We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joshua Elias a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Joshua thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. 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?
When I was a small pup, 21 years old, I was in a hurry like most to grow up. I graduated with a Film degree, had done theater projects and could not get enough adventures loaded into my system. I had gone sky diving, free climb up a small mountain, falling 15 or twenty feet landing on a shrub, and more. None of this was a risk just a vibratory soul pushing boundaries of what is normal. I worked during college and took all of my savings bought a oneway ticket to Europe with a Eurail pass and barely a sketch of a plan. Context It was 1980- pre everything electronic. England., the Lake district, seeing the Queen in.London, Amsterdam, Van Gogh museum, Rembrandt, Paris the Louvre, Monte Carlo Gran Prix, Picasso Southern France, Cannes film fest, crashing All that Jazz party in a castle, all true but not a risk. Fell in love in front of Saskia with a German girl,(lasted on and off for 20years).. kept periodically traveling up to see her, I was cast in a movie at Cinecitta( never materialized) Went to Northern.Greece to see my Papoo’s (grandfathers) family, All of this within a four month period. Rail pass expired, forged it for another two months (changed the four to a six) ….all adventure still no real risk. With 50 dollars to my name, I left the girl in Bremen West Germany over an argument. I hitchhiked thru East Germany to West Berlin surrounded by the Wall, then I walked into the Tegel forest near the youth hostel. I was completely lost on every level. Exactly where I wanted to be so that I could find something inside. Within 24 hours I got a job with the US army teaching theater and writing plays for Army children. And got a place to live at the Frei university in Berlin. The risk was small but I was truly without a connection to anything that I knew. Yet I was connected. with my search.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I make paintings. Often very bold oil paintings with brilliant colors and floating forms, dreamlike. I facilitate a journey for the viewer. A journey of visions, different dimensions, full of light and hidden caverns to remind them that this journey is their journey. It is completely unique and very vibrant which can shift things in their world, and the world that they inhabit. A lofty sounding scenario but it is truly what I do and it is a service. The product is You (the greater You) -not the things that you pursue, nor the things that you find on Amazon, nor the things that you are pointed towards “to want” to help you make yourself into “something”, so that you can present yourself a certain way, so as to “become” a certain person, that the outside world will like or love or envy or cherish. My paintings are still, as the planet spins 825 miles per hour. We are set in front of a painting, addressing it, perhaps connecting to it. It is designed as an instrument to open up the mirrors inside the greater you.
The subject can be an alternative landscape, alluding to images that are there and not there.
But design, underneath the subterfuge, is this journey of which I have outlined.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Yes. To be clear my support of an artist is my own, interdependent on collectors and dealers, and advocates. Pure sponsorships have not been my source, nor personal wealth. I have worked full time as an artist since 1998 and not had a working formal job since 1992. I have been painting well over 30 years. That said there have been many long periods of consistent sales and lulls which one weathers, knowing that it is okay to not know, but anxiety during those periods can be high. Walking, playing tennis and boxing over the years helps me during these lulls. My personal mantra to “outcreate the destroyers” reminds me to focus on the artwork and do my best to take care of outside forces. And meditation and working on improving the manner of me handling money. None of this sounds sexy with regards to painting and creating interesting and beautiful artworks. It is a different head; the practical, the hard edged, the non aesthetic, but it is necessary to make space to do what it is important-creating art. Resilience. Around late 2017 and early 2018 I was in such a funk. I began working on a feng shui money program, designed to break up a pattern of “stuckness”. Also I began to try things that I was very much against. Two art fairs that charged artists to participate. I was not formally represented at the time. I did the Other Art Fair at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, the Bev Hills Art Fair and the Brewery Artwalk. Timing wise it was three consecutive weekends. I energetically sucked it up. And many things opened up as a result but not always at these fairs… but afterwards and following up it did. I was circling in new circles which is healthy. These art fairs themselves are not a formula for a response to change, but they do open you up to new things. In my case. licensing art, potential new collectors seeing me in several places in a short time span, private consulting and teaching with wealthy want to be painters and some sales. I ran into a collector from many years ago for example that was a surprise. So resiliency itself is derived from widening your purview. I have not done these art fairs again because I have not needed to and I feel that I should not expect to participate and get the same results. But it helped me in the moment.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding part is that my works bring a renewed spirit to someones space both inner and outer space. To alter an environment, both internal and external, is to be a weather maker, and it is an honor to be accepted as such. Once I sold three works to a collector. 18 years later through a series of circumstances through a different deale, the collector returned to my world with her new husband and purchased five artworks for their new home. During the install I was introduced to the young daughter, maybe 20 years old, of the collector. I was introduced as the man that created the painting that they had over their couch back in such and such room. The young girl looked at me and I could see that she had created all sorts of childhood memories of things around that painting. I think that she used to get in silly fights with her brother there and mini dramas like that. Yet the painting was always there a marker of space and time. This is rewarding to be part of the fabric of someones life that I really do not know. As well on a deeper level for someone to really connect and get a painting spiritually.
One client was going through a serious spiritual crisis. She purchased a painting of mine
hung in a special room to meditate on, and it became a healing agent for her in the time of crisis.
All of this is moves me and makes me smiles within.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.joshuaelias.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuaelias57/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joshua.elias.9
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-elias-b8baa65/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/outcreater
- Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=SxUJ-ILRzjY
- Other: Creativity Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrVn2wx70n0&t=254s EricMinhSwenson ARTFILMS https://youtu.be/care1fF11xA?si=hPFpQVLVhg3MpU98