We were lucky to catch up with Diane Belgrod recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Diane , thanks for joining us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

I am not sure if it was the very first dollar I earned as an artist, but the most impactful moment in the beginning was soon after I had started painting again, after a ten year hiatus. A group of friends would hold shows at a local gallery in Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY. The curator asked if I’d like to do a solo show and for me that was such an honor. I’d been in a few group shows up to that point and had some pieces come close to selling but then never did. The opening of my solo show was the best feeling. It was a room full of people I loved and other incredible people from the neighborhood. At the opening alone I sold out almost the entire show. It was such an encouraging moment for me, to be supported by my community, and not just because they were friends but because they really loved the work. Another great moment for me was having some pieces in a group show, and these were some of my favorite pieces, so I priced them at what I thought they were worth, which was higher than the curator felt comfortable with, and higher than the other pieces in the show. I trusted my instincts and in the end two of the pieces sold which was a wonderful feeling, to see the value of my work acknowledged by the collectors.

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

I am a painter and I am inspired by our connection to nature and the nature within us. In my paintings I seek to explore this relationship through imagined scenes and from my life. Specifically, I am interested in the powerful undercurrent of the divine feminine and how this force presents itself within nature and within our society.

I have always loved making art but it was something that was elusive to me up until about seven years ago. I was afraid to take the leap to call myself an artist and instead buried my creativity in any commercial venture I could, as a subconscious way to legitimize being artistic. I was always just on the fringe of allowing myself to be an artist until I realized I couldn’t dance around it anymore, which was a scary and great decision.

These days I’ve been working mostly in acrylic on canvas and paper, varying between a more structured style of painting and a looser style, letting those styles find their way towards merging. I am drawn to joyful, luminous colors. I like to leave some elements in my paintings open and unfinished; allowing the white of the canvas to show through, the pencil under the paint, figures partially unpainted or undrawn. In this way I can acknowledge the canvas as the foundation for the work, and honor the potential of the subject, leaving room for the unknown and not yet formed, the void, where everything is born from.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I believe we are all artists. When something, like an artistic passion, is nurtured and encouraged from childhood, we are much more free to allow that passion to grow. In my experience, the narrative for artists was always the starving artist, someone on the fringe who was going to encounter a difficult time supporting themself through life. For me this became part of my subconscious story. I wish there had been more encouragement from the start because looking back I see the thread of my fight to be supported as an artist from the time I was little. Art is a very important part of who we are. We need it. The culture needs it, and so we should support artists the way we support other industries. There should be public funding and grants that are free to apply to and not so difficult to get. There should be supported studio spaces and live/work spaces for artists, and a gallery system that is more open to new artists, of any age and any gender. This is shifting, slowly, and I hope in the future we will see more societal acknowledgement of just how important art is to our civilization. The fact that it is not supported is a direct result of the imbalances in our society. Artists don’t tend to want to conform to the bounds of society and that is problematic of course for a society based on conformity to certain systems such as commerce and industry, as ours is. I believe we will get there. Much will need to shift at the foundation of society, but we will get there eventually.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

NFTs! I don’t get it! Haha I mean, I do, but I have complicated feelings about them. First, it highlights for me where I am on the digital divide, my generation, and feeling like I’m on the other side of something looking in that I don’t completely understand, yet. I guess I’m Gen X, I’m 43, so I am so thankful for the experience to have lived on both sides, an entire childhood without the internet, and then this insanely amazing connectivity that we have now. I remember feeling so bored and alone and stuck in my town as a kid and craving something beyond that, and now it’s all there in one second. It’s incredible. But I have a personal aversion to creating digital art. I like things that are tangible and tactile. I want to get up close to a painting and see the brush strokes. I understand that both physical art and NFTs are unique, and to each their own. I also completely appreciate art in all its forms and I think the expansion of art into this kind of digital space is exciting. That’s what’s great about art. I am sure there are people who prefer to look at something digitally and for them, NFTs satisfy that same feeling. Also every object is impermanent, but I feel that digital objects will disappear far sooner than physical works as the technology keeps changing, and that idea makes me sad. I love looking at paintings from five hundred years ago and feeling the connection of our human experience across time. How long will we be able to have NFT art before it disappears into the ether? Or maybe that is the point? Is their potential fleetingness and intangibility part of what adds to their allure? I don’t know! I like wondering about this though. I always wonder how many kids will have any photos of themselves in forty years when they are adults, when the cloud becomes something else we can’t even perceive yet. It’s why I physically print pictures of my son every month. So that’s just me. NFTs are great. Everything new in art is exciting, and fun to talk about. Let’s see what’s next! In the meantime, I’ll be at some museum staring at a dusty painting on a wall!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dianebelgrod.com
• Instagram: dianebelgrodart
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/uR1lBvxytdg

Image Credits
Diane Belgrod