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

Hi Heather, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Like a lot of artists, I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t creating – as a child, I was constantly drawing, or making complicated little dioramas out of stuff I found around the house. In some sense my professional path has always been creative to a degree – it’s just taken some twists and turns.

By the time I was 12, I’d decided I wanted to be an architect, and everything I did was in pursuit of that – I took drafting classes and joined a Boy Scout Exploring program mentored by a local architect. This was partially because my dad was an engineer, and didn’t think art was a viable career – architecture seemed like a place where I could have a regular career and still be creative.

I did my undergraduate degree in Environmental Design (essentially a pre-architecture program) and then went to grad school intending to pursue a Masters in Architecture and eventually get my license. But by then I was starting to realize that my heart wasn’t really in it – I had a deep respect for architects but it didn’t feel like my calling.

I dropped out of architecture school and fell into web design – at that time, the web was pretty new and if you knew Photoshop and HTML it was easy to break into. I picked up some graphic design along the way. Tech jobs took me to San Francisco, but in a couple of years there was a big recession. After getting laid off twice in 6 months, I had to really sit down and reassess. My favorite classes by far had been my drawing and art foundation classes, and I’d kept that up, especially enjoying working in collage. I thought – what if I really give art the time and energy it deserves? What would it be like to be able to do that full-time? I talked to my partner and we decided to give it a go. I’ve never really looked back (although I do occasionally work on websites for other people, especially artists).

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’m an abstract painter whose first love is pattern and second love is color. My work focuses on the interplay of order and spontaneity. I work almost exclusively on panel, and my paintings start with a piece of patterned fabric that forms the base for my pieces. I also create raised geometric patterns on all my paintings, using stencils that I design and cut on a machine and then push a thick acrylic medium through. This gives my pieces a tactile quality that I think is unique and really has to be seen in person – so I generally only sell originals and not prints or reproductions.

I’ve refined this set of unusual techniques over many years – I began working as an artist primarily in collage, then moving to mixed media and eventually painting. I’m a self-taught painter and I love acrylics for their versatility – for every effect I want to achieve in my paintings, there’s a technique to do it with acrylics.

My background, as I’ve mentioned, is in architecture, and I think that very much informs my work – both my strong desire to create a sense of space and depth within my paintings, and my obvious love for the grid. When I was studying, the movement in architecture was to really push against ornament and decoration – the look was very minimalist and form-driven. But I always loved over-the-top and maximalism, and I think my paintings are a push against this. I love filling my work with pattern and decoration and bright color.

I’ve always been inspired by textile design – thus my use of fabric as a base and repeating patterns throughout my paintings. My recent work has been centered around the atmosphere – the weather, the skies above us, the movement of wind and energy.

Overall, I want my paintings to offer optimism in an increasingly chaotic and uncertain time. I paint to evoke positive emotions, even if I’m not always feeling them myself. The repeating textile patterns are meditative and soothing in their regularity, a reminder of threads winding through history and my tiny place in the world. It’s important for me to bring all the elements in my paintings to create a harmonious whole and a balanced, beautifully finished object.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There’s so many rewarding aspects, despite all the difficulties! I think the most rewarding aspect is being able to set my own flexible schedule. I’m able for the most part to work on what I want when I want to, and I have the extraordinary privilege of deciding my priorities. The buck stops with me, though – if something’s not getting done, I have only myself to blame!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I would say that the coaching of Alyson Stanfield of Art Biz Success has been a huge impact on my thinking and entrepreneurial strategies. To begin with, her coaching programs made me actually start to realize that my art *is* a business, and to think about it in that light. Over the years, she’s really helped me focus (and periodically re-focus) on what’s important to me and my art business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://heatherrobinson.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hnrfineart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heatherrobinsonfineart
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@basmatiheather
• Other: https://mastodon.art/@hnrfineart

Image Credits

Bob Hsiang Photography