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

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

I was post-op from Johns Hopkins at the Ronald McDonald House in Baltimore, and the small library there had a book on Medieval and Renaissance Altarpieces. I was fascinated by their beauty, the history, the technique, and decided I would start painting as soon as I was able. I started dreaming in paintings. Some months later, I began painting oil landscapes at age 17. I didn’t have any particular draw to the subject matter, but the classroom was wheelchair accessible, which I needed, so that’s what I studied. For years I took every drawing and painting class I could find. Then, almost on a whim, I took a sculpture class. Some years and many classes later, when I found myself at the bottom of a dumpster because there was wire down there that looked like interesting material, I knew I was official! I fell absolutely in love with sculpture. I was bedridden for most of my adolescent years, my entire world had been in my mind, ephemeral, illusory. Unlike my imagination, or even flat canvases, sculpture was real: it took up space, cast shadow, confronted the viewer, demanded one navigate around it— an artificial landscape I could create and imprint a memory in another human mind. I was hooked and I never looked back.

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 mixed-media artist, improviser, and poet living and working in Austin, TX. I’m always experimenting with new techniques and materials— I love to be challenged, surprised, destabilized by the work and tend to start projects that require new skill sets. That way, I’m always a beginner— it keeps a raw, searching quality in the work that I’m always moved by. The works I’m making now are more personal and vulnerable than they’ve ever been, and I’m excited by the shift and the possibility it opens up in my process and in the work itself.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most treasured thing to me about being an artist is that nothing is wasted. Every pain, trauma, grief, love, loss, memory, overheard phrase in a café, texture or patina noticed on a morning walk— all of it makes it into the work. I can highlight and hold up to the world something overlooked, forsaken, and declare it beautiful, meaningful, poignant, and that’s an incredible power and privilege. I can transform my own suffering into something beautiful, useful, sacred, solemn. This is a form of hope for me, a form of spiritual practice. It has carried me through years of unspeakable pain, grief and isolation, and I know it will continue to sustain me.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’ve faced health challenges throughout my life that have, time and again, upended my trajectory, altered my life irreparably. And I’ve had to fashion an identity separate from who I thought I was, a self worth beyond my productivity, or my ability to contribute and be useful in the ways I had, or to even feel a sense of agency in my own life for periods of years, not days, or weeks, or months. This has pushed me, always, to create. To metabolize, alchemize my suffering through artistic practice. To make meaning from gratuitous suffering. That’s my superpower, I think. My resilience is my doggedness in seeking the light, my leaning always toward life and the living, and that’s the impulse at the heart of my work, however that manifests visually.

Contact Info:

• Website: htolleson.com
• Instagram: @htollesonart

Image Credits

Portrait Image by John Langford Photography. All images of the artwork are by the artist.