We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Li Newton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Li, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I have thought about this often. I started exhibiting in my mid 60’s and I believe it was the exact right time for me. I did not have the confidence in my own talents when I was younger so I likely would have given up too soon. The work I am doing now is a culmination of my life experiences and travel more than just skill. Those experiences built the foundation of who I am now and the depth of work I am creating now.

Li, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My artwork represents the melding of my Air Force brat upbringing with my love for storytelling and exploration. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany I was fortunate to grow up experiencing many lands and cultures around the world. Those travels have always influenced the way I see and interact in the world.

Although art has always been a part of my life, I struggled finding my own voice and confidence to explore it. I studied at two very prestigious art schools, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Otis Parsons Los Angeles, but left after several years after feeling creatively out of my depth and financially stressed. The foundation skills I learned at PAFA , esp. color theory and composition, have proven invaluable and have served me well throughout my lifetime. I am also a graduate of the Decorative Restoration Program at ABTech Community College in Asheville, N.C.

Most of my adult life was spent chasing adrenaline and adventure from sea level to 14,000’ mountains, working jobs from high altitude cooking to running the children’s programs at a county arts council. Over the years I have explored a number of mediums including; soft pastel, oil pastel, silk painting, acrylics, oils, mosaics, charcoal, encaustics, cold wax, carving and mixed media. Jill of all trades, mistress of, well a few. Living in the Bahamas for many years woke up my true spirit and flipped a switch on for my love of vibrant color and how nature feeds my whole being and my art.

My portfolio is vast, the styles and mediums quite varied, but most of my recent artwork could fall under the categories of collage and/or assemblage. Different mediums allow me to express different ideas. There is an intimacy to tearing out paper and watching a portrait or scene come to life as I build up layers. I feel closer to what I am trying to convey than ever before. I handcraft each work from the array of materials I’ve collected from old magazines, used books and various ephemera collected in my daily life. I like to spend time flipping through the pages of decades forgotten magazines and books, intently searching for the perfect shape, color, or texture within a periodical’s pages to add to my archive of collage elements. My latest large-scale paper collages feature thousands of individually hand-cut pieces. The addition of other materials coalesce into a rich, textured surface density and luminous, atmospheric layers of color and light. I am captivated by creating beauty from objects forgotten or in decay.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Because I create large hand cut analog collages, the number one question I get is “there is so much detail, how long does one of those take?” My answer now is 68 years and some odd hours. I have been adding knowledge, theory, competency, and a visual library to my bag of tricks since I started drawing with crayons. Every exposure to another culture, job, or people that I have had the privilege of interacting with enhance my artwork and my whole being.

Most non-creatives do not understand that the driving force for most creatives is not a lucrative career and high income, though I certainly won’t turn that down. Any of the arts are crap shoot. You are betting your livelihood that the rest of the world needs that particular passion and history and the stories that make up who you are. There is so much constant self doubt. when you put out something as personal as your passion. It takes a tremendous amount of blind faith and courage to jump off the mountain top, quit the day job and believe you have something that makes you unique and valuable to the rest of the world, or even a small section of it.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I moved to Asheville almost 10 years ago. I had basically put all of my artistic ambitions on the back burner. Here I found the most welcoming, encouraging and supportive community of fellow artists. It’s something I didn’t know I was missing nor how much it could inspire me. Being part of a community of artists who love and stand behind you gives you so much freedom to explore, experiment and grow. Because I have always been so isolated as an artist, due to location and profound shyness my energy often felt stuck. I was on a two steps forward four steps back, trying to reinvent the wheel so to speak, trying to learn new things without any guidance. This creative community has given me so much confidence to make “mistakes”, try new things and explore but this time with a safety net. I feel like I’m suddenly blooming in my 60’s and every day is richer because of the family of artists I belong to. It fills my heart and my work is growing because of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.linewtonfinearts.com
• Instagram: @li.newton
• Facebook: Li Newton
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/li-newton-26ba0a46/

Image Credits
Photography of artwork by Josh Nivens, Asheville Fine Art Printing