We were lucky to catch up with Chris Pav recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chris, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Being a creative, nothing in life is as simple as one way or the other. We are our own worst critic and our biggest supporter, we love our new painting one day and fight to not throw it out the next. For a long time, I was always jealous of my peers for having a ‘roadmap’ in life. Where they might go to school for accounting and they know that when they finish school they can look up and apply for accounting jobs. There seemed to be a bliss to having a more clear path in life, of course, that’s not to say they don’t have their struggles and burdens. But I always found that life seemed so confusing as an artist, there never seemed to be a roadmap. I never was really sure what my niche was, what medium I should use, or what to do with my art. It felt like I was reaching for strings in the clouds and hoping to grab one. It took years to find the beauty in the uncertainty as an artist and the excitement that comes with it. We can do anything we want, I can do anything I want. Artists have this hunger that is only satisfied with doing. Is it a constant struggle being an artist and a complete roller coaster of emotion? of course. Am I happy? well, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.

Chris, 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?

What’s up Art Nerds, my name is Chris (not to be confused with my alter ego, Cowboy Chris), and I am an artist from the woods of Connecticut. I mainly paint with watercolors with a heavy interest in painting landscapes and scenes en plein air. All while documenting these journeys with videos I call ‘Art Adventures’

After working full-time as a designer for a year I decided to up and quit to become a caricature artist. This is where my love for plein air and video-making found its start. Finding myself with a lot of time to kill while sitting at my caricature stand I started painting what I see and posting them online. Along with the paint live streams I did during the lockdown, I was getting a lot of interest and positive feedback on my art and how I engage with it. This is where I found myself wanting to shift my art focus to more interactive content. Hoping to inspire others to just get out there and create.

There’s so much to say about my adventures and art journey but the biggest thing I want people to take away from me would be to just make some art. I will have prints and things for sale soon, but what I always loved most was hearing how I inspired someone to pick up a pencil after a long time, or even pick up a brush for the first time. It’s art, anyone can do it. Go out and have some fun

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

Other artists! This is not a competition, make friends, network, encourage, and engage with other artists. We can learn so much from each other and inspire one another to push ourselves. I never really had ‘art’ friends growing up and found myself in this bubble where I wasn’t learning much. Some of my best art friends are people I never even met in real life, but once I started to meet artists from all over my entire art shifted in such a positive way.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I am going to sound full of myself right now but then again you’re reading an interview about me so I guess that’s kind of what you expected. I believe so much in myself and want to prove to myself that I can do great things. There’s this drive in myself that I really can do any challenge I’m presented with. I wanted to learn digital software so I taught myself video editing and Adobe products. I wanted to be better at painting so I taught myself most of my watercolor knowledge. I wanted to make a comic so I made a 50-page thriller comic. I wanted my art to be seen by the public so I designed t-shirts and murals. Thinking of a project and proving to myself that I can do it gives me such a drive to create.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cpav_art/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp8V_satDNn9bNUcXGgHg_Q
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@cpav_art