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

Alright, Elaine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

In some ways I feel really lucky to have not chosen to be solely an artist. It doesn’t always serve as my principle means of income, other times it does. I had a hard time in school when I was younger, and studying art when I first got into college felt really strange to me. I really enjoyed learning art history, but the practical art classes left me feeling restricted. There were all of these ideas of what art could or couldn’t be and I saw over and over how many times artists tried to go outside of their peers and cultural narratives and were ostracized until their death, upon which they were celebrated. I didn’t want my life to turn out like that. Although now I can appreciate now the role that learning the fundamentals gave me I feel like I can see in younger people, or in people who didn’t have a traditional art education… there is a kind of intuitive understanding. I’m sure that everyone has that. It becomes a matter of how to nourish and encourage that part of ourselves so that it can be turned into something that also allows you to generate some financial income from. I’m not convinced that being a ‘full-time artist’ or getting a degree in art is a prerequisite for that. I ended up getting a masters in science and I enjoy the interplay between the two disciplines. I think I appreciate my time in the studio more, after spending hours in front of a computer. I think being artistic also enables a childlike freedom and curiosity that enriches my work as a researcher.

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

I’m an abstract painter. I’ve been painting for about fifteen years, and I started learning how to make music about twenty years ago. started to make artwork a regular practice about six or so years ago. The process is everchanging and doesn’t have an exact formula but often involves making incredible messes, which I have gotten pretty good at if I do say so myself. Sometimes I don’t paint for weeks or even months at a time, but I like to think of these phases as ‘collecting’ phases. I always carry my notebook with me and scribble notes and really bad sketches that I use as a fieldnotes that I can reference when I do start painting. There are series that develop out of a body of work that’s created within a certain time frame, having similarities either in color choices or subject matter, musical influence. Other times I get an idea for a specific story or picture that I want to share with people. Then there are periods where I have no idea what the outcome will be and I don’t really focus too much on it, I just move my body and let my mind interact with the materials that I have in front of me. This is usually what I’m doing, I think. It doesn’t always yield the prettiest paintings that I’m the proudest of, but it’s a fantastic process which is really helpful for me just as a person in order to process things in my life. Its kind of like when you’re hungry you eat; when I feel things I paint.

I think what I’ve come to be the proudest of in my work is my process. It’s taken me quite a while to get to this point, but I think it’s so important to forge your own way. So now, the work that I do without guidelines from a commission or a certain project tends to orbit around my geographic background pretty heavily. When I start a new piece, I try not to allow myself to make too many decisions about it, right off the bat. I let things spill, droplets fall all over the place, charcoal dust smearing and everything moves pretty fast, which I love. Once something is going on, I can kind of pick up patterns or ideas that I see in the movements I’ve made and I try to build on that. Being a geographer for me just means that when I start working in my studio, I’m bringing a lot of that world in the back of my mind when I work so I don’t think you have to necessarily try to make a piece of art that directly and plainly says something about the environment, but maybe references a feeling you experience when you sit alone with a stream in the evening and see a fox scuttling through the brush. That’s a sensation that I think every human can feel connected to and be reminded of the simplistic beauty that, ever-present, waits for us if we take the time to sit with it. I’m hoping to build a body of work which eventually represent the dialogue I see between the changes occurring in the natural world and the sad complacency of our disconnection from it. I want to remind people how intricate and delicately everything is connected and how sacred and life-giving those connections are.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think I find the entire idea of being an artist just… absolutely vital to a happy life on this planet. It’s essential. But for me, I’ve figured out in order for me to actually enjoy the hell out of it, I have to take it in doses. And in the right doses, I think it can be a haven for people, a refuge away from the madness of the outer world. It gives you a chance to look inward, to find some way to make sense of it all. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to carve out a corner for myself to brood and dance and scream and laugh and cry in. That’s what I wish everyone could experience… how to speak the language of not actually producing tears from your eyes but experiencing that emotion and translating it into some kind of artwork. I am certain that everyone has the capacity… maybe it’s old cars or cooking or writing music or sports but I think the world would be a drastically different place if everyone had the opportunity to explore that part of themselves.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I first was introduced to the concept of NFTs in the beginning of 2021. I was invited to join Clubhouse and started listening to all of these discussions about the virtual art world and how this was going to be the next big thing. Jack Dorsey, Grimes, Lex Fridman, Sam Harris.. I think Snoop Dog was on there too. It just felt like another get rich quick scheme to me and I lost interest pretty quickly. I think it’s a bit silly, although I do acknowledge the reality of our world merging with the virtual one more and more. Especially when conversations relating to sustainability come up, people think about traveling less, that’s a big one. Fewer travelers means fewer planes in the sky, maybe fewer cars on the road. If people can purchase virtual artwork and populate their virtual homes with things they might not be able to access in the physical work, maybe companies like amazon would not have as much leverage in destroying the actual Amazon. So, in that regard I think it can be a massive tool but, as with all things, I think we should be weary of it playing too large a role in our lives. At the same time, people tend to think of computer storage and power as if they exist in some vacuum; which it obviously does not. In fact it takes massive amounts of energy to power the computer servers that make things like crypto-mining and NFTs possible. I try to always find an angle that allows me to address my motives and to me the NFT thing doesn’t exactly align with my philosophies of less; consuming less, desiring less, using less. Personally, I think I might always prefer to touch things with my hands and to make a mess in the real world.

Contact Info:

• Website: agathisms.com
• Instagram: @elaine.wendt

Image Credits
E. Wendt