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

Hi Allison, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I seem to continue to take a risk daily. For me being an artist has no certainty, period and paradoxically very risky. Most likely as a pre-teen I knew I wasn’t like most people around me. Definitely trying to “fit in” took years of my life, some unsurmountable efforts, several slack jaw moments, more than I can count moments that helped shape who I’m today. I felt more comfort in atmospheres that claimed it’s own space, the kind that were, are multi-sensory. Even though I was often on the outer rim-a bit of a shadow lurker (due to low self esteem) I took those risks, and steered into the ripples those risks created for me.

All of that sounds abstract but I think deeply and I feel everything. Having grown up in the suburbs of NYC, I intentionally took my first job with a master craftsman, a functional sculpture furniture maker, David N. Ebner. This man was a character and ever so talented, from then I was graduated and moved to NYC, went to art school and racked up major student loans. I most certainly used that money to travel during the email cafe – pay for 15 min sessions. My first trip criteria was how far could I go, which landed me in Bali, Indonesia for three months. I never had a great sense of direction, so right on the ocean line was home base, this way I could walk left or right for miles and miles and not get lost. My second trip was to S.Africa for three months, also pre cell phone times. My best friend and world traveler was there, we did frog leaping to each other and away from each other along the south east coast during those months. I saw the most beautiful remote places till this day, I also had the most hilarious, wild and risky experiences! I would say those two were the most epic of my trips.

I do recall a time in my life when shit was dark, I renounced being an artist, a painter and fled to Mexico, to the ocean of course, in hopes to rattle all this crap off me and figure out where or what I was doing. My unrelenting judgment of my capabilities, my self, was so loud it was screaming again. Kermit really said it best, “It ain’t easy being green”. I simply had a hard time being me, I woke up on a deflated air mattress and having a swig to get straight and kept going. I soaked a bridge and tunnel group with the bodega’s watering hose on 10th n B, a block from my apt, while on something, bald head except for some colored extensions as a widows peak, no eyebrows and my coveted long black velvet coat. They were pretty pissed, I was very close to being beat the fuck up…but that dude paused with the metal garbage can over his head when I just stood there and stared at him. That was not an everyday occurrence but a phase that paints the dark times. I’m not and wasn’t a mean person, I was definitely being bold and for the most part anything mean I did it was towards myself. I was queen as self sabotage. I didn’t figure out what I was doing when I went to Mexico, I also did not renounced oil paint, I kept going.

At this time I also fell into a group of kids who were on the outer rim and I felt kin to them, even if they didn’t feel the same about me. With my low self esteem and ever so sensitive self I had an alpha friend whom we shared much love. I got to be “in” without being in the spotlight so I didn’t have to have that much confidence among a large group of extremely talented, worldly, cray cray, wackado, exquisite creatures I call friends today. I still make oil paintings, I have also introduced silversmithing recently into my repertoire of mediums and most importantly I like myself now. I take risks in a different way now, risks that of an artist, meaning I live against the grain on the other side of what your supposed to do. My friends well my family really get it. There are times when you do what you have to do, but those are short lived because without “making” things and making time to “make” things, I’d rather die.

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 am a multidisciplinary artist, special collections archivist, and licensed massage therapist based in Norfolk, Virginia. My creative practice is deeply rooted in material exploration, emotional resonance, and a reverence for history—personal, geological, and cultural.

By day, I work as a Special Collections Archivist and Librarian at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens, where my love of preservation and historical narrative informs both my academic and artistic work. I often teach oil painting classes at the Hermitage School of Visual Art. I’m also the founder of Lucky Cat Massage (@LuckyCatMassage), a bodywork studio located in the Juniper House—a collective of powerful, intuitive female practitioners. My massage practice is not separate from my art—it is a continuation of it. My hands are my medium, whether I’m casting metal or guiding someone’s body through release and realignment. I approach massage with a deep curiosity about our musculoskeletal composition, using thoughtful, intuitive touch, stretching, and connective tissue work to help people feel better, softer, more whole.

As a lifelong painter, I’ve always turned to creative expression to process the intangible. Over time, my practice evolved into jewelry-making, discovering in metalwork a medium that could hold memory, weight, and transformation. Jewelry, like painting, can become part of one’s emotional and nostalgic landscape—an adornment that channels the wearer’s story. I cast one-of-a-kind pieces in precious metals, drawing inspiration from Modernism, Brutalism, Avant-Garde, Art Deco, and Gothic traditions. I’m fascinated by how metal carries its own past—its geological history, metaphysical properties, and the fact that even when melted, it remains.

The objects I create are solid and substantial, yet imbued with quiet boldness. I aim to offer pieces that can be worn every day, to bear witness to your story and offer a sense of grounding. Each piece is an invitation to imprint your emotional resurrection—highlighting the magic of you, bearing light, beauty, and transformation.

Articulating these ideas in words has never been easy for me. Instead, I express myself through form, texture, and imagery. My work is informed by lived experiences saturated with color, resistance, balance, fear, love, and rebellion. These elements are present in every object, every stroke, every intention.

As an artist, preservationist, gardener, painter, jeweler, and seeker of knowledge, I am drawn to the shadow side of existence—the melancholic, the forgotten, the in-between. I find deep inspiration in the writing of Uwe Goldenstein, particularly his reflection on painting in darkness as a space of pause, rupture, and renewal. In that space, I locate the power of adornment: it becomes both archive and alchemy. My hope is that my work offers that same pause and possibility to those who engage with it.

You can follow me on instagram @Termine.art also my massage @luckycatmassage thank you!

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I leave this piece of writing by Andre Trovoskey. I don’t know that much about him but I like this. “A true poet, if he truly is a poet, cannot but be a believer. Perhaps that explains the cultural crisis we’ve been experiencing for many years now. When I became a believer, when I became religious, I don’t mean without sin only that i’m simply more and more convinced that culture cannot exist without religion, in a certain sense, religion is sublimated in culture, and culture in religion. It’s an interdepend process. If a society needs spirituality it begins to generate works of art and give birth to artists. If it doesn’t need spirituality, it makes do without art…but that number of unhappy people will grow. The number of spiritually dissatisfied people will grow. Human being will lose their purpose and no longer understand why they exist. – Andre Trovoskey.

To support artist and creatives, elevate them and help them make a living. Some of our greatest efforts in the human race were created by artists. Just pause and think about what it would be like without the “fabric” we all create which we all live.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Creating and being in the flow is probably the most comforting place to be. Im not saying that after stepping back from creating there is no internal constructive and not constructive judgment going on… Im just saying that whats most rewarding is when being in the flow of creating what comes of that is unique and yours, but then it’s out there in the world to share and that is a crucial disrupter in a good sense of the word. If what you create comes from a place like a “true poet” you will indeed find connection within yourself to yourself and to others, who probably need it in one way or another.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/termine.art/?hl=en

Image Credits

Allison Termine