This month we are showcasing the work of Ceci Lopez. Ceci will join us for a special reception during this month’s First Friday Art Walk on January 9th and her work will be displayed at the BQC Center through the end of January.
Ceci Lopez has always been a creator, but took her several decades to recognize it. In 2024, at the age of 54, she found art as a way to heal deep grief following the unexpected passing of her mom. This newly found way of engaging with emotions opened her to recognize her deeply held love for art making. She joined on online course in April 2024 and began a journey that would transform her life, worldview, and the way she is remembering the wisdom of the self. Art allowed Ceci to tear down deep walls erected to protect her heart from her feelings.
Finding art as a way to move through grief reminded her to live from the heart, a teaching she received as a child from her great-grand father, a bee-keeper in Guatemala. Ceci’s art is all about feelings and this has helped her in her quest to reconnect with her ancestral wisdom and re-center her sense of self in her identity.
With her art, Ceci invites the viewer to enter a world where there is joy, action, emotion, tenderness, and love. She paints the world as it should be, free from the rigidity and the fear of feelings. A place where we recognize the energetic world around us as a living teacher, as a partner in how we create life. For Ceci, art is a gateway to nature and nature leads back to the heart.
She is a prolific painter and in a very short time has produced several pieces that have been part of juried and non-juried shows. Her work has been shown in art magazines. Her work has been display at the Whatcom Arts Market. Ceci is a member of Allied Arts of Whatcom County, The Whatcom Arts Guild, and is an artist in residence at Whatcom Arts Center, you can find her there most weekends in Studio1.