We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emaline Sampey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emaline below.

Emaline, appreciate you joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

My experience as an artist who got a job to make ends meet is unfortunately, a very common one. I, like many young creatives through college and early adulthood, got swept into the food and beverage industry. Now, perhaps to the outside observer, bartending and painting may seem like opposing skill sets. Like a monk who Djs on the weekends. But ask any 20-something creative with four roommates, a student loan on deferment, and only one pair of unstained pants, the marriage of bar life and an art life can be rather harmonious.

‘Bar life’ is loud and chaotic. A wonderful reprieve from ‘art life’ which lends to the grave quiet; the existential dread of staring into a blank canvas.

‘Bar life’ is social. Maybe not your preferred social life, surrounded by other creatives and intellectuals. Maybe it’s more like the social life of a barback forced to converse with the bar regular—who you tried for months not to make eye contact with because of his frequent, drunken misogynistic rants —but a social life nonetheless. ‘Art life’ however, is often a solitary life, often not leaving the studio for days on end, until your partner lovingly reminds you of the importance of showering and hair brushing.

But most importantly, while you are just getting started in your ‘art life,’ ‘bar life’ means money. And money is needed for canvases to make art and then to hopefully turn around and get more money for said art.

I counted down the days, months, years until I could finally say, “I’ve left the service industry for good.” The day I could finally say, “Sayonara” to my career of late nights, swollen feet and eating the majority of my meals standing over a trash can in the kitchen. I couldn’t run, with open arms, into my ‘art life’ any faster.

But when I arrived, I had not anticipated just how out of balance my life would be. I knew that working in bars had prepared me for the demands of deadlines, kept me flexible and focused in the face of catastrophes, taught me how to laugh off rude patrons while maintaining a level of charisma but I was completely unaware of the wide open blindside I was left with. I had not anticipated that the constant stream of dopamine and stimulation left behind at my old job would suddenly be left up to me to fulfill.

Let me explain. You can work a fourteen hour shift on a restaurant floor, and you can despise every millisecond of your life during that shift. But every time you drop a check, take an order, sell the most interesting pour of mezcal on your shelf, you get this little hit of “you did good.” A spectacularly small affirmation from an outside source. And over the course of a shift, a million of these affirmations flood your brain. And even if it was the worst night of your life, you know there were these teeny-tiny moments where “you did good.” A trap, to lure you back into another shift.

Similarly, in the studio, I can spend fourteen hours, with few breaks, finishing deadlines, writing contracts, solving all sorts of compositional issues, even closing sales and I get to the end of the day and feel—nothing. It’s almost as though, because my productivity was witnessed by no one, I have nothing to show for my efforts. This phenomenon took months for me to properly identify and for some time I was petrified with the belief that maybe, I just didn’t like ‘art life.’ That maybe, I wasn’t actually cut out for it.

In truth, to this day I still don’t know that I have a solution for my lack of stimulation and daily dopamine hits in my ‘art life.’ Except that perhaps those external affirmations were the very thing that was holding me back from jumping into my art career full time. I needed to learn that in order to be truly fulfilled as an artist, I need to let go of this child-like desire to be loved and affirmed by others. My art, and how I feel about my art, when I’m most alone, is the only thing that actually matters and should be the only thing that fuels me. And that lesson, it turns out, is best learned in the grave quiet moments, staring into a blank canvas.

Emaline, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Emaline Sampey. I am painter and Illustrator living and working in Savannah GA. I have a small, but loyal following of similar local creatives and supporters.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

For some reason, the non-creatives in my life have this perspective of me that I am this starving artist waiting for my “big break.” That if I could just be savvy enough or connected enough or talented enough to come up with this million dollar idea—patten it, reproduce it, sell a million of them—that my life would be complete. That I wouldn’t need to keep slaving away in the studio; that I wouldn’t have the burden of painting to take with me, late into my life. I think it comes from this really dark capitalistic ideal that life without money has no purpose, but once you have money, you no longer need a purpose—or worse—that money is the purpose.

It’s so hard to explain to folks that my life, right now, in the present, waking up and having the privilege of creating everyday—is enough. Do I have an end ideal of what I want my life to look like? Absolutely. Do I have financial goals and aspirations? Of course. Do I struggle some months to make rent? You bet I do. But painting is my life and for as long as I can make it work, I am fulfilling my purpose. The act of creation is my purpose; the fruits of my labor are gifts I have the opportunity to delight in, but I am not entitled to them.

Have you ever had to pivot?

In continuation of what is mentioned above, I felt the need as a young artist to “tweak” my passions into a more monetary profession. In art school, for example, I studied graphic design and advertising thinking that would scratch the “itch” of being a creative whilst still building a career that could financially support me. By ignoring my true desire to be a painter I ended up getting washed up into a sea of over saturated industries that were becoming more and more obsolete with new technologies.

Now I know so many incredibly talented designers that will absolutely stand the test of time and continue to have successful careers for years to come. But for me, struggling to be a mediocure designer was a poor career mistake and pivoting back into painting after graduating turned out to be the happiest and most profitable decision I could have made. Being authentic, as it turns out, pays off.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Emailnesampey.com
• Instagram: @EmalineSampey

Image Credits

Robin Maaya