We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lauren Whitley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lauren below.
Alright, Lauren thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
As an artist learning is a mixed process of gaining technical skills and discovering one’s own voice in creating. I learned through developing a curiosity towards what I respond to, what the reflection is between my inner world and what I’m responding to, and experimenting with techniques traditionally established to approach creating personal individual works of art. Knowing what I know now, and continue to learn, it’s essential for art and in a lot of things to be willing to get into a space that seems opposite of what the goal is, because while in a state of making mistakes towards proficiency I found I also was gaining a lot of valuable understanding of ways the techniques could be altered later on. I still wanted to know how to reach what would be considered a level of mastery at lithography for example, doing it the way I was taught and being humble, while also noticing things I like about what I messed up to go back and use it again.
The most essential skills I have learned as an artist is to take that heart’s desire seriously, to be open to trying new approaches, to create a practice, and to learn to trust myself through that practice. I think the biggest obstacle is always my own idea of limitations, if I think I can’t do something the door closes, if I stay open to the possibility I can, in my own way, and take the steps that turn up from that perspective something starts working.
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 artist working in several different medias, mostly painting though I’m also really drawn to sculpture with found objects, multi media in general, and currently building some small houses in collaboration with my aunt who is also an artist. I got into art as a child, it’s always been a manner of thinking and being that has felt like a home to be in. I originally was going to major in philosophy while in college, taking art classes along the way for myself, then realized that art is (to me) the center and origin of philosophical thinking – and it was what my heart really wanted so I ended up getting a degree in art. The work I make is a counter play between my intention as an individual and what actually happens, it’s really important to me to acknowledge during the process that most of what I get to make is now from a place of intuition, with my job being to figure out the means to get there. It’s the exciting part, to be in a space where I get startled by creating, experiencing a mixture of being out of body and within at once that feels open to new territory. Creating art is a powerful means of developing self trust, of allowing ourselves to speak to us from outside of the day to day consciousness. When we establish a conversation there’s a new kind of freedom available through that relationship with our souls.
In my work I try to touch into mythical perception. I think makes the work appealing to others because they are able to see elements of their own spirits present, similar to how we might identify with characters within a larger symbolic story and therefore find a deeper truth of who we are. Colors and different symbols touch into the universal in all of us while affecting us in our own particular ways, it’s a shared language and I’m hoping to create both a mirror and an inviting open door for the viewer.
Art is a shared experience, it reflects the realm of subtle feeling necessary to access in recognizing wholeness in the quiet spaces of society and self. I think cultural myths, cosmologies, and folk tales using animal totems and symbols serve a similar purpose so I’ve been integrating figures of legends into my paintings over gestural abstract bases. I want to reconnect the viewer to their relationship to the natural world through symbolic language. To the kinship we as people have to the animals around us. Through stories we’ve heard with animal characters all our lives, and to the instinctual knowing that makes one animal feel more familiar than another.
In my general practice as an artist it’s essential for me to communicate interconnected with nature and to include it’s presence as part of my overall work. The wild places are the source of all art, and conservation is extremely important to me as an artist and person.
My intention is for the the art I make, whatever medium, to serve as a jumping off point and return landing site both for me and the viewer into the wide and rich realm of our true core selves. Certain images, symbols, materials, arrangements have the power of making space for that, so that’s what I’m looking for, my hope. Always fun to chase too, and fun to look for in all art.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The environment is very important to me, I want work I do now and in the future to always contribute to creating investment in it’s protection, Artists are valuable to the restoration and care of our world by offering alternative ways of engaging people and approaching questions in new ways. Creative thinking can add joy and honor to the process of society adapting to new manners of behavior as climate change alters local traditions, creative thinking can provide projects that engage people on large and small scales to encourage personal empowerment over a sense of defeat. We have the power to show each other through environment based art projects, that we belong here and this is our world to care for in caring for ourselves. Art can bridge gaps through it’s tradition of shifting perspectives and offering new visions, new storylines; wide collaborations between people from multiple fields towards environmental health is close to my heart and what I hope to contribute to.
It’s important to me to be conscious of the tools I use, I’m working to move towards using recycled materials whenever possible. I’ve always been drawn to using things as they are, to point to the sacred in the mundane, and lately I’m becoming more intentional about making that part of my whole practice. In some of my work I sound recordings with groups of people that engage the body through grounding the participant where they are at, to highlight our connection to the earth, with part of the session being doing something to nurture the location where it takes place. It’s been rewarding to be more invested in the surrounding world. As I continue in this direction it has underlined the abundance available through developing a caring exchange with the environment around me through action.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I was 22-23 I got my first outside of where I lived studio in a warehouse by the tracks in Asheville N.C. It was in a building that used to be a candle factory, an old long brick building that smelled like wax. A lot of older artists, musicians, and general wild beautiful souls had been living in studios there and I’d been visiting since I moved to Asheville. A fellow former printmaking classmate had rented a studio in the old section that was still brick walls and open ceilings- romantic as hell to me, and offered to split it. I think it was 75 dollars a month. It makes my heart fill up thinking of it now, it meant so much to me to have my own space, something I’d dreamed about since I was little, my own beat up studio that was gritty and open to be anything I wanted.
We didn’t have a key to get into the main building so some days the door on the back side of the building would be open, getting lucky to go straight to the hallway our studio was on. Most of the time I had to go in the front door up this iron staircase and through this chained up iron door that was open anywhere from what seemed like 6 inches to a foot. I’d have to brace myself on the door handles and try to pry the door open a few more inches by pushing against the wall with both my feet to wedge myself through the opening to get to the section of the building my studio was on. One day after wrenching the door open and pushing myself through the crack between the door and the wall I realized I was really serious about making art, or realized again- in a way that surprised me. It was a turning point for me, or a moment when I decided there was no going back, didn’t want to go back, I had discovered something.
I remember feeling really grateful as I would walk up the stairs, to myself and to being able to be there, that I was making it matter, going there everyday, sitting in a cold room sewing and throwing paint around, lonely and happy at the same time.
I think about the times there because it reminds me that we are the ones-I am the one who has my own dreams, and I am the one who gets to act it out. That each day matters in some way to turn some attention to whether I’m letting doubt keep me from those dreams or if I’m in line with what feels right. It’s not about working mercilessly, it’s more like an internal commitment to keep my heart pointed towards the light.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://laurenjwhitleyart.com/
- Instagram: @laurenjwhitleyart
Image Credits
All pictures are by me