We were lucky to catch up with Cyrille Conan recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Cyrille thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
I’m still pinching myself that I’m working as a self employed artist. It’s been a long time coming and a lot of work, but worth it all. After graduating with a BFA in Painting from the Hartford Art School at University of Hartford, I moved to Boston. I had a friend that was already living and working there. He had graduated from the same art school a few years prior and was working for Boston Magazine at the time. He had a friend that wqs working for a high end custom picture framer called A Street Frames here in Boston. He gave me his number.
They were looking for people. Within two weeks of arriving, I landed a full time position with health benefits. This was amazing to me.
They worked with local galleries and museums here in Boston and in NYC as well as artists, private collectors and interior designers. It was the ideal job for me. I got to see the inner workings of the art world and I polished my woodworking skills. All the while, I set up a make shift studio in the basement of my apartment to try and keep painting.
Within a few years, I worked in various positions within the company including deliveries.
I started driving artwork between NYC and Boston once a week. I got to know all the gallerists and museums on a first name basis. Witnessing all the successful artists doing their thing.
I ended up working there for 11 years up until the 2008 financial collapse. It was a good run.
I wasn’t sure what to do. My parent’s lament of choosing to be a painting major was nipping at my heels.
I had a friend that was working on the art install crew at the Institute of Contemporary Art,Boston.
The art installation crews are generally made up of a motley crew of artists and musicians that work
part time and are hired contractually. I came in and interviewed with the head installers and got the job.
Like I said, these types of jobs are part time and are notorious for not paying very well. But once you get on this circuit, you can find jobs at other museums and galleries doing the same thing.
I would highly recommend this type of job for any aspiring artist, if you don’t mind being broke.
I worked with some of my all time favorite artists, see their process and work with them on their museum shows. I basically learned everything I might need to learn on the job to be a working artist.
I did this for 7 years and worked at The Rose Art Museum, The BCA, The Isabella-Stewart Gardener,
Harvard GSD, Carpenter Center and ended up at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the Design Department as a prep.
I did this for 7 years. All the while, also keeping a studio practice and showing my artwork wherever I could. In 2013, I painted my first large scale mural.
As my work developed into what I do now, I started getting more and more mural jobs. It was as if every mural I completed made 2 or 3 babies. I was working every weekend and all my vacation time producing murals. The last few years have been a blur. I was exhausted and well into my 40s at this point.
The take home pay from the MFA for my position was not a livable wage. Not in Boston, anyway.
My wife was a yoga teacher and this job was the only way to have affordable healthcare for my family.
So I stayed and worked through it. Then, last June, my wife landed her dream job and we were able to get health insurance through her. I was free.
It had been a long time coming. I was making 3 times my salary in art sales with all the extra work I was lucky enough to make on weekends. The day job had pretty much just gotten in the way at this point.
I’ve been living my dream for about 9 months now and I’m busy as ever. I feel seen and am so incredibly
grateful. I turn 50 next week and it took 30 years to get here. Time flies and hard work pays off.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was born in 1973 and grew up in Queens, NY to French immigrants. I am first generation American and am bilingual. I have dual-citizenship and identify both as French and American. This duality is apparent in my artwork. The graphic nature and grit of the work derives from growing up in NYC in the 70s & 80s and the love of nature and natural forms distilled in me from my Celtic/Breton culture have transformed into a minimal, organic, geometrical abstraction. I’ve been developing a vocabulary of various mark making, collage and textures to allow for the paintings to generate as honestly and intuitively as possible. Each layer informs and dictates the final composition until I find a visual balance of form, color and repetition.
I consider my improvisational process to be a response to the intersection of two modern phenomena: the destruction of nature, and the growth of technology. Having a regular studio practice keeps me connected to nature and is an act of defiance against our current condition.
I graduated with a BFA in Painting from the Hartford Art School before planting my roots in Boston in 1998.
While my primary practice is still painting, I work in a variety of mediums and scales. I’ve produced site-specific installations and murals in numerous states as well as local galleries and public spaces in Boston, including The Cyclorama, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Boston City Hall.
Like I said, I love the natural world. I originally was a Biology major and wanted to be a marine-biologist.
At the age of 19, I had a freak accident at the beach and broke a vertebrae in my neck. I had to take a year off school and during that time, I realized that I wanted to be an artist or was an artist and switched direction. The only art I had made at that point was graffiti in the streets of Queens and my notebooks.
I realized I had a lot of work to do. But I also knew how stubborn I was and believed in myself.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
I think this is just a fad. Or maybe I should say I hope it’s just a fad. I’ve been approached numerous times to make some and I always turn them down.
Humans have so much work to do in this actual world we live in. I have no interest making work for an alternative world. Not to mention the impact these have on the environment.
Might just be my age, but I have a fear of technology. I never liked it. I use it as little as possible. Even though it takes more and more space in our lives. Don’t even get me started on AI.
Does no one read or watch sci-fi?
The part of making art that I love the most is the hands on experience and interaction between myself and whatever it is that I’m creating. It cannot be replicated with technology.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
This is all still new for me, but I’ll say that having my time be my own to do whatever it is I want to do is everything. To be able to just make and live in a place of beauty or what I consider beautiful. And of course, people telling me they love what I do and paying me for it never gets old.
I’m happy to have found something that feeds my soul and that I can do until my dying day.
Speaking of which, I love the idea that when my body leaves this place, that I’m leaving all this art behind.
It will outlive me, that’s magical to me.
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Image Credits
All taken by yours truly…