About Me, Connie Solera...
I work with Artists Ready to Embody Their Artist Soul and Explore the Deeper Currents of Their Practice
I've been doing this work for over 30 years, and in that time, I've learned one thing for certain: Your Artist Soul doesn't need hand holding. She wants a mentor willing to step into the flames with her.
You already have a practice. You know your way around a brush. You've felt the thrill of creation. But now you're craving something more: depth, meaning, the magic that makes your work feel alive.
My programs, retreats, and mentorships are where you get to be truly seen. Where you're challenged and supported as you push boundaries, strengthen your visual language, and make work that is unapologetically you—work that moves people and touches the deeper currents of your Artist Soul.
My Journey...
I started out doing all the things "expected" of a good little artist—fancy degrees, gallery shows, commissions, juggling every art-related job I could possibly get my hands on. I did everything from art museum educator to gallery assistant to mural maker to art handler to wardrobe assistant in the theater, and one summer I even assisted the artist Joseph Kosuth (Google him. He's in all the art history books!).
Throughout my entire twenties I was checking all the boxes and trying to fit myself in one as well. I loved art and the Cleveland art scene I cut my teeth in, but I never really felt like it was truly where I belonged.
Then life shifted. To celebrate my 30th birthday, my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I went to Arizona on vacay. We came back, sold everything we owned and moved to Phoenix in search of a brand new start and to escape the fucking snow!
I left everything I ever knew and promised myself that I'd stop chasing a prescribed "artist path" and start obeying what MY Artist Soul wanted to do. I ruthlessly began following the ideas, places, and things that truly lit me up—including quitting my respectable public school art teacher job in 2010 to go totally rogue as an artist and teacher!
Twenty years later and my Artist Soul has become my most trusted guide and a sacred relationship I deepen and explore on the daily.
What I Do...
I guide artists to trust their intuition, shed expectations and conditionings, and make work that is alive and pulsating. I don't teach step-by-step programs and I'm certainly not peddling quick hacks.
Instead, I provide mentorship that requires you to slow down and look inward, immersive programs that invite you to get out of your head and embody your Artist Soul, retreats where you can focus and realign your intention, love, and energy back towards your Artist Soul—and a community of kindreds who truly get it.
The Artist Soul is about expansion, so together we stretch edges, take risks, and explore where the mystical seeps into our practice. My work is definitely not for beginners. It's for artists who can work independently, crave grounded mentorship, and are ready to dive into the wild unknown—the place where voice, vision, and raw emotion collide.
