We were lucky to catch up with Brigitte Boucher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brigitte, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Some of my most meaningful projects have been those that explore personal identity, particularly self-portraits. Any work of art becomes more meaningful when it resonates with viewers and communicates something relevant for them. One of my biggest joys in sharing my work is hearing how it impacts viewers and helps them open up something in themselves.

The most recent of these projects was a self-portrait I created as I was coming out as nonbinary. The timing was serendipitous: right around the time I was starting to put words to this aspect of my identity, I I saw a call for an art show focused on LGBTQ+ artists in Wisconsin. I decided I would create and submit a self-portrait that expressed this aspect of myself (deadlines can be very motivating!). I knew I wanted to incorporate pronouns as text in some way, and I wanted to use imagery from nature that hinted at queerness. I ended up depicting a text scroll held up by hummingbirds like Baroque putti. The hummingbirds hint at existence beyond the gender binary: most hummingbirds are sexually dimorphic (meaning that males and females have different colors), but in a species called the white-necked jacobin, some females have plumage that mimics that of the males. I included one of these birds along with a male Rivoli’s hummingbird and female ruby-throated hummingbird to hint at the potential of unique gender expressions.

Happily, the piece was accepted in the show and received a lot of praise. People connected with it. Creating it was very affirming for me and helped me come out publicly–it gave me a visual representation and celebration of myself to share.

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 queer nonbinary artist (pronouns: she/they) making art marked by curiosity and a desire for knowledge. I have a passion for realistic figurative art and portraiture that combines elements of nature illustration and symbolism. I work primarily in 2D using pastel, oil paint, and other mediums.

Like many artists, I have explored myriad creative outlets throughout my life, whether making my own illustrated books from scrap paper as a child or learning to throw mugs and bowls on the potter’s wheel as a teenager. In college, I studied studio art and English, which helped me analyze the building blocks of communication and understand the power of storytelling. These skills have been valuable in my own creative pursuits as well as my “day job” career path as a sexual health educator, social media specialist, arts copywriter, and now a marcomm manager in the field of higher education. Last year, I returned to school to earn a master’s degree in Arts and Creative Enterprise Leadership from UW-Madison’s Bolz Center, where I added business acumen and nonprofit leadership skills to my toolbelt.

I love learning new things, and curiosity is one of the driving factors of my creative pursuits. I may feel compelled to experiment with a new medium, sample every kind of pastel paper to find my favorite, or read about the history of pigments or scientific illustration. I also love exploring new educational opportunities, like a week at Penland Craft School studying figurative sculpture, or a week at the Bimini Shark Lab in the Bahamas learning how to combine art and science while encountering ocean wildlife.

Another driving factor of my artwork is a desire to communicate deep truths about myself and connect with other people through explorations of identity and belonging. Part of this is motivated by wanting to understand these deep truths myself—as I seek to share them with someone else, art-making gives me an avenue to work through things and solidify them in my own mind.

I am especially interested in how we construct, understand, and express our many layers of identity, especially gender and sexuality, mental health, the body, family dynamics, and memory. I am fascinated by the visual records of an individual’s life—the intimate stories told by letters and journals, photo albums and family trees. More broadly, I am interested in the ways we make sense of our place in the world through mythology and storytelling, natural history and science.

Working from life is a cornerstone of my art practice, offering an opportunity to explore the most basic foundation of identity—the body. I am interested in what our bodies and faces both reveal and conceal about who we are. I am equally interested in exploring the idiosyncratic features that make each of us unique and the shared features that connect us to the rest of humanity.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

One of the most important things I’ve learned about myself and my process is how much I need a supportive community around me! About a decade ago, I started attending open studio sessions at Atwood Atelier in Madison, WI, more or less weekly. Having a regular opportunity to make art in a public space, connect with other artists, and discuss our joys and struggles—I don’t know where I’d be without that. Part of the benefit comes from committing to spend an evening a week out of my home in front of an easel. Carving out that time to dedicate to my art practice during a busy work week can be so refreshing and remind me of what really matters. But the biggest benefit comes from being part of a community and having opportunities to connect with like-minded artists from different backgrounds. And the more connections you make in your local art scene, the richer and more expansive your own art practice can become.

I think back to my first few years living on my own after college and how challenging everything seemed—I felt like I was flailing. I think a big part of that was that I didn’t yet have a community, and I didn’t fully realize how much the built-in community of school had buoyed me. I also had this idea that I should be able to do everything on my own and figure it out myself. I was dealing with strong anxiety and didn’t really know how to ask for help! I’ve learned so much over the years about asking for help, making connections and networking, and finding kindred spirits to share with and build each other up. That’s what an art community is really about, and I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to do that.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’ve had to unlearn the idea that external metrics of success are what define you as an artist. And that the only way to be a “real” artist is to earn your entire living from it. While this can be an achievable goal, thinking this way was very unhealthy for me and led me to believe that I was a failure. I felt that there were certain boxes that I was supposed to check, but I didn’t know how to achieve those things, and so I felt like I wasn’t cut out to be a “real” artist.

As I’ve gotten older and gained experience and perspective, I’ve realized that I was putting an incredible amount of pressure on myself that was actually hindering my creativity! Once I was able to mentally lower the stakes for myself and take away this black and white idea of success, I’ve been able to find the joy in artmaking again. And I’ve learned that having a day job separate from your creative work can be a good thing, providing stability that nourishes your art practice.

I can say with certainty that my career does not look like what 22-year-old me envisioned. But I can also say that I’ve kept going, which is no small feat and worth celebrating! It’s okay for your creative work to ebb and flow as you weave it into the multifaceted, complicated thing that is life. It’s okay for artmaking to take a backseat when other things need tending to. You can come back to it, and it will still be there. I’ve learned to embrace any forward momentum while not beating myself up about the stops and starts.

In short, I realized that the most important thing is perseverance coupled with self-compassion. For me today, success means to keep creating and exploring at whatever pace and in whatever ways feel good in the moment. Artmaking is intrinsically valuable to me, and if I can keep tapping into my own well of creativity in new and interesting ways throughout the course of my life, I feel like I have succeeded.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brigitteboucher.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brigitte.boucher/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brigitteboucherart/