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

Lily, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I had an experience doing a type of therapy during the pandemic, called EMDR. It was quite healing, and transformative for me. I was able to process memories that had subconsciously hindered me from having the confidence that I needed to acknowledge my feelings and honor them, instead of suppressing them or thinking they didn’t matter in certain situations that they really did. Of course this is crucial to being an artist and a human! After this therapy, I developed a unique, strong desire to start painting again. Not commissions, being told what the buyer wanted, but to discover what I really wanted to paint. Narrowing in on “If I could paint anything, what would it be? How would it feel? What would it represent?”.

Lily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I believe that I was born creative. As many of us are, but I grew up in an environment where creativity was encouraged and necessary. This is just my personal experience, so I’m not speaking for everyone, but I think that when you grow up with a degree of dysfunction in your environment, going away and drawing a picture or telling yourself a story or along up a song or dance, they are such good distractions from things that you don’t want to face. So during the good times and the bad times I found that my imagination was always there for me!

The last few years I have not worked as a full-time artist but I have spent my studio time mainly with good ol’ paint and canvas! I do incorporate inks as well. I most recently decided that on my new website, in addition to my original art, I will offer some limited addition prints. I have various personal obligations in my life so I don’t offer a wide array of products because that’s a lot to keep up with for me. I am focused on what feels to me like quality, not quantity.

My art is meant to be a reflection of the things that I love and the path that I’ve walked on this earth, hoping that it will resonate with other people who have had similar experiences. It’s amazing to me when someone will look at something I’ve painted and get goosebumps or, their eyes will tear up and sometimes they don’t even know why. Or that a portrait reminds them of their lost grandmother or friend. That’s such an amazing thing to me, how we can create and connect with a complete stranger because deep down inside we ALL really do have such similar needs and desires and paths that intersect or parallel.

I like to experiment with light and shadow. I find it emotive, captivating, intriguing, and symbolic of the darkness that we all experience but the light that we need to let into our lives in different ways. Whether it be spirituality, or being honest with oneself “turning the light” on oneself so one can see if their life is going the way they want and if not, what needs to change? For me this created self empathy, in turn being able to empathize better with others.

My art is also about excepting the things that I cannot change and looking for the beauty that is immediately in my life appreciating what is right in front of me. “Enjoying the view out of my life’s window”. Not everything I paint has some deep symbolic meaning that is apparent. Sometimes I just play around with an art study. Each day in the studio is different than the next, but I hope to keep exploring and creating as long as I can!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I respect that many of us today have differing opinions and beliefs on this subject, but personally, I do believe that there is a Creator who designed the life on Earth and this amazing universe of a brain we each have. I believe that if are willing to search for the creativity within yourself to draw, paint, dance, cook, write, design, build, quilt, sculpt, forge, collage, compose, sing, imagine, play, plant, to do anything that allows you to create, it’s such a huge gift to be embraced! Even if you have limited time for it.

I imagine someone giving me a gift that is exactly the thing that I need, but then I never use it. How sad that would be. So for me, I definitely feel like I’m on a mission to figure out how can appreciate and use this creative gift in a way that I hope will resonate someone, but that also impacts my own emotions. Because naturally if it feels good, I’m sure I’ll want to do more of it and will have more to share!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

During formal training my instructors heavily focused on creating something that looked realistic. For me, this made the creative process feel technical; not freeing, which is what I wanted to experience. So for a long time I have had the belief that “good art” has to have an element of realism to it. That “good art” has to be considered beautiful somehow. But as I’ve been growing in my craft the last few years I have learned that good art truly is personal. I once painted a piece that I absolutely hated, I even shed a few tears frustrated that it didn’t turn out anything like I had imagined. But one of the first persons to see it loved it a bought it! So, I with my art, its not always going to feel “good” to me and thats normal for artists. The goal of course is to create art that I do love/connect with, it really doesn’t matter if other people think its beautiful or not. Some of my best sales resulted from creating pieces that I was really unsure if someone was going to like. I see now, that since there is that human element to it, there will ALWAYS be someone who, tomorrow, or five years from now will come along and say “oh! I love that!” So I try not to get down if I make ten or twenty pieces and only truly love one. It takes courage to do this. And I’m still learning to be even more courageous with my art.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lilyromanart.com
• Instagram: lilyromanart

Image Credits
Robb Webb (Studio Image)