PROFILE
Artist, Businessman, and Seeker
I felt naked. Leaving a twenty-year career in public relations and moving from Atlanta to Asheville, North Carolina, I left behind everything I thought I was. Stripped of all titles and roles, my professional persona, I felt exposed like the fabled emperor on parade with no clothes.
No longer a partner with Fleishman-Hillard International Communications and general manager of its Southeastern office, no longer a civic leader serving on some of the city's most prestigious art boards, and no longer the man with a world-class outsider art collection, I was now just Randy Siegel. But who was that? I wasn't sure.
Discomfort led to introspection, and introspection to insight. A new life purpose and profession emerged: helping professionals stand in their power by becoming the full expression of all they are. The cornerstone of my work became a proprietary process I developed that facilitates self-discovery, which is essential for clarifying personal perspective, true purpose, and professional image.
While I was passionate about my new profession, something seemed to be missing; my creative, right-brained self was not being fed. For years, I had collected outsider art. The collector was poised to become the artist. I was ready to rediscover my art.
I had drawn in high school. My realistic pencil portraits of lonely people received some attention. I even enrolled in the University of Georgia's art school but soon transferred to the business school to pursue a "more practical" degree.
Over the past seven years, I have studied art at the Instituto Allende (San Miguel, Mexico), Naropa University, A-B Tech, the Riverside Studios, and the Ringling School of Art. I paint weekly in a roomy loft studio close to the Asheville arts district, situated on the French Broad River.
We all play a variety of roles in our lives, and like a happily married couple the artist and the businessman joyfully coexist in mine. Yet of all the roles I play, "the seeker" is the one I value most.
Whether through art or business, I am constantly looking out for life's "ahas"! Each insight inches me closer to becoming the full expression of all I am.
EXHIBITIONS
(Partial Listing)
Asheville Arts Council Gallery, Asheville, NC, One Show; Seven Artists, January 2010
The Moon Pool Gallery, Hendersonville, NC, November 2009 to Present
The FLOOD Gallery, Asheville, NC, Oh Chaos Show, August – September 2009
Hendersonville Arts Council, Hendersonville, NC, Apple Show, May 2007
Jubilee Community Church, Asheville, NC, Solo Show, "Recent Work," October 2006
Sky People Gallery, Asheville, NC, Altars of Alternative Religions, December 2005
Transylvania Arts Council, Brevard, NC, New Artists Show, Spring 2005
Sky People Gallery, Asheville, NC, Day of the Dead Show, November 2004
|
