We were lucky to catch up with Anne Harkness recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Anne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the toughest parts of scaling a business is maintaining quality as you grow. How have you managed to maintain quality? Any stories or advice?

My company is Anne Harkness Fine Art. It is run by me and I am the sole owner. The question of quality was always a focus, for me. If the artwork was not strong and just as I wanted it, I did not consider it complete and therefore you would never see it is it was not complete.

As I have grown as an artist, I have realized that it is not the gallery or the show or the market that should be driving me. It is the passion and my dedication to create quality artwork. My goal is not to please another person but to walk on my own personal journey.

My advice for other artists is to remember who you are and what you love. Set your sights and pursue your personal journey with art. Go where it leads you and as often as needed, reset to remember who you are and what you love, no matter what.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For as far back as I can remember, I have loved creating art. After a long low spell in my life and a few decisions that caused me to risk it all( even my very life), my brother suggested he and I take an oil painting class together. He knew nothing of my struggles. The class was 40 highway miles away and expensive, so it was not something I undertook lightly. But the very first class, I absolutely fell in love with oil painting. I had been a graphic designer and had used oil paint in college and since then had used watercolors, acrylics and colored pencils. But this was such a strong igniting of my soul that I grabbed it with my heart and hands and havent let go. God was in it with me loving that I was becoming filled with life. It seems that although I didn’t and I don’t really understand the power of artwork or its value throughout history, art does have power and it is something people cherish.

My paintings are contemporary and distinctive in appearance. There is evidence of a strong design and a recognizable subject. I use lines to construct the subjects and those lines remain visible in my paintings. They are visible and tend to promote the viewers eye to continually move all through a painting. Mostly, my subjects are ordinary scenes, like townscenes, chairs, and telephone poles.

The paintings are for sale and are various sizes, from 6 x 6″ – 60 x 60″.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My creative journey is lead by joy and thankfulness to God, thankfulness that he loves me and that I get to paint. My life hit an all-time-low, it was my version of the valley of the shadow of death. I felt very close to death, indeed. My situation was due to my choices to take a risk putting everything on the line, in hopes to grow closer to God. There was no doubt in my mind, that I would either be with God up there or down here, but my world had turned black. The thought came to me that this could be an opportunity for Jesus to do his death to life, turn it around, thing, if he wanted to.

Pulling myself up by my bootstraps was out of the question, I was not going to do that. If there was a turn around, it would have to be initiated by God, not by me. My planning, manipulating and controlling had gotten me into this situation; I was not about to put my trust in myself. I purposed to suck all the juice out of this bitter season and not hurry through it. There must be stuff for me to learn in here and I hoped not to have to repeat this season. I would stay-put, as long as it took.

Ever so slowly, the darkness lifted. It took years. I worked. I went to counseling. I went home. I didn’t see anyone except for my family and my counselors. I didn’t do anything extra.

Eventually, my brother invited me to take an oil painting class with him. I’ve told you about that already. My goal in painting and in my life now is to rest in knowing that Jesus laid everything down for me to have life and that he loves me, no matter what I do. When I was a teenager, I didn’t know what I was doing when I asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my heart to live. I dumbly, trusted he would do it. Later, I learned that is what is called faith, believing when you cannot see something in the physical realm. Somehow, it registered for me that he had and does forgive me. But I still felt bad when I continued to do things I thought I shouldn’t do. Wasn’t his love for me based on my doing the right thing? Turns out, his love is not based on what I do or don’t do. It is based on what he did for all of us. Well, that is the best news I have ever heard and it sounds like he knows me and loves me just as I am. He already knew that if there had been only one rule, I couldn’t keep it. My getting to paint is my saying, thank you for loving me, Jesus. What could be better than that.

Sometimes, I find myself feeling like I should jump on the bandwagon because other artists are jumping on that wagon. But, then I realize that is not where I am supposed to be. I can celebrate their successes and I can give thanks for mine. There are enough blessings to go around.

When a show comes up, or a gallery wants something from me, or a patron wants me to paint something, I am reminded that I want my response to be, thank you God, thank you that you love me and that I get to paint. When I focus on gratitude then, that passion, gratitude and joy fill my paintings and my life. These paintings are my offering of praise to God. In a nutshell, stay focused on the most important thing, even if your life depends on it.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Asking about my creative journey is really asking about my life. There is a creative journey, but I never could have anticipated how it would all fit together. It wasn’t so much about needing resources to accomplish my goal of being an artist, but more about trusting in an unseen plan. This would be what I would call my most important resource, this unseen plan.

I say this because from a child, I loved creating and I guess I was good at it. Was I a stellar student in a challenging academic school? No, I was dyslexic and barely passing in an academically challenging school. Did I always dream of being an artist? No, I dreamed of being a social worker. In elementary school, I enjoyed leading the other girls since I was the lead horse and we would jump over ditches and revines in our playground, while the cowboys tried to round us up. Does that path make any sense? Not to me, but it was fun.

In the 7th grade, I started responding to magazine ads and pulling out the strongest sesigns and putting them on my walls. After high school, I ended up going to The Atlanta College of Art then transferring to The Maryland Institute, College of Art receiving a BFA in Graphic Design. My next step was working for a newspaper in Annapolis, MD for a year. Eventually, I moved to NYC to marry my husband, Larry, and got a job as a graphic designer, which lasted 15 years.

Children followed, but I was always creating some form of artwork, whether colored pencil drawings, photography, painting floor or ceiling designs, or simply sketching. With the addition of children, came homeschooling and tutoring kids with Dyslexia. All the while, I was making up board games to add some fun to tutoring.

Somehow, my teaching kids lead to teaching artwork to kids, and then to adults. Finally, I took a few oil painting classes which lead to a job where I had been taking classes. Only then did my love of oil painting take off.

By now, it had become apparent that this was one area when I could shine. My husband said he felt my whole life had been in preparation for my getting to oil paint. Finally, a plan had come together, a plan which I never had anticipated.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.anneharkness.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annephark/
• Facebook: facebook.com./anneharkness/