We caught up with the brilliant and insightful E. L. Briscoe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

E. L. , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

I learned very quickly that individuals are important but only as parts to a whole. We should always consider how our actions or inactions will or could affect others. I have seen how disruptive a single individual can be in a group of people who have a plan. I have worked in an environment with a dysfunctional infrastructure that had good people as well as one with an admirable infrastructure with dysfunctional people. Neither has a chance at consistent, positive outcomes. But one of those has a chance. With people who are ready and willing to work towards the same goal and can rely on one another; a positive outcome is on the horizon. I learned that no matter what is around me, I must be true to the philosophy of “it’s not about me”. It is about the outcome and I must put aside all else.
With my creative work I discuss the subtleties of human interactions in our society by using my imagery to pose a scenario and allow the viewer to contemplate their place in that equation..

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is E. L. Briscoe and I am an artist and educator in Maryland (DMV). My journey in the visual art started in the 4th grade. I don’t remember much of my in-school art experiences outside of the normal growing child fascination with drawing and cartoons but I remember that first “successful” drawing. There was a poster on the side of the teachers desk of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. This was one of the cartoons I watched as a kid so I decided to draw Russell. The feeling of getting acknowledged for something I did was new to me because I never really stood out from the other kids much. This made me feel special for the first time. From that point forward I was always attracted to drawing. I drew from my comic books and was inspired by one of my cousins who was really good at doing this. I wanted to be as good as he was. Whenever there was a task that required an artistic hand I was one of the students that would be asked. I was very fortunate to be in a family that supported the arts to a great degree and may of those family members became very accomplished at that. I however was one of the only ones that studied the visual arts at the time. A semester or year did not go by without there being art classes and activities in my school life. All the way through college and graduate school.
My undergraduate and graduate school years allowed me to study under individuals who were and still are very generous with their knowledge and experiences. I am honored to have had the opportunity to sit and talk with artists that I had previously read about in some of my books. To visit a major museum and see works by people who were my instructors. I fell into the education aspect of art when one of my professors asked if I would proctor an exam for his class because he had to be away. For the first time I was able to see the classroom from a new vantage point and it infected me. For the first time I considered the possibility of being what my professors had been for me. The next semester that same professor asked me if I would teach a drawing class as a graduate assistant. But I wouldn’t be assisting another professor I would;d be teaching the class myself. The answer was yes, and I did so until I graduated the following year.
I was able to wade into teaching on a college level because my first job was as an assistant curator of a museum. I began teaching very shortly after beginning work there and I was able to use the information I was gaining from curating exhibitions, making errors as well as discoveries to foster a teaching philosophy that was adapted from my elders. My studio practice is a vital part of remaining up to the task of communicating with the public as well as the students that I am responsible for leading.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is being aware of the importance of what the artist does for society and culture. Art asks vital questions and requires that the individual creating the work as well as the audience address them. The wonderful thing about that is that the questions don’t require or demand direct answers but instead they require a continuation of the dialogue that the art started. Art actually means, “to be”. An individual can approach a painting and have a silent dialogue about the subject and subject matter of the work and be fulfilled. That work can add to one’s life. The person can walk away and be ever changed as a result of that engagement. That person can then bring another to the same artwork and the conversation can change altogether because the experience can be altered by the added perspectives of the other.
The artist’s job is to continue to create the works that engage others in this new refined dialogues.
The artist can make sense out of what seems senseless and can simplify the complex.

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

I wish I could clearly explain to another person, the satisfaction and inner joy I get when I create a work and it is truly appreciated for the communication I am attempting to make and not merely it’s visual appeal. I have said for a long time that “pretty is what something is; beauty is what it does”. My goal is to be able to create something that is visually appealing but beautiful in its message. And for the audience to engage with it enough to appreciate both. Much of that mission requires a great deal of study and observation of the world around me. And that very world is ever-changing. This fast pace is causing people to be less patient as time goes on. My goal is to create work that inspires the onlooker to want to investigate further. I would love for people to visit my work and be moved to look at things a little bit differently. To back track.
I would love to be able to create work that successfully captures the energy of working in a studio alongside another artist for hours without speaking a word to one another. But knowing that that person’s presence and energy was vital to the work the two of you were doing. There have been times where I have been around other creative people, talking about art and the world for hours and then 3/4 of the way through the conversation we stop and say, “we should have been recording this”.
I want to create work that captures and holds those types of experiences and redistributes that to the viewer because as we have all been taught, energy cannot be destroyed. It can only change form. I would like to channel and redistribute that in my work and coach others on how to do the same.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.briscoeart.com
• Instagram: @briscoe_art