We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful M. Christine Landis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with M. Christine below.
M. Christine, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
My earliest memories include creating art. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to spend my time drawing, painting or making something from raw materials. But as a teen, I began to look into options for some kind of artistic or creative career, and I started being told things like, “They don’t call them starving artists for nothing!” “You can make art when you retire!” “Art is just for hobbies” “You need to be a secretary!” And so began an aggressive campaign to steer me away from art and toward what my parents considered a more appropriate and productive path. “Get a Real Job!” So I became a secretary. And I put everything I had into it because I was also taught “If you’re going to do something, do it right! Or else don’t bother to do it at all!” Even though I hated it and was not really very good at it, I doggedly soldiered on for years. Along the way, I married and had two daughters. Eventually, my husband and I moved to south Florida, and I began to notice that when I met new friends here and I told them that I liked to draw and paint, and create things, they said things like, “Oh! would you paint a sunset over the ocean picture for me?” And, “Would you paint a mural for me? I’ll PAY you!” I also found and joined a couple of professional artist organizations, and I began entering my drawings and paintings in local exhibits, gaining recognition and winning ribbons and cash awards! I met a man who owned several local beach motels and he hired me to paint several large murals on the exterior walls of his properties. I also entered a few local art festivals, where I set up one of those big white tents and had a booth and looked just like a professional artist. And I began to realize, hey! I don’t have to be a secretary!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Of necessity, I am a self-educated artist. But that just means that I have taken on the responsibility to go out and get books and research materials to study on my own. I’ve studied everything from my favorite art masters to those whose work I don’t particularly understand or enjoy, plus drawing and painting techniques, rules of composition, etc., I’ve sought out local professional artists and taken lessons from them as well as workshops offered through those professional art organizations that I’ve joined. A lot of what I have learned about actually creating art boils down to the fact that my best art comes from expressing what is inside me and what is important to me. And, I have learned through doing, that one of the areas that I most enjoy is sharing my art with others. A few years ago I began teaching art classes in my local libraries. The experience I’ve had when teaching the technical skills, the practical “how-to’s” of watercolor painting to my students, and seeing them get big smiles on their faces when they are able to create artwork they like and are proud of is profoundly fulfilling, and as fun for me as winning those First Place and Best In Show awards! Although, I’ll still take those ribbons and checks too!
When Covid came along and shut down all things In-Person, I had to come up with a plan to be able to stay connected and able to keep sharing with my art friends, so I got busy figuring out how to record and publish art tutorial videos, and online Livestream sessions on my YouTube channel, M. Christine Landis Watercolors and Mixed Media. I also got a Zoom account and began teaching virtual classes for both private and group lessons, including the library! I was also asked to do several online watercolor demonstrations for professional art organizations, including some groups from across the country that I am not even a member of and that had not heard of me before Covid. Because I was able to add these online and digital connections I have expanded and deepened relationships with many friends, students and fellow artists in my community and in the wider world as well. And I have been blessed to hear from many who tell me that being able to meet regularly to learn and create art together has helped them through some tough times. It makes my heart happy, and also humbled to know that I was able to provide or help facilitate that for a number of people in my community. I am convinced that it is important to exercise our creative thought processes in all the many ways we find to do that. Creating art improves our focus, it gives us opportunities to practice problem solving skills, and to experience a sense of accomplishment. It is so good for us in so many ways, and I see myself and my students reaping many benefits. That is probably the main reason I enjoy teaching as much as actually creating my own art.
But I’m not finished creating art yet! I used to say that it was dangerous for me to go to sleep because while I’m sleeping I dream up a million new ideas for things to create. Now I just get back up and get busy creating. I do a lot of drawing and painting, but over the last decade or so I have expanded into creating hand bound books and journals, using lots of reclaimed papers and cardboard for the body of the books and then creating unique covers using my artwork, and sometimes things I’ve pulled from my older sketchbooks, I’ve also been experimenting with reclaiming, reusing and repurposing to come up with materials to create fairy houses, garden decorations, unusual shelves, baskets, and many more things. Needless to say, I give a lot of handmade gifts to family and friends. I have an Etsy shop that I usually fill up when the holiday season gets near. I also have a bunch of my artwork designs out there on a couple of those print on demand sites where fans can buy all kinds of functional things with my art on it, and I confess I’ve bought myself coffee mugs and several tote bags because it’s just fun to be surrounded by beautiful art, my own and others’ as well.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I think that sometimes people don’t understand that a big chunk of the work a creator does goes on in the mind, or “in the mind’s eye” maybe? It isn’t always readily apparent that we are actually doing something, accomplishing something important if someone can only see us “thinking” about what we need to do to make something work. There are sometimes many intangible aspects of creating that need to be addressed before there is a tangible something to show, and that can many times be misinterpreted and in my own experience has been viewed and communicated to me as “a whole lot of leaning on the shovel going on.” By well-meaning but under-informed people, who in their minds just don’t want to pay someone to sit around and do nothing. But coming up with a vision for how to create something big and beautiful and awesome, something that was not there before, something that solves a problem or that adds value and meaning to a community, that is a whole lot more than nothing. That is something important, something we need. I wish everybody could understand and value that.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I hesitate to share this one thing, but I think it illustrates an important point for me so I’m going to go ahead and say it. Throughout our relationship, my husband has made a specific statement again and again in reference to something I was creating at the time. That statement is, “I have never seen anyone else do that like that, or make one of those like you are doing it. Are you sure you are doing it right? I don’t think you are doing it right! I’ve never seen it like that before.” You get the gist. But that is just it; I am creating. I am (usually) not trying to create something just like what someone else has already created. And he usually follows my not-so-receptive responses with something like, “I’m just trying to help you. I don’t want you to do it wrong and be embarrassed.” I feel like all my life I have had to push back with everything in me against this pressure from so many different directions and so many voices trying to get me to give up, or take the easy way, the way that requires less courage and less work from me. But I guess in the long run, that has helped me to be strong enough to succeed. Because for all that I say art is easy and fun, being creative and being an artist is a whole lot of hard work!
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