We were lucky to catch up with Alison Price recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alison, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Truly, I think I was born this way. I have always had an affinity for color, shape, texture, and space. As a child, I would squint at sunbeams, to see them refract into tiny rainbows, I would dribble water on my parent’s old school television, and watch the red, blue, and green pixels grow large and convex as the water dripped past.

My earliest memory of making art was taking toilet paper to the street after a rain storm, and patting it into the gutter. I squeezed my mom’s food coloring (small bottles that had garden gnome-like pointed caps), onto the wet paper and let it merge and mingle with the rain water. These beautiful amorphous shapes I laid out to dry on the sidewalk, where they formed dry little pastel pancakes. I was about three years old.

On road trips, my 5 year old self would critique different businesses color choices: a certain fast food place with a penchant for flat brown and dull red, a motel chain with a turquoise and burnt orange logo, the aggressiveness of construction yellow signs. I wondered if the colors were limited, and how they were chosen.

My world was full of imaginary places, and adventures. I was most happy creating. During elementary school, and middle school, I was often asked to create posters, paint murals, and decorate the large cork boards. While my teachers were aware of my passion for art, my family did not believe “art was a real job”, and so I was directed into a career in the insurance industry after attending the University of Minnesota.

Alison, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Color has always fascinated me. My first art making memories are of dribbled food color on bath tissue which I had gently immersed in the street gutter after a storm. As I watched the colors, transparent and bright, mingle and swirl in the water and on the paper, blooming and merging into new colors and new shapes, I marveled. I felt connected. I was three years old.
Today, color and texture continue to be my hallmarks. I infuse my passions for the environment, history, migration, travel, and science into each work I create. The two series I am focusing on this year are ‘Witnessing Waves’, inspired by the natural environment along rivers and waterways which has watched and welcomed human migration for thousands of years. The paintings illustrate DNA strands which intertwine with roots in the riverbanks, reminding us of our connections to each other and the planet. Colorful squares, some say windows and doors, of opportunity and shared resources float throughout the art.

My ‘Purely Textural – Map Points’ series, selected for exhibition at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, September 2022, was created with a textural medium I developed in graduate school. I combine the textured surface with glass, metal, leaf, handmade paper, failed paintings, and lots of paint. I love exploring new and exciting ways to push 2D painting into a 3D world. Each painting is a tiny snapshot of a place visited. I am inspired by nature: rushing surf, mossy rocks, blooming flora and fauna, tidal pools, the aurora borealis and more. Human made structures spark my imagination as well, Chicago’s dancing city lights across Lake Michigan, Time Square’s splashy colors on wet pavement, or a dragon perched atop a medieval church, all have had a turn on the canvas. Are these paintings sculpture? Are these sculptures paintings? The eye (or touch) of the beholder will tell.

I work diligently towards a zero waste studio: I paint and create a lot, and my practice needs to respect the planet.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Always. At times it is very direct, straightforward journey, and has an ‘A to B’ dialogue, other times it is more nuanced. Every series and every creation has its own voice. The ‘Shifting’ series, for example, was created in response to the 2014 discovery of a new species of snailfish, Pseudoliparis swirei, swimming at depths of 26,135 feet (7,966 meters) in the Marianas Trench, The thought of a vertebrate animal, living nearly five miles beneath the ocean surface fascinated me. It led me on an adventure of painting the ocean’s trenches, the huge expanses of shifting and moving parts of our planet’s crust

There are the exquisite times after painting for hours, exhausted, I put down my brush, and fall into bed. When I wake, and look at the creation, I realize I was merely the tool for the art, it needed to be born, and somehow, the needed information has been shared with me. I don’t remember each stroke, the blending of color, or formation of line. When these moments happen, that art is truly remarkable, as if I was able to travel beyond and out of myself.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I wholeheartedly believe everyone is a creative, and the art forms manifest in so many beautiful ways. Whether it is a gift for music, math, words, language, hospitality, sports, food, organization, construction, computing, gardening, cultivating, diplomacy, nurturing, electronics, medicine, science…the list goes on, people have incredible and diverse talents.

As for a journey as a visual artist, I think that people do marvel at the ability to make something emotionally impactful, something that exists in its own right, formed from a humble flat surface and some suspended pigment. I think the same is true of the gifts listed above, I am always in awe of someone making music using only simple instrument, or creating a delicious meal, fragrant and filling, from a few ingredients, or chasing numbers, and organizing them into satisfying and telling rows and columns.

I mention this with visitors, They are usually taken aback, and deny having an artistic talent. I gently press, and ask them about their hobbies, passions, and careers. Often they acknowledge, yes, they do indeed have a talent, a creative outlet. I think it helps us all realize we have a world full of bountiful arts, and we need to spend time honoring those talents we individually and collectively share.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alisonpricestudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alison.price/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonPriceArtist/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-price-671230a/
• Youtube: https://www.tpt.org/mn-original/video/artist-alison-price-paints-qeejsa/
• Other: https://www.threads.net/@alison.price

Image Credits
Alison Price John Newman