Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Liberty Blake. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Liberty, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I am the collage artist for The Work in Progress Mural, which is a project that Jann Haworth conceived of in 2009 and that we began in 2016. It features women who are/were ‘catalysts for change’ in their particular fields. It is made through a collaborative process, with each stenciled portrait made by a member of the public—most by self confessed non artists—in workshops that we teach. The full figures in the front row are made by professional artists. What started as an 8 x 28 ft mural (made up of seven 8 x 4 ft panels) is now over 100 ft long and also includes a few offshoot projects. Two years ago The National Portrait Gallery in London, in partnership with the CHANEL Culture Fund, commissioned us to make seven new panels for their project Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture, and those are now part of their permanent collection. We also made two panels for this year’s World Economic Forum meeting, commissioned as part of their Arts and Culture program. It’s rather depressing to note that according to The World Economic Forums, 2024 Global Gender Gap Report, it will take another 134 years to reach gender parity. I think that during times like these, when there are so many pressing social issues, it’s difficult to know what to address and as an artist, how to address it. This project has an educational aspect to it that is extremely important. Every woman featured has a significant story and has the potential to be a role model for someone, so our hope is that viewers are compelled to find out more about them and be inspired! I think that besides the educational component, the most meaningful aspect of this project for me, is that the portraits are made by the community. It’s very courageous for an adult who may not have made art since elementary school to jump into a project like this. We teach them how to cut a stencil from a photograph and then paint it. There are a lot of creative choices that they have to make and we guide them through that process. The end results are all really unique and wonderful and I love the challenge of assembling them all into a cohesive crowd.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am primarily a collage artist but I also paint. I grew up in a family of artists and as a child I don’t think that I realized there were other career options! I’ve raised two sons and worked in various creative jobs, but for the last four years, I’ve been a full time, self supporting artist. My personal work (separate from the Work in Progress Mural) is abstract collage, focused on the environment and the human condition. I am originally from England, but I came to Utah in my late twenties for ‘an adventure’ and ended up staying. I fell in love with the vast expanses of wilderness, the mountains, deserts and huge skies. My work is a celebration of those things and also a lament of the things we are loosing because of climate change. I am a passionate mountain biker and so I gather most of my inspiration from my rides. I work from memory, fusing my emotional response to the landscape with the visual aspects that stay in my minds eye, to create an abstracted interpretation of a place. I care deeply about the environment and I find it incredibly distressing to see the painfully slow progress that was being made in this country, aggressively peeled back by the current administration. Although the challenges seem insurmountable, I feel that I have a responsibility to make art about issues that I both care about and that demand attention. I am fortunate to be represented by The Phillips gallery, here in Salt Lake City that also supports this mission and hosts an environmentally themed show every year. We have an incredibly diverse range of ecosystems here in Utah, including The Great Salt Lake which is threatened by both drought and farming practices. I believe that when people have access to nature and the benefits it provides, the more likely they are to care about it and fight for it. My goal is to make artwork that inspires people to go and experience nature in whatever way they can, be it a wilderness or a city park, and then take the most important step, which is to help protect it.

Currently, I am painting again after a long pause and It’s been exciting to reconnect with that medium and also introduce some of the characteristics of collage that I have developed over the years. I hope to show this body of work early next year. I have also done a couple of collage illustrations recently, for magazines in France (Bastille and Les Cracheurs De Feu) and I would really like to do more of this kind of work, particularly book covers.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think that the most rewarding aspect to being an artist, is that at the end of the day something exists that didn’t before. I use a lot of recycled paper in my work, as part of the environmental theme, and I love that I can use something that might have been discarded and instead has a new life. A lot of the creative process happens in my head, usually while I’m doing mundane things like the dishes or laundry. I work through ideas and the image starts to form, the color palette usually clarifies first and often the title. Then there comes a point where I need to actually have the paper and scissors in my hands and that’s when—on a good day—I enter a flow state, and it feels like the collage makes itself. I strive to create work that is personal, unique and meaningful and there are definitely times when that creative flow dries up. These fallow periods are quite scary and difficult to get through but also part of the process of being an artist.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I suppose an important aspect is that it’s a solo journey for the most part. The drive and determination have to come from within and you are usually beating your own path. There are no regular paychecks, teammates, hours of operation, goals, or clear guidelines. This is both freeing and very challenging. In a world that is flooded with imagery, where most of us have access to it at all times and with the unknown ramifications of AI, the future role of the artist seems more uncertain. I strongly believe that it matters, a culture is defined by its art, but unfortunately for the majority of artists it’s not a career that you can count on. Most of us need to work other jobs or have other means of support and I think for the majority of us, it is often financially precarious. I think people don’t like talking about this aspect of being an artist because it risks giving the impression—in this money focused capitalist society— that if you aren’t making loads of money then you must not be good at what you do. This of course is untrue. There are many hugely successful but questionable artists and many brilliant struggling ones. It’s really important to support the artists we appreciate—whenever possible—by buying their art or by hiring illustrators instead of generating illustrations with AI. Any time we buy something that is made by hand we are supporting a legacy of creativity, which is a contribution to society as a whole.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.libertyblakecollage.com/
• Instagram: @libertyblakecollage