We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cecilia Wong Kaiser a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Cecilia Wong thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

From the time I was little, I thought I would be an artist. Drawing was my superpower as a child: it helped me make friends (so many kids thought it was cool that I could draw!), and it helped me understand the world around me. I am ethnically Chinese and was born in Burma (Myanmar), and growing up in South Carolina and Tennessee in the 1970s and 80s, I was often one of the only persons of color in any given classroom, and definitely the only person with my background; my ability to draw was another positive distinction that probably helped me appreciate that being different wasn’t bad.

One of my majors at Brown University (where we call them “concentrations”) was in Visual Art (painting), and immediately after college, I studied Fashion Design (majoring in ball gowns!) at the Fashion Institute of Technology. After interning at two design houses in London, however, I realized that I loved drawing/painting/fashion design either too much or too little to pursue it professionally – I wanted health insurance and a steady paycheck, and I was afraid that, as a professional artist, I would have neither financial security nor the freedom to pursue my artistic vision, having to produce work for sale instead. So I went to law school and worked quite happily for a decade as an attorney in various capacities, ultimately retiring as a partner from a New York City firm to become a full-time mom.

When my law firm needed a slew of paintings for our newly redecorated space in Battery Park, I didn’t hesitate to create a series of colorful works (mostly color field paintings – some quite large – with lots of movement and texture), but even then I didn’t think of myself as an artist. It wasn’t until I started volunteering as a Guide for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art several years later that I began to think seriously about returning to one of my first loves – painting. After listening to me repeatedly say that I thought I could make work similar to at least some of what I was spending so much time discussing at the SFMOMA, my sweet husband called my bluff: he rented a gallery for my fiftieth birthday party, which meant I had about three months to fill the gallery walls with roughly 25 original paintings. Always one to meet a deadline, I made 25 paintings in three months; my family and friends came to the party and to see the paintings, and we had a lovely time. But even after the warmth of that reception, I did not yet dare to think of myself as a professional artist.

What finally got me to make the leap, I think, was accepting that to become a professional artist meant starting at the very beginning: there is no lateral position of moving from law firm partner to professional artist. It seems so painfully obvious now, but much of my reluctance to call myself a professional artist, never mind to try to be one, was based in fear. While various skills I had honed as a lawyer might help me in my practice as an artist, I could not parlay my success as a lawyer into one as an artist, skipping over the initial steps that might (almost certainly) involve failure and rejection. That is a scary thing at any age, but after an adulthood of identifying as an accomplished lawyer, it felt particularly uncomfortable at my age (when many people are thinking of retiring altogether) even to contemplate embarking on another profession. Yet once I accepted that starting over was the only way forward, I found the courage to begin defining what being a professional artist would entail for me.

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

As a professional artist, I believe what sets me apart from others is the amalgam of all my experiences, including the many years that I did not paint. Although my path to becoming a professional artist has been somewhat circuitous, looking back, I can see that I have always been an artist. Even in the intervening 30 or so years after college when I didn’t paint because I was busy practicing law and then raising a child, I found artistic expression in so many other ways: creating a beautiful home, teaching (first, law and, later, art), writing, entertaining, sewing, cooking, and baking (I make a spectacular sourdough loaf!). I bring my unique story to every painting that I make, and I try to reflect the incredible luck that has been the story of my life. So I paint a quiet celebration of the everyday, my every day. To memorialize the sun-filled snapshots of living here and now that might otherwise go unremembered, I paint.

That my paintings make people happy tells me that I am getting something right! While it is a rather large claim, it is the comment I hear the most about all my paintings, whether they are figurative, landscape, still life, or abstract: people say my paintings make them happy. I have even been told by a collector that simply looking at one of my paintings has provided her peace during stormy times over many years. Wow.

I applied for my first juried show at the end of last year and was thrilled that my piece was selected to be the main image for that show. And this summer, eight of my paintings were chosen to be in the San Diego County Fair’s Fine Art Exhibition, where I ended up winning seven ribbons, including a first and third place, as well as the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild Membership Award. I even had the opportunity to give a couple of Artist Talks at the Fair, during which I invited people to share the stories they saw in my paintings. Using Visual Thinking Strategies (which I learned about at the SFMOMA), I was amazed at the depth of narrative the viewers were able to build from simply looking at my paintings: they saw things that even I hadn’t seen, and I made the paintings! Through art guilds, I’ve met several other wonderful artists who, like me, came to their practices later in life. I’ve also received lots of love on Instagram, both from other artists all over the world at various stages in their careers and from people who have found a connection between my work and important moments in their own lives.

I am especially proud of having accepted and successfully completed my first non-family portrait commission. For some years, I have declined portrait commissions, because I felt that taking such a commission required that I incorporate changes or make adjustments requested by the client, and I work best when I follow my own direction. This client, however, was willing to allow – and in fact wanted me to have – free artistic reign, and the result brought us both close to tears. It was such a show of faith on her part to entrust me not only with portraying her literal likeness but also, and more importantly, with capturing her spirit. When painting portraits, there is always a moment for me when the person in the painting comes to life, when that person is suddenly imbued with breath and almost steps off the canvas. That is when I know my work is done. When that transpired with this particular painting, I was a bit surprised, because without knowing her personally or having met her in real life, I felt that I was able to embody all the stories that have made up her life and brought her to this moment: she came to life on the canvas. That is both powerful and humbling.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is being able to make connections and bring beauty into a world that sometimes feels terribly broken and ugly. I believe art is vital to forging kinship among strangers, and it has the capacity to move people both intellectually and emotionally. Art even provides that rare space where disagreement can be a good thing; art makes community. When a painting of mine sparks joy or curiosity, provides a moment of calm, or simply recalls something familiar or comforting to a viewer, I feel I have, in however small a way, made the world a more connected and, therefore, more beautiful place. Talk about having a superpower!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson I’ve had to unlearn is that there is no one right way to becoming a professional artist. Because my work in college didn’t have an overtly political bent and I drew with paint (instead of “painting” with paint), I felt discouraged from pursuing painting professionally and strangely shy about sharing my work. And at some point soon after, I stopped painting altogether. But living through the last several bruising years, I no longer feel apologetic about making happy pictures in the way that I want to make them. All my paintings are drawing-heavy, and I still draw with paint (proof of that is the still-pristine carpet in my painting studio); once in a while, I might paint a line that has not previously been sketched out, and I have been experimenting with disrupted realism (fun!). Most of all, I understand now that it is up to me to create my own field of dreams, and to believe that if I build it, they will come. It took me a while to get here – to start painting in earnest and following my own direction – but I’m not in a hurry, and I have so many stories to tell.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ceciliakaiser.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ceciliawongkaiser/

Image Credits
Hanno F. Kaiser