Hi. I’m Alana.
I am an artist, a poet, a community organizer.
The work that I do is intuitive and heavily influenced by the delight found in nature.
I also like to share upfront that I am an intersectional activist and a pantheist. (Pantheist is a term that I came to as I sought to build a vocabulary around my thoughts on divinity and non-hierarchical relationship with all of life, before discovering… it was a real word!)
It’s my way of saying I have a deep reverence for all of life, and see most everything around me as a sentient being worthy of awe and appreciation, from the dandelion to the oak to the river to the stone.
That paradigm deeply influences the work that I do: my artistry and writing always hold something of my spiritual and philosophical sensibilities.
As I researched deeply into the earliest roots of my name—Alana Marie Garrigues—I found a resonance with the words’ origins.
And I found that all on its own, my name formed a poem.
alana marie garrigues…
child
of the tree
of the sea
of the rock
Not only a poem, it spoke to what I do, what I love.
Without ever knowing that I was aligning my life so closely with what I am called, I found that everything that I do is built into my name.
Right now I work primarily on two fine art series: Mother Tree Holds the Stories and Small Devotions of Pigment and Water.
In the subject, there is the tree.
In the watery media that I gravitate towards (watercolors and inks), there is the sea.
In the natural inks and watercolors I love, there is granulation in the pigment. There is the rock.
If you’d like to read a bit about my journey transitioning to art, it began as a daily practice and an integral piece of healing a decade of eczema, and grew from there. I write about it in this blog post: Out of the Shadow
Would you like to know where to find me?
Physical Space
I’m living in Holden, about an hour outside of Boston, alongside the gorgeous deciduous forest of Central Massachusetts, with my family (including twin teenagers!) and our beagador rescue.
We’re transforming our new-to-us 60+ year old home into a place of play and dreams… experimenting with light and shadow, color, and planning a garden full of food and friendly to pollinators and local appetites.
You can also find me semi-regularly in Oregon, as I visit family and navigate the bicoastal artist lifestyle. When I visit, I will continue to teach and share my artwork.
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and it is the land that knows me. My art career started in earnest while I was back home in Oregon during the three years surrounding the pandemic. It is the land of fern and cedar, and for that reason fern and cedar always make me breathe deeply of home.
The landscape along the Pacific Ocean held me during the early months of the pandemic, offering a relief and sense of peace as only the water, the forest, and the fresh air can.
Online
Here, naturally!
The best place to see what I’m up to in real time in my art studio and in life is to follow me on Instagram: @alanaofloveandlight or on Threads, under the same user name. I love to share images and write about the process over there. I’m dipping my toes in reels too!
You can also follow #100DaysOfArtistQuestions to inquire about your own practice and relationship with creativity, and find out more about my #40DayJournalForJustice art journal practice and challenge on my Instagram.
The second best place to find me online is to subscribe to my {love}letters (more on that below).
And the third best place to find me online is right here! Bookmark my page to visit again. One of these, I may even go retro internet on you and get a blog kicking it regularly…
Through My Art
Most of the art that I make is for sale. I am working on setting up a shop here, but in the meantime… if you see something that you like on my Instagram or here on the site, drop a comment in the Work With Me tab, inquire about it at alana@ofloveandlight.org, or send me a DM via Instagram. I’d be happy to talk with you.
I am open to inquiries about both licensing and commissions.
In Community
I am a member of Art Friend School, the Art Brand Alliance, ArtsWorcester, and the Massachusetts chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art.
From 2020 through spring of 2023, when I was not walking or writing or painting, you could often find me hanging out in {within} artist collective, which I facilitated from 2021 until it closed, first as co-facilitator, and then as sole facilitator.
It was an incredible space to be seen, to be heard, to develop one’s artistic language. To build and tend to a brave, sustainable creative practice. Created for amateur, emerging, and professional artists, makers and writers, it was a haven for so many.
While the collective is now released into the memory of ether, you will surely feel its reverberations for decades to come, as the energy of the collective lives on in our former members.
I do expect a return to holding community space, both online and in person. While I do not know what the future will hold, I anticipate such spaces to be time-specific and non-gendered, with a keen eye on accessibility, inclusion, and artivist practices. Sign up for my newsletter below to be alerted when it happens.
In Art and Workshops (In-Person and Online)
Visit the homepage to find out about current exhibitions and upcoming workshops, or sign up for my newsletter for updates 1-2x/month.
Through Writing
Want to know more? Email me at alana@ofloveandlight.org or subscribe to News and the Muse: Letters from Artitopia for updates in your inbox a couple of times a month.
I send behind-the-scenes photos, stories from my studio, anecdotes of courage, updates about exhibits and classes, and messages infused with gratitude and love.
