We recently connected with Abi Prie and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Abi, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

My parents are engineers, and while they’ve always been the biggest supporters behind my work, I didn’t really grow up in a space where I was watching adults choose art professionally and actually make money off of it. I’ve been making art since I was tiny — it’s how I explore the ways that the world is interesting to me. As a preschooler I drew the solar system to scale multiple times in the alley behind our house because I was interested in space. As a teenager I drew anatomical illustrations of animals I learned about. Right now I’m really into textiles, so I’m making a lot of quilt inspired work. Creating art is how I interact with everything and everyone else, but I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling shy about choosing it above financial stability, or even expecting to be paid for what I produce.

Last year, right before I moved back to Seattle from Nashville, I started realizing that anything other than this is a dead end, regardless of the paycheck. I also had spent a few years around people who were choosing creative careers and supporting themselves at least partially off of it. I think seeing others succeed in this area is so important, since it makes it easier to choose it for yourself. If making stuff is how I expand my world, why wouldn’t I just choose this with the short life I’ve got? I guess it’s not really a particular moment that I decided to take my work seriously, but a period of time in which I experienced a lot of change that sort of shook me awake — something about moving back to the PNW made me kind of throw out the anxious clutter in my brain that kept me from prioritizing art. Maybe my prefrontal lobe is done developing.

To be clear, I’m not totally self employed, nor do I necessarily need to be — my day work is still creative and tactile. I’m currently selling my work and also working at a glass fusing studio. Before that I worked at a pottery studio. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work in these creative spaces to fuel my personal work, and to have the opportunity to learn the technical parts of my crafts in them (like working with kilns). That kind of hands-on experience is incredibly satisfying and adds depth to my art. I think it’s made it better.

Abi, 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’m a painter, illustrator, and glass artist based in the Seattle area. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and moved to Nashville in 2017 to study philosophy. I moved back to Seattle in 2023. I spent my late high school years convinced I wanted to be a costume designer, and shifted gears multiple times in college, which is when I got into ceramics by working at a pottery studio. I started selling my pottery and ink illustrations here and there — I remember my first pop up was displaying ten illustrations at a food market/cafe next to the pottery studio. I was only charging $25 per illustration, which is nuts to me now! But I was just trying stuff out. I think that’s the biggest theme in my journey, which I’m still at the start of: I just throw things out there to see what sticks. A lot of it won’t and that’s part of the deal. You have to get over yourself a bit and you really can’t afford to feel embarrassed by what other people might think about you (that’s their business, not yours). My work has always been multidisciplinary and I won’t niche down, since that kills the whole exploratory drive behind why I even make things.

I consider myself a folk artist, since I blend fine art and philosophy with tactile, interactive work, intersecting “art” with “craft.” I make art for folks like me. My goal is not to make big pricey items for collectors, but to connect with people who want real, humanizing things in their ordinary, everyday homes. Things that remind them they belong within a bigger tapestry of meaning.

Mostly I paint on wood panels, and I make glassware. I’ll probably get back into pottery before too long. I love rich colors, symbolism, and storytelling. It’s important to me that I work with my hands and get a little messy. The more in your head you are about what you’re making, the more you have to pull it back down to earth through the sensory experience of actual creation. I’m still trying out new things, and I think that’s what folks seem to enjoy about watching my work develop — it’s good to watch people try.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

I love this question. I actually drew a couple, a few years back when NFTs popped off a lot — I was curious and was very quickly unimpressed. As I’ve probably made pretty clear here, one of the most important aspects of creative work to me is the hands-on, tangible, real life experience of it. I feel the weight of this importance even more now that we have AI as well. Art is going to shift in the future, but I don’t think AI or NFTs are going to come out on top, partly because NFTs in particular are so volatile and partly because I see them as the catalyst for changes, not the outcome itself.

The invention of the photograph in the early 19th century pushed along the modern art movement — we see the philosophy behind art move from the representation of reality to the expression of the individual and nonliteral, because we had to rethink the purpose behind creating art. If art was our only way to recreate what we saw with our eyes, and photography replaces that, then there had to be some other purpose behind making artwork. I think that living in the age of NFTs, AI, and “unreal” imagery makes us rethink our purpose as artists in a similar way. What is ownership of art if you are dependent upon digital access to it? What is artistry when an algorithm can produce things for you in seconds, for free? What is creation, and what is value?

I believe we are witnesses to the start of the next great art movement. It’ll take awhile for it to be defined and we’ll only really watch it unfold in retrospect, like any art movement. My prediction is we will see a return to the tangible, to our folk traditions and methods, and that we’ll start to define artistic expression as more collective than individual. I feel that getting to be a living, creative being right now is a great honor, not something to fear. I’m so curious about the future.

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

I get underestimated and talked down to a lot, and while some of this probably has to do with being young and a woman, I think a lot of it is related to a general stigma around being an artist. The stigma looks one of two ways: assuming an artist is foolish for not choosing a more lucrative vocation, or assuming they’re just incapable of doing “real” work. I think both come from a collective misunderstanding about what art actually is.

It’s not that I just see art as being one necessary component of society to a whole, but as an inevitable outcome of how all of those parts — STEM, healthcare, agriculture, politics, religion, trades, education, etc. — function together. Dismissing art as a valid occupation or as something of value is neither sensible or realistic if you wish to be part of a culture, community, or society yourself. Art is going to happen whether you notice it or not. Art is going to form you and reflect you whether you want anything to do with it or not.

All that to say, I hope that folks not directly involved in creative circles understand that I don’t do this because I’m not capable of other things — I do it because I want it. Also, weird to assume this path isn’t hard! I’m a naturally hard worker, so I’d like to put that energy into this great love of my life. Art is going to be made, always and everywhere, by somebody. So what if I want one of those somebodies to be me? What’s an “occupation” if not the sum of your earthly time spent occupied with something? Why not occupy my time with this? Why don’t you?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.abiprie.com
• Instagram: @abipriee
• Other: TikTok: @abiprie