We recently connected with Ally Bartoszewicz and have shared our conversation below.

Ally, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I think I’ve always known I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally, but I didn’t actually take that seriously until the end of 2020. My desires to have a) a “real job” and b) a positive impact had led me into teaching positions that simply weren’t healthy for me. It took me being mentally and physically at the end of my rope to think, “Wait, would if art COULD be a real job and make a positive impact?”

There was one distinct moment where I was painting after work just to process the reality of my burnout, and it was like the curtains of my conditioned thinking around career parted for a moment as I painted the words to myself: “Do you trust you?” At that point, I didn’t have much to lose in trusting myself, so I began preparing my art website that very day.

It’s taken years of trial and error to build the art business into a full-time gig, and so much support from both my circle and the greater community, but it’s the best decision I’ve ever made. I can confirm it’s a “real job” and I’ve had many customers graciously confirm it has a positive impact. Plus, where I used to experience Sunday scaries, I now experience Sunday excites, and that’s the best feeling in the world.

Ally, 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 am a painter whose work focuses on celebrating life as it is, and/or inspiring hopeful imaginings of what could be.

My style involves vibrant, layered acrylic brushstrokes which help me convey how I see the world: both in its breathtaking aesthetic beauty but also in the deep feelings of my inner world that color that experience. When I am moved by a place or experience (a total eclipse, the perfect turquoise water of Vintgar Gorge, a musical performance, a beautiful angle of my own city I’ve never seen before), I aim to share all aspects of it on the canvas.

Similarly, there are times when I paint to grapple with harder experiences, harder feelings, and harder truths about the world. It’s in those moments that I find my art is an opportunity to process that pain, bright some light to it, and create something that inspires a hopeful way forward in both myself and other stubborn dreamers.

I sell original paintings, as well as prints and other printed products to keep my art accessible to people of all income levels.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being an artist encourages me to engage with life in a really observant, vibrant, alive way. I can’t “play it cool” around beautiful things OR hard things as an artist, as my best work can only come from my honest, human responses to life. And then, because of that, connecting with others through that art is so incredibly rich.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In a society that values speed, productivity, and max profit… I challenge us all to remember the importance of art, and keep it prioritized in as many spaces as we can. Find small ways to choose meaning and creativity over the bottom line, whether it looks like allotting some of your business’s budget to having a mural painted, allotting plenty of your school’s budget to creative programming, posting a poem on public transport instead of an advertisement, hiring a pianist to play in the hospital lobby, hiring a ceramicist to make mugs for your café, shopping from a local craftsperson for your holiday gifts, encouraging the creativity expressed by people around you and making time to nurture your own inner artist. Yes, it might require some slowing down. But if we all make small shifts like this within our own realms of influence, I think it would be healthy for everyone–building up the creative ecosystem while also enriching our community as a whole.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://allybartoszewicz.com/
• Instagram: @allybartoszewicz
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561697184327

Image Credits

Shannon Chavez