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Meet the Author & Artist
Amanda L. Mottorn

 

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Thank you for taking your time and consideration to stop by. 

In 2020, I started painting as therapy as I did when I was younger. 

 

At the same time I was a member of InterNations, a global social network. During the pandemic, all the chapters around the world put their meetings online. I attended a virtual event out of Miami, Florida whose speaker Dieter Langenecker (from Vienna) spoke about how we all start with this false belief in childhood and what we did to compensate for this lack. Mine was “I’m not good enough.” I developed skills I didn't have before, becoming an expert in my product knowledge and excelling at consultative sales, especially in relationship management.  My career and feeling of not being good enough taught me how to be a workaholic. It was not a fulfilling lifestyle in terms of finding happiness. Nothing ever felt enough. Dieter’s vision is to help people find meaning in their lives, based on his meeting of Victor Frankl who wrote the book, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Toward the end of 2020, I started attending a 12 step group called Adult Children of Alcoholics which allowed me to do deeper inner work than I had ever done before. I continue attending these meetings; what I learn and share helps me with my behavior, reactions and in my practice with art. I only have control over me and can fix one person: me.

 

In 2021 a month after my job loss, I published my first novel, Finding Moksha: One Woman’s Path in Uncertain Times. I had revised and redrafted this book for 13 years with an independent editor. It is my most important accomplishment.

 

I have done inner work with topics like self-sabotage and imposter syndrome.  My vision is to support others create interior spaces evoking feelings of inner peace, self-compassion and self-acceptance through the investment of my paintings and writings and other communications.

 

Since 2020, I started painting after rarely picking up a brush. As I was a teenager I wished to be an artist, especially after receiving a scholarship for pre-college Art Study for one academic year on Saturdays at Carnegie Mellon. However, it was not a supported career choice. I secretly believed it meant that I was not good enough even though no one said those words to me. My creativity then was kept a secret. In 2020, I started posted my writing on a blog and posting my paintings on Facebook. I was terrified sharing but didn’t want to feel shame or the need to hide my creativity anymore. 

 

Through these public postings, in 2021, I received a partial scholarship to paint and draw in Rome for the month of July. I extended my trip for a total of 7 weeks in Italy visiting Positano, Cinque Terre, Florence, Venice, Milano where I painted the surroundings, experiencing a country like never before. In October 2022, I participated in Art Shopping, Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, my first international exhibition. There I met and spoke with other artists even though my French was not the level as when I studied it in college. I found ways to communicate even if I didn’t share the spoken language. Art is a language that all human beings understand. 

 

I have learned a lot as an artist, painting with my intuition, sometimes using my non-dominant hand and behind the scenes work like figure studies meetups for practicing drawing, building a website, developing my branding, networking with other artists, online virtual courses on topics like branding and abstract painting, writing articles about creativity, giving virtual and in person talks locally here in Pittsburgh.

 

Doing work that is fulfilling has gotten me out of my comfort zone doing work I never dreamed of.

 

I was accepted to participate in the Florence Biennale for 2023. However, unable to get sponsorship through various funding avenues to pay for the exhibition and travel costs, I know that it means that the universe has something better waiting for me. The experiences of representing myself has had its own personal reward.

 

I am grateful for the new discoveries, international travel, and people I have met that lead up to today.  

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