We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Allison Rohland. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Allison below.

Alright, Allison thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

After working at a nonprofit organization with artists with intellectual disabilities and Autism, I knew I wanted to pursue my work creatively. It was not something that struck me strongly over the head one day, it was a calling that slowly revealed itself to me as I continued to work with these inspiring artists who were unabashedly themselves. I wanted to be as free in my creative practice as them. And helping them to create and sell their work, it lit the path for my own art career.

It wasn’t until I was about to turn 30, that I came to the knowing that this is what I for sure wanted to do. I packed up all my belongings and moved to Seattle to pursue my art.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was a creative spirit at a young age. I was mentored by a local artist in the Pennsylvanian town I grew up in. She was a vivacious spirit and so inspiring to me. She would pick me up from school and I’d have lessons for a few hours until my parents would pick me up. In this work, I started to explore my own creativity and push the boundaries of my skillset. However, when I turned 13, I let my inner critic get the best of me and I stopped creating. It wasn’t until my early 20s when I started working at a non-profit studio and gallery for artists with intellectual disabilities that my creativity re-emerged and the confidence to explore what was waiting to be birthed out of me returned.

I’m an artist based out of San Francisco, California. My work deeply represents the integration and celebration of the fragmented parts of ourselves. My work spans from vibrant colorful abstracts to minimalist textural works with pops of terrazzo-inspired pieces. I am a process painter. I do not head into the studio with any preconceived notion of what a piece is going to look like. I let the materials speak to me as the piece unfolds. Much of my work is influenced by the energy of a moment, what I am going through personally, and my own surroundings. Every series and collection I produce has its own feel, but I think is an exploration of my authenticity and experience of the place and time that I am at in its creation.

What I want potential clients to know about me is that the work I create is something that I truly enjoy. It has become a freeing experience in the studio. I feel like the more I create, the more I have the confidence to be unabashedly me and authentic in the process of creating. It’s also a beautiful space to have the confidence to take chances and risks–nothing good was ever created from a space of fear.

I believe paintings are living, breathing things. And it is important to know what you are inviting into your home. Does it resonate and what does it mean to you? I’ve had many collectors who have bought multiple paintings from me and they will message me and tell me they felt called to name the painting something else and it spoke to them in a certain way. I want people to take and experience the work for themselves. I think a lot can get lost with arbitrary and overly explained artist statements. The people who are meant to find my work will find it and it will resonate in whatever octave they are in.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When I first decided I wanted to become an artist, I wanted to “make it” so badly. And in that process of trying to pursue success, I went about it in an inauthentic way. I started looking at the mass market and what was selling, I started looking to and asking others what they thought I should do when a collection release didn’t go the way that I wanted to. And slowly, in this process of externalizing my navigation for my art career, my art and self started taking a turn toward something really not true to myself. I was painting completely in neutrals, when I wanted to paint in and incorporate color. I practiced a Gabby Bernstein meditation and connected with my intuition. I scribbled in a journal: “paint in color and you will be successful.” Tears began streaming down my face in this really knowing way. For so long, I had been asking others and seeking others’ approval, but did I like what I was making? Was it what was on my heart and soul to create?

Paintings are energy and people can tell very quickly with art whether it is genuine or disingenuous. There is “technically” good art–and that is a trap that prevented me from creating for years. But then there is art that truly makes you feel something. (the two do not have to be mutually exclusive). But why I was called to be an artist was a feeling. It was an energy to want something more for my life. To share a part of myself that I had buried long ago. Something I told myself I couldn’t have. Something I said I wasn’t good enough at. The list could go on of the couldn’t’s, the wouldn’t’s, the shouldn’t’s.

But the lesson is to stay true to yourself, to your work, to your art. No one else knows what is waiting to be birthed from you into the world, but you. No one can answer that question. No one knows what it looks like, but you sure as heck know what it feels like. And when you hit it, you know it. It’s funny because while I’m saying don’t look to the outside world to tell you what your art should be. I will say that the most compelling and genuine feedback I ever received from my collectors has been from the artwork, I have felt is a genuine representation of self. The art that lit my soul on fire, that burst onto the canvas, that challenged me in the best way. A lot of it, was my colorful art. People would DM me on Instagram with the most beautiful messages speaking to how much they were moved by my colorful work. And it was more rewarding than any painting sale.

And I am in no way saying I don’t paint in neutrals anymore, but it is no longer a constraint of, “I can’t paint in color because no one will buy it” to “I will create whatever is on my heart to create, because that is what my soul is asking me to do.” Be free. Listen to yourself. Your intuition knows the way.

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

I think the world needs more people living in authenticity and integrity. There’s so many messages going around in this world that we can’t be or do what we want, but really, the opportunities are there and waiting for us to take them. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”–is one of my favorite Lao Tzu quotes.

You don’t have to make the path, you just have to walk it. Sucess isn’t going to happen overnight, but if you continually put in the work to your craft and your truth, it will blossom for you tenfold. I think people get frustrated when things don’t go exactly as they want them to go. And for me, when things didn’t go as I wanted them to in the past, I quickly looked to others to give me the answer of why it wasn’t happening as I wanted it to. But truly, it was a call to turn inward and step into my truth. The artist path is one of authenticity. It is my life’s goal and mission with my work to create the work that feels the most authentic to me.

For me the mission is to make authentic work, to pursue this journey and path and show others it is possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: allisonrohland.com
• Instagram: @allisonrohland
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allisonrohlandart
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-rohland-01a218b4/

Image Credits
Allison Rohland