Interview by Audrey Xu, SFWA MYEEP Intern
What inspired you to focus on watercolor paintings of landscapes?
I started painting about five years ago. That was my first foray into art, and I gravitated to landscape because I have a really deep connection with nature, and specifically with California. I’m out there all the time hiking and I’m really inspired by California and her natural beauty. Regarding watercolor, that’s the harder question to answer. I just woke up one day and had this desire to learn how to paint in watercolor—not oil or acrylic—watercolor specifically. It was sort of strange because I hadn’t come up in an artistic family, and I hadn’t had much exposure to that in my life, but it quickly became a passion, an obsession. I love watercolor for its beauty and because it can’t be controlled. I don’t seek to control it—I love the unpredictability, the surprise of it, and the tremendous freedom I find in it.
Is there any feeling you wish to invoke through your artwork?
Right now, I have two main ways in which I paint. The first is, because I spend so much time in nature, I’ll be inspired by a specific place. I’m not trying to create a replica, nor am I trying to paint exactly what’s in front of me. It’s more the feeling that the place evokes in me. I am hoping to bring that response to the painting and hopefully, somebody who looks at the painting will feel something. Whatever the feeling is—awe, inspiration, something else—I don’t like to define it for people, but I do hope my art will spark a deeper appreciation for and connection to our planet and its wild places, which are disappearing rapidly. The other type of painting that I really enjoy doing is purely intuitive, where I’m playing with colors or with flow. Those paintings aren’t tied to any place or any specific feeling. I’m instead responding entirely intuitively to what the paints are doing on the page.
If you couldn’t pick art as a hobby, what alternative hobby would you take up instead?
I grew up dancing so I would be a dancer! But I wouldn’t call painting a hobby. It’s much more than that to me. It’s become a way of life, a way in which I relate to the world, and an important form of self-expression.
What is the hardest challenge you’ve had to overcome as an artist?
I came to art later in life and I didn’t go to art school, so my journey has been a non-traditional route. I have a lack of confidence tied to my relative inexperience and to not having a certain academic or theoretical foundation. However, I wouldn’t say I’ve overcome it. I would say that it’s something I’m always working on. The more I paint the way that I want to paint, the less I care if anyone likes it or not. I’m doing it because it gives me joy and because my paintings are deeply personal. I think that the lack of confidence gets balanced out by this idea in my head that there really aren’t any rules, and it’s really wide open to what you want to create and how you want to express it. At the end of the day, I love it if someone connects with my work, but if someone doesn’t connect, that’s okay. It doesn’t detract from the worth of the work to me.