makes, whether working in paint or wood or ink or food or painting or the garden, brings a perspective and style as individual as a fingerprint,” she said.
She believes all art brings something to the world that is meaningful and necessary to our survival and good mental health.
Elizabeth has supported Mental Health America of Fredericksburg for years through donation of her popular paintings. Art may be created individually, but “it can take us to new places in our imagination and remind us of other places and times. It can remove us from moments of stress in our lives enough to bring essential ease.”
MHA-fxbg was there for her daughter, she says. “I am so appreciative that they were available to us. It changed her life and ours.”
Elizabeth believes there are many paths to becoming an artist. She is grateful for a pivotal studio art class at Smith College her senior year. The teacher encouraged her, as he did all his students, the opposite of what she says she hears from many people who have been criticized instead of supported. “They felt belittled and gave up art altogether,” she said.
When she moved with her family to Fredericksburg, she found a thriving community of generous, serious local artists. That’s when she started painting (and also helped found Brush Strokes Gallery). In 2006, Dan Finnegan rented her a studio at LibertyTown Arts Workshop and then hired her from 2008-2011 to be artist in residence. Silly, whimsical characters began to replace the more traditional subjects she had been learning to paint. It took four to five years for her to find her unique subject matter and style. These days, you can find her work at LibertyTown Arts, her website, or on IG: @elizabethseaverart
Elizabeth, recognized across town for her welcoming smile and joy, said she is inspired by being around children.
“You can say the silliest things to them, and they know how to play with it. We can build whole silly universes that way.”
We are grateful Elizabeth (and her birds) have not only supported MHA-fxbg but also our community at large.
Finding joy these days is a good thing.