January 2021

apART 8x10

Mixed media collages by
Angela Potaczek, Eric Dean Spruth & Julie Gard Freeney

All proceeds from sales were donated to Expressions Graphics to support ongoing programs.

For most of 2020 they exchanged art via US Mail and maintained a creative connection during a stressful year of loss and isolation.

The seed was planted between friends on February 7, 2020 at Chef Shangri-La Chinese restaurant tiki haven in Riverside, Illinois. Given our busy lives, how could we stay in touch and feel connected through art-making? Details and decisions were made over shrimp dumplings and paper-umbrella-clad mixed drinks. We would keep the friendship fire alive by making 8 x 10 art pieces, then send them through US Mail. One piece per month, any media, any topic. We were unaware of the healing impact the art would come to have on us, unknowingly making this creative pact on the brink of a pandemic.

The collages and mixed media art we made over the past ten months helped the three of us heal and cope with our emotions, our struggles, and our losses. Our intention in sharing this body of work with you is that we hope you will also feel some kind of connection to the pieces and realize the crucial importance of maintaining creative contact with each other. May you also be inspired to connect through art making, and may your 2021 be filled with Hope, Gratitude, and Friendship.

www.oakpark.com_2021_01_26_during-covid-artists-make-art-apart_THUMBNAIL.jpg — Featured in Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest

“Art can be used to communicate. It can be used to heal. It can be used for good. When it accomplishes all three, it may be at its best, as is the case with the show of collage and multimedia art, “apART 8×10,” at Expressions Graphics, 29 Harrison St., Oak Park.”

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Angela Potaczek MA, LCPC

Angela is an art therapist and licensed clinical professional counselor who is also a visual artist and jewelry designer. She received her bachelor’s degree in fine art from Columbia College in 1988 and her master’s degree in art therapy from UIC in 1997. She has participated in various art fairs in the area and is a new member of Expressions Graphics. Her work has been shown in the “Her Voice” shows at Expressions as well as the holiday boutique. Angela draws her inspiration from textures, colors, and shapes found in nature. She enjoys working with paint, collage, and mixed media techniques, as well as jewelry making using fossils and natural stone.

Her interests in spirituality, mindfulness, archaeology, and natural science seem to find a way of emerging in her work. She enjoys witnessing the process of creating art, unfolding organically in its own time and space. In her work, a rib cage might feel comfortable resting in a sunset; an insect might find solace in a textured net. Where these images intersect in her imagination there is healing and connection to the natural world.

Julie Gard Freeney, BA

Julie has been a lifelong artist. She studied at Columbia College Chicago graduating in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art and Illustration. After graduating Julie started her career in administrative arts while fostering a freelance art business. She worked for two years at the Oak Park Area Arts Council as administrative assistant and then as Public Services and Events Manager at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago for 10 years. She has volunteered in art therapy and children’s art programs as well as botanical studies at the Morton Arboretum.

Currently, Julie works in acrylic painting and collage, focusing on nature and landscapes. Julie states, “This exhibition has been a great experience as it has pushed boundaries of subject matter and materials. This is art I often think about creating but do not because it doesn’t feel like “me”. But it really has allowed me to express myself in a very different way, which feels so appropriate during this chaotic and stressful year. I'm very honored to be a part of this project.”

Eric Dean Spruth MA, ATR
(Ph.D Candidate Walden University)

Eric’s creative spirit has spanned an evolution from childhood doodling, mad boy, to a deeply spiritual/psychological professional artist. He founded Sacred Transformations to provide therapeutic tattoo removals and cover-ups using a collaborative method with his clients. Eric is a trained artist, graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an undergraduate degree in fine art with a minor in Psychology and Philosophy, and a Masters Degree in Art Therapy. He has served as a professor at the Adler School of Professional Psychology Art Therapy program, and expressive art therapist within the Cook County Bureau of Health Mental Health Services Department of Cermak Health Services / Cook County Jail.

Additionally, Eric has practiced privately in Chicago, collaborating with various mental health programs. Eric’s efforts have been featured and recognized by many forms of media including WGN TV Morning News, National Public Radio and the Chicago Tribune, The National Health Care, WTTW City Talk, and the Chicago Reader. Spruth has received many awards and recognition in his field both as an artist and an expressive art therapist. As the founder and lead tattoo artist of his tattoo removal and transformations program has been changing lives "one tattoo at a time" for over 17 years now.

Learn more about Tattoo Art Therapy