Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carrie Clayden. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Carrie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I love being my own boss, I have had many jobs working for restaurants, hotels, florist, but none have fulfilled me as much as being in charge of my own business.

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

My name is Carrie Clayden and I am a professional artist who paints in Acrylics in a semi abstract expressive style. I was always searching for my “thing”, my calling or niche. I wasn’t always artistic as a child so it was easy to discover, I tried many jobs, school and didn’t find my way until I was much older (40s-50s). I even majored in Art in college but felt like an imposter, I compared my work to others and found it much less developed. In fact after getting my art degree from UCSC in 1995 I quit art altogether. I was married and raising children so I focused on that primarily, still yearning to know what my true calling was. I tried interior design, floral arranging, concierge, waitressing, and all were temporarily good but not quite enough to hold my interest. The pivotal moment came for me when I read the book “The Artist Way” by Julia Cameron. It’s a workbook for creatives to find their purpose. It asks you to do artist dates, to write and answer questions about yourself and really WORK at finding your calling. I decided to try a painting class for an artist date and then a lightbulb went off. The spark that was always there was ignited again and I fell back in love with painting. The big realization came during the class. I loved painting, I just didn’t love MY painting. My eye was more developed then my skills. I had to let myself learn, grow and get better, to not be so critical of my work and then maybe I would get good enough to like it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is being my own boss. I love being in charge of all aspects of my business. I make my own hours, I can make art when it works in my schedule and work on details of social media and gallery relationships. I teach art classes on zoom rather than live as my lifestyle is very mobile. I split my time between living in Santa Cruz, Ca. and Flagstaff, Az. I am fortunate to be married and have financial security with my husbands income. However I am proud to say I have worked hard at my profession to be able to be self supporting if needed. I have cultivated a career that suits my life ideally.

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

A lesson I had to unlearn was to be an artist you have to be born naturally gifted and talented. This was not my experience. I had to learn how to paint, taking years of trial and error, stop comparing myself to others that were better and most importantly NOT listen to my critic who always told me my work was bad. Once I made the decision to learn, to understand my work was amateur , I made progress. I looked at lots of art for inspiration, copying and learning to find my way. I switched from Oils to acrylic because acrylics helped me be looser, using water and my hands to play. I credit Robert Burridge’s style as a huge influence. He modeled having fun painting, something I had never seen before. He used paper towels as a brush, his hands and he was laughing while creating. I had only seen painting as serious in college, many rules of composition, laying out the palette in a certain order, using the right brush etc. I was so stiff using those techniques which resulted in stiff paintings. Once I started using water and acrylics, finger painting and throwing paint, I was having fun which started to result in more lively and interesting paintings. My goal in painting is to surprise myself, to find interesting marks and create a lively atmosphere.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.carrieclayden.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carrieclaydenart/