We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin Harms. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.
Erin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
The one of the biggest risks I’ve taken would probably be accepting that I wasn’t ready to pick my college focus and dropping out to focus on figuring that out. I originally was going to school at the University of Houston for psychology and eventually wanted to move to neuro-psychology. During that time I had started to get into costuming so during my hiatus I learned how to pattern and sew. I ended up going back to UofH and got my BFA in costume design. But as life sometimes happens, I ended up working in admin for dental offices. The second risk which really made my artistic career happen is I missed creating. I ended up quitting my desk job to start creating home decor items which led to me painting.
I really had no proper training besides what I had with costume design so I just started to practice. Friends and family started to want to buy my little dinky paintings. At that point I just went full in on painting.
It’s been almost 5 years since my first painting and I’ve been in quite a few gallery shows, participated auctions for foundations, and have sold quite a bit of my work. I’ve been able to grow a lot as an artist.
I definitely think I took some risks in life to get here and while at the time it was super questionable, I am so happy for where I am now. Otherwise…I’m not sure where I’d be.
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
I’m a mostly self taught Mixed Media artist who loves to work with skeletons and abstracts. I’ve done all sorts of things but what I love the most is bringing the subject of what’s within us to what’s beautiful in life. Color is so vivid and beautiful, you can make so much emotion with brush strokes, posing the bare bones of a human into familiar and possibly haunting or jovial is just so cool. Occasionally I will do floral work or birds cuz theyre so beautiful to work with. Lately, I’ve been working to bring more fabric work and textiles to give more depth to my work which has added a more mature abstract feel to my work. I usually include a lot of themes from my own life into my work and try to make it not so obvious but I’m sure everyone gets their own view of it. My work has always included symbols within the movement that I’ve mentally registered to certain events or feelings I was thinking about or feeling at the time. A lot of my work is pieces of me trying to heal from personal trauma.
I hope people can get something out of seeing some of the things I’ve created.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I think the most rewarding thing as an artist would be having someone feel as passionate about my work as I do. I’ve had clients who feel things about my work that maybe they connect with in a similar or different way than I had painted it with. I feel like when that happens I feel like I’m heard, even if it’s not exactly the same.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I grew up trying to be as perfect as possible with everything. As an adult, I ended up doing the same with my work. This past phase of paintings I feel like I’ve finally started to let go. I find beauty in imperfection now. Perfect lines or painting is great but there’s just something awesome about having raw unique strokes of paint. I do still feel like I am a perfectionist but at this point I feel like I’m a bit more forgiving and free.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/erinharmsart
- Instagram: @erinharmsart