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

Alright, Cathy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

This series of paintings is about our journey through a lifetime.

The Background
It was the pandemic, I had just moved from a home and garden I’d created and lived in for twenty years after a bitter and on-going divorce, all revenues for art sales had dried up, and I found out my Mom was in the last stages of cancer in Virginia. I traveled back to see her three times in the nine months we had left together. Early in the pandemic, pre-vaccine, when the trips were ill advised but necessary, then in the later trips when I encountered even more chaos with over packed planes and all services at restaurants and hotels shut down. These last visits with her inspired this series, and her legacy is the philosophical spirit she imbued in me, along with her style and creativity.

The Legacy
The last few days with my Mom in her home before going into hospice, we spent gentle time looking through photo albums of her life, and we reminisced about all the wonderful things that happened over the years. She lived an extraordinary life in so many ways. Between visits I would be working on paintings called “Heartland” and a “A Life Well Lived with Love”. I realized that I was painting that feeling of a long, connected life in a happy place, with loved ones and community. A place where you were an integral part of the landscape and the lives of everything around you, just like the spirit of the wild ponies of the southwest.

A few months passed and I was able to return to Virginia to see my Mom again, an unexpected bonus. This time she was weaker, and on pain medication, seeing hallucinations, smiling at little children running around the room that weren’t there. One time a man was sitting on her bed, clipping his nails. She asked if I could see him, no sadly I couldn’t. But perhaps it was my Dad, getting ready for her arrival. I was inspired by these experiences to paint “At the Heart of Life’s Journey”. She had lived a long and beautiful life and I again wanted to capture the idea of life as a place you journey through. The clouds are the passage of time. The depth of the canyon and distance of the mountains represent the many places you will go and things you will experience. The horses represent the emotion of life and partnership, connection and love. It’s those connections that are at the heart of life’s journey, the fellow travelers you meet along the way.

At the end I painted, “Journey to the Spirit Land” just after she passed away. I was filled with many emotions and I was surprised by some of the colors that appeared, the deep browns and blacks; representing the grief of loss and missing her. But then I saw the pink clouds emerge and the brilliantly glowing hills and I felt I was traveling to a place of the spirit, where sadness and joy combine to make a rare new emotion built from a lifetime of experiences. The final goodbye and the remembrance of joy in the same beat of the heart. The feeling of intense love as it flies through you to the spirit land, no longer part of everyday life. And then there are the horses. The partners of many lifetimes, the loyal friends, the circles of connection that continue. The clouds catching the setting sun are the fleeting nature of time. The depth of the canyon and distance of the mountains represent the journey we are on, the story we are weaving with our days.

Full Circle
A few months later I entered the painting “At the Heart of Life’s Journey” into an Oceanside Museum of Art show and I was honored to be accepted into their well respected 2022 Artist Alliance Biennial exhibition. I know my Mom was there in spirit, and she was well satisfied with the part of the journey she had shared with me.

Cathy, 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 best described as a Contemporary Expressive Colorist. My favorite part about painting is using color to create emotional meaning and visual depth. In choosing what to paint or how to paint it, I want my pictures to be more than the reality of description, and I strive to fill viewers with a sense of joy. Inspired by Matisse and Van Gogh, my goal is to paint what it feels like, not what it looks like.

I went to the Corcoran Art Institute in Washington DC, then got a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. I have painted everyday for most of my life. I paint the things I see and feel – even when it looks made up, it is based in reality. I try to find a story within a scene that is engaging. I look for wonderful possibilities of color and for ways to use exciting shapes and textures.

The natural world of animals and landscapes are my favorite subject matter. I think about my environment and the animals that share my world and I want to show them in a joyful integrated space. I love the feeling I get when I’m surrounded by nature. I have a philosophical approach to life, I see how things are similar to other things, and the “what if’s” of creativity. I’m fascinated by organic shapes, inspired by the feel of the wind and intrigued by how movement makes light dance in patterns of warm and cool. The night sky draws me in and the idea that looking at the light of stars is looking back in time thrills me. In order to express these emotions and ideas, I use brush-stroke marks to show the lines of energy I feel coming off living shapes, spreading and combining throughout all aspects of nature.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The pandemic had a big effect on my career. In response I accepted a position with a non-profit arts organization, The Surfing Madonna Oceans Project. The organization is based on the Surfing Madonna mosaic by Mark Patterson located in Encinitas, CA. My goal is to create more exhibitions for local artists that are well attended and have sales. I also created an Artist Award program that gives artists in need a $500 grant to use for their career. I promote the arts with press releases of opportunities and work at making creative opportunities for people to grow from, such as the “The Creative Challenge” which is a virtual event where you commit to working on a creative project for 100 days out of four months. The proceeds go Surfing Madonna Special Needs Surf Camps which we put on in the summer months. You can find out more about my work with Surfing Madonna at www.surfingmadonna.org.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

One of my favorite things about technology is all the shortcuts it has created. to a name a few: A favorite computer app, is Pinterest. I love being able to make boards of favorite images I can go back to and share with other people, all nicely organized. I have discovered so many artists I would have never heard of through searching art topics in Pinterest.

I also love the accessibility of cultural video content and arts programming. A current favorite show is the BBC Landscape Artist of the Year show. They get together professional and amateur artists in a reality style show to paint locations in England, and invite a whole bunch of regular artists to join them and paint en plein air. The paintings are amazing and the discussions are really cool about painting, and how it all happens.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/sky-arts-landscape-artist-of-the-year

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artstudiosandiego.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/careyartstudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CathyCareyassd
• Other: www.surfingmadonna.org