Today we’d like to introduce you to Ana Morales
Hi Ana, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. I started taking art classes in elementary school and continued all through high school and college, earning a masters degree in fine art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. My first big job was at my local art museum and now I’m an art director at a local publishing company. I got my K-12 art education license when I was an undergrad at James Madison University and taught third through fifth grade after school art for a number of years as well as classes for all ages at the museum when I worked there. Working in creative fields has been very fulfilling for me, and I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to explore art education, graphic design, and art direction in addition to my first love of fine art.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I wouldn’t say it’s been a smooth road, although my journey has maybe been more straightforward than most. Like I mentioned earlier, I wanted to be an artist from a young age. It was my north star and I was able to pursue many artistic opportunities that might not have been available to me had I not been so focused on art. But I think the life of an artist is inherently not smooth. It’s often discouraging and, in some ways, a bit terrifying. A lot of my work is very personal so it can be nerve wracking to share and hear what others have to say about it. I became familiar with the sting of rejection early on and sometimes that part is still painful.
And then there’s the financial part. Up until my first year of college, my plan was to be a full time artist. By my second year of college, I was preparing to become an art teacher because supporting myself as an artist suddenly no longer seemed possible and I needed a backup plan.
Since then, I have found a way to make a living as an artist–just in a different way than what I originally imagined. I was fortunate to work in an art museum for almost seven years, where I got to meet incredible artists, teach summer camps and a weekly class for two to five year olds, plan programs for my community, and collaborate with local arts organizations. In my current job as art director, I get to use art to continue supporting people and businesses all across Virginia.
Like any art practice, my current one requires a lot of discipline. Since I have a full time job that requires me to be creative, I have to be intentional about how I protect and spend that energy. When it comes to my personal art, I’m most productive when I have big chunks of uninterrupted time to work, so I try to set aside a whole day or weekend for it. During periods when I find it difficult to create, I try to find ways to share and display existing work, whether that means applying to a show, posting on social media, or connecting with a potential collector. At times it feels a bit overwhelming trying to fit it all in.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’ve always been most interested in painting and drawing. I’ve worked with most types of paint–oil being one of my favorites, although I’ve mostly used acrylic and watercolor in recent years. I was part of a multidisciplinary MFA program and that helped me develop a mixed media approach to the themes I had been contemplating for years. At this point, it almost feels necessary for me to incorporate a variety of materials into my work, maybe because play and experimentation are a central part of it. Having access to those various mediums at any given time offers me support in a sense. Aside from painting and drawing, I also love incorporating found papers and I think that stems from my lifelong habit of collecting ephemera.
A huge chunk of my art career has been spent making work about my life as a type 1 diabetic, and that’s probably what I’m most known for. I’ve had diabetes for over thirty years and I’ve been making work about it for thirteen. At first, I made straightforward, representational oil paintings showing things like a cross section of an insulin injection and hands with drops of blood on the fingertips. In the last several years, my work has become more focused on the mental aspect of the disease, which lends itself to more abstract imagery. People more familiar with that work might say that my shapes, line work, and color palette are the defining characteristics of my style. I love irregular, rounded shapes, intersecting lines, and pools of color with varying opacities.
I’m most proud of the pieces that required months of work, such as “Opacity,” “How Are You? (IV),” and my Daily Log Series. I love the feeling of getting lost in a project that holds a lot of importance and the satisfaction that comes from making just a little more progress each day.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
While I have to be selective about the projects I take on, I am totally open to working and collaborating with others. I’m happy to discuss any ideas via DM or email. Those who are interested in supporting me can do so by sharing my work and tagging me in social media posts, offering in-person support at shows, telling others about my work, and of course becoming a collector!
Pricing:
- Please reach out for a price list of available works.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://amoralesart.com
- Instagram: @anamoralesart
- Facebook: Artwork by Ana Maria Morales
