We were lucky to catch up with Heather Hailstones recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Heather, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Painting began as a fun hobby for me, a way to relieve some stress and unwind after long stressful days at work. The more stressed out I was, the more time I spent painting. As I immersed myself deeper into my art I started to realize it was the only thing I wanted to do. When I was at work I could hardly focus on anything because I was just thinking about going home to paint. About three years ago I was in a pretty toxic workplace and knew I needed to move on and find another job soon, but when I thought of my future I couldn’t see myself sitting at a desk any longer, I just saw myself painting. I knew then that I had to try and turn painting into something more than just an obsessive hobby. If I could make money from my art then I could leave my miserable cubicle life behind for good, so I decided to do exactly that.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an abstract expressionist painter. I use acrylic paint, spray paint, watercolors, and other media to create artwork that reflects the inner workings of my mind and how I experience the world. My work is highly abstracted and rather than depicting anything tangible, I use colors and shapes to spark emotions in the viewer. I want people to see my work and understand what I was feeling when I created it.

I got into painting initially as sort of a form of therapy. I had this terrible job where I sat alone in a dim windowless office staring at a computer all day and it was simultaneously excruciatingly boring and quite stressful. It made me so sad to be there every day and I needed a good outlet for these feelings. I tried all kinds of things like writing poetry, making jewelry, doing yoga, but painting was the one thing that really helped me and really felt like what I was supposed to be doing.

I work in a spontaneous, improvised manner so I never plan out what I want a painting to look like or have any particular vision in my head when I start working. I usually just choose a color that I am feeling really drawn to at the moment and start painting. I often get inspired by colors I see out in the world and I just need to use that color or combination of colors and I see where it leads me. That tends to be how I create work for clients too when I do commissions, they give me a color palette as inspiration and I just go off that and create whatever comes to me.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The very first time I ever exhibited my work in public was a disaster. It was a group show put on by a very small organization in this tiny rented office space. They had accepted three of my works and I was really excited about it! When I arrived I found that the curator of the show had changed her mind and decided not to hang my paintings on the walls. Very confused, I asked what happened and was told that my work didn’t look professional because I didn’t completely paint the sides of my canvases thus they had been deemed not good enough to display on the walls with the rest of the art. The curator was extremely condescending and lectured me right there about how I wasn’t ready for a show like this and I had to learn to make more professional looking art. I went home and cried for hours and felt totally defeated. I felt like my art career was over before it had even started. I wondered if I should bother ever trying to show my work to anyone again. But the more I thought about it and agonized over what had happened, my sadness turned to anger and I realized that the woman who lectured me wasn’t any more of a professional than I was. She was just some rich housewife who puts on small town art shows as a hobby. She wasn’t the arbiter of fine art, she just had her own made up definition of “professional artist” and I didn’t need to listen to her. Instead of letting this incident derail me, I used my anger as fuel to create more art and push myself harder. I applied to more shows and more opportunities because I wanted to prove to myself that she was wrong about me. Every time I get accepted into a gallery show or sell a painting I think about that night. Every time I accomplish a goal I feel like I am proving her wrong. It was a terrible experience but I am glad it happened because I learned not to listen to anyone else but myself.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My main goal is just to be heard. I have kind of a hard time finding the right words to express myself or describe how I am feeling a lot of the time, so I do it with my paintings. I really want other people to see my work and feel an emotional connection to it and understand what I’m trying to say with it. The world is so big and I am so small and it often feels like no one is listening. All I want to do is share my perspective and hope it resonates with someone.

Contact Info:

• Website: artbyhailstones.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/nevertoomanycolors

Image Credits
Heather Hailstones