We recently connected with Lacey Mills Murray and have shared our conversation below.
Lacey , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
I have not be empowered to make a living full-time off my personal art practice. I think this is a leap a lot of creatives are timid to make, and if I am being honest, I haven’t had the courage to break from, let’s say, a more stable means of income with benefits. However, I have found a way to use my creative talents in my 40-hour a week job. I work with artists through the Exhibits Department at a children’s museum. We also developed and build our own exhibits in-house, so I am often able to use my painting skills at work and am tasked with developing arts-related interactives for our exhibits. The drawback of working full-time is spending so much of my time and energy not on my personal art practice. It is where I am at right now though, and I am thankful to be able to use so much of my creative mind and skillset to earn a living in this way.
Lacey , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Lacey Mills Murray I am an artist living and working in Pittsburgh, PA. My preferred medium is acrylic on canvas, but I also dabble in watercolor painting, pastel drawing, mixed media, and ceramics. I seek to make the world a little more beautiful of a place through the, often abstract, imagery I presents in her work.
I am originally from West Virginia and earned my BFA in Painting + Teacher Certification from West Virginia University. I began my career as an art teacher at a rural middle/high school in WV, where I taught for six years. I pursued a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies from the Johns Hopkins University, and this prompted my ambition to work with artists in a museum context. In 2016, a job opportunity at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, where I currently serve as the Associate Director of Creative Experiences, brought me to the city of Pittsburgh. I have been exploring and navigating the art scene in the city, and have met so many creatives through personal art endeavors, as well as through my work at the Children’s Museum.
In my work at the Museum, I manage several artist in residence programs, oversee our permanent art collection, curate art on display at the museum and within temporary exhibits, work with artists to produce programming opportunities to share their practice with our visitors, and commission artists to create new artwork and installations for the museum.
A year ago I gave birth to twins and am trying to establish a balance between my creative practice, full time museum work with artists, and being a mother to two wonderful babies.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I would like to talk about rewarding aspects of my life as a creative, and as well ask my professional work managing creatives.
Personal creative practice- Having a personal creative practice (2D visual art in my case, sometimes ceramics) is a way for me to visually express ideas and communicate without words. I have a lot of thoughts and things to work through jumbling around in my mind, but can’t always articulate what I want to say about these matters. Creating is a reprieve for me from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and gives me the space to work through or further explore things going on in my life and mind. I love to put on some music or a audiobook and zone out a bit while creating a work of art. When sharing my work, I love to see what others notice or find in the imagery. I will often title my works to reflect what I was thinking about when creating the piece, and elaborate in artists statements that illuminate the meaning behind the work, for me. However, I love how each person can view an artwork and derive their own meaning or stories or symbolism and create connections to their own life or current state of mind.
Profession work with creatives- Working at a museum and having the opportunity to work with a wide range of artists is not only intellectually stimulating, but having the ability to share an artist’s work in a museum setting, and potentially propel their artistic career, is an opportunity I recognize and value. It is also amazing to share an artist’s work with our visitors, which are young kids and their caregivers. We have art installed throughout the museum, including many interactive artworks that visitors can physically engage with. The goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space for people to explore and enjoy art. Introducing young people to a variety of artistic mediums is important, as well as showing them that they too can create art and strive to be an artist or creative themselves. Overall, being a support for artists navigating showing their work in an institution and all that goes along with that (contracts, budgets, etc.) is a lot of what I do, and building a skillset to be able to work in this type of setting and make money off their work is an important element of creative practice. It is very rewarding to build relationships with artists in this way to support them while they build and navigate their artistic careers.
Side note- I have always worked full-time since earning my undergraduate degree. That has put certain constraints on my personal creative practices— fighting for the time and energy to dedicate to my own artistic endeavors. Being able to work in a creative field with artists (and have a stable paycheck and benefits) allows be to exist in creative spaces professionally, while I’m not always able to dedicate my energy to my own creative practice, supporting others in theirs is the next best thing to me.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
One of the ways to evolve ones own art is to view art of others. As my enlightenment of the art world and contemporary art that is being produced has expanded, my view of my own work and what I am producing is elevated. This often has made me no longer like a work I have previously created. My husband says that’s why artists should sell their work, so they can’t revisit it and despise it years after it was made, as I often do. :-) Anyway, I really enjoy the website https://www.thisiscolossal.com I get their art/culture daily email showcasing contemporary works being created in all mediums. There are some amazing and awe-inspiring works being made out there, and because of the internet we are able to document and share what’s being created. Many of the artworks I view in this daily eblast give me ideas and inform my personal artwork, introduce me to artists I may want to work with through my museum work, or just show me some awesome artwork to admire and be inspired by during my day.
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