We were lucky to catch up with Amelia LaChance recently and have shared our conversation below.
Amelia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
As someone who has always loved art, I have taken art classes for as long as I can remember. I began learning aesthetics and composition in high school. As far as technical skills go, I learned much of my current processes in undergrad and graduate school. Although, I think everything I had learned prior had helped inform these skills. In being asked how to speed up the learning process, I would advise people to work really hard. Art is a competitive field and it really requires a work grind. Additionally, if you are in classes, I think forming close relationships with your instructors can have a huge impact on your progress. Be open to criticism. The faster you learn to not get your feelings hurt, the better, because you can use critique to really grow as an artist. When you shut down all critique, you are keeping yourself from hearing the things that can benefit your work.
There was a time when I was getting really caught up in the planning process of creating artwork. I had a professor tell me “just make the pieces and decide how you feel about them after.” This hugely impacted my progress, my work developed exponentially when I began to do this. It’s easy to get caught up in planning a piece because you want it to be good. But it’s important to remember that you are learning while you are working through pieces and in completing them.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a visual artist. I got into creating art as a child, I went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in sculpture and a bachelor’s degree in art education. I am now working towards my Master’s in Fine Arts at Arizona State University. Conceptually in my work, I started from an analysis of personal gynecological experiences, I became interested in the way women are disconnected from their bodies as a result of the historical and ongoing gender disparities against them within the medical system. How do I and other women navigate our bodies as an entity that is hidden, foreign, familiar and sacred? How do our bodies relate to the cold harshness of the tools that are used on them? Is the obscurity of the tools the same as that of the female body? Feeling this disconnection within my own experiences, these questions became central to my practice.
In diving deeper into centuries of anatomical knowledge and treatment of women’s bodies, I began creating imagery of fantasies born of my own layers of curiosity, discomfort, and inspiration from historical witches and madonnas.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Funding the arts is of course a huge component of supporting artists. Beyond this, having ways for artists to build community is really important. Art is all about community, you grow and benefit by being around artists that can challenge you and support you.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
There is something compulsive about creating artwork that is really rewarding. As an artist, you have these questions and ideas and you compulsively create a work to sort through the idea. It’s a really energetic and beautiful space to be in when creating work. It’s a hungry feeling that is very rewarding.
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Image Credits
Amelia LaChance