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

Preston, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I think we’re all constantly learning more about our crafts. With painting, I set out to make things I had never seen before and try to let my own style develop organically. Not taking the art school route I instead go to museums and galleries as often as possible and also have a small but ever-growing collection of art books that I flip through in my downtime at home. For me viewing art is always a way to inspire me to come back home and get to work. Experience is an amazing teacher and one I try to come back to again and again. Aside from that, just being in the studio and giving myself over to the work continuously brings so much to the surface and is such a vital thing for creatives to do.

Musically, I learned (or at least attempted in public) by playing in a couple of church bands in my teens. It was a great way to know where G, A, and D were. Later I played in a rock and roll band, and that taught me what notes to play between the roots. The live element in both of those times added the extra pressure to rise to the occasion, which I was able to do most of the time! Lastly, in the past twelve or so months I’ve really been studying the guitar and what I want to do with it. That’s been entirely on my own with Youtube, various websites, chord books, and songs. In writing music I try to do what I do with painting and give myself over to the music and let it happen. Suffice it to say, I really like what’s been happening lately. My debut album, Texoma, was released on May 25th of this year and is available on Bandcamp! The link to thank should be down at the bottom of this.

Preston, 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?

I was born in Dallas and raised in Grand Prairie, Texas. I’m the son of a photographer and a hairdresser and grandson of interior decorators. It’s safe to say I came from multiple generations of people using their hands and eyes for creative work. Making art and playing music have been two constants throughout my life. While the latter took the bulk of my focus in my late teens and early twenties, the urge to put paint on the canvas again was always close to the surface. Upon taking some time away from music many years ago, I fell in love with painting again and developed my own look and language through visual art. My painting style consists of stacking thin layers of paint that I scrape across the canvas to generate kaleidoscopic color fields. I think that good art, or art made with good intentions, can be emotionally healing to look at and have around. I sincerely believe that’s what I provide with my art, both visually and musically. Having been involved in the local music scene, I started taking his paintings around to various concert venues and selling them inside, and occasionally outside, the venues in the DFW area. Becoming a regular to be seen at Deep Ellum Art Company, where I grew a decent following among the reoccurring concertgoers. I had my first solo gallery show at the Janette Kennedy Gallery in Dallas, Texas summer of 2022.

I’m currently releasing ambient guitar-centric music under the name Curatorial. The debut album will be released on Bandcamp on May 25th of 2023!

Today I live and work in Fort Worth with my wife, Alexandra, who is a choreographer, visual artist, principal dancer with Texas Ballet Theater, and the best thing that ever happened to me.

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

Personally, the act of creating is the reward. There is a special joy that I do not find anywhere else other than in making something wonderful and with love. The other thing would be delivering or hanging someone’s commission or recent purchase and seeing the smile on their face as the piece rests on the nail for the first time. That never fails to feel like a really beautiful moment. There are plenty of struggles that come with this lifestyle, but they’re all worth it in the end.

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

I’m glad they’re going the way of the dinosaurs. There are enough shady money shenanigans that go on in the higher echelons of the art world, so let’s leave that kind of thing to them. I think that one thing NFTs and the impending major proliferation of AI are going to ring in will be a revolution in tangible art made by real humans. There’s no soul in art made by machines or just made for money. To be honest, I look forward to that being a reality.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @LighthausCreations & @_Curatorial_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LighthausCreations & https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092842230446
• Website: curatorial.bandcamp.com