We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marcia Lorente Howell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Marcia , thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I’m an oil on canvas artist. I have a career in marketing and advertising and I wasn’t ready to hand out a massive commission to a third party so I started Surfergirl Gallery as a way to represent myself. I then realized that showing other artists added value and made exhibits so much more interesting. So I decided to take on other women artists that are emerging like myself, that I love and adore and collect. I only charge a 20% commission which is a fraction of what the market charges and I make it work by curating pop-up shows in New York City and major art fairs like Miami Art Basel. It’s been so meaningful to be able to give women that I know are underrepresented and under appreciated the ability to show and exhibit their art in major art markets. I know these women will be big some day!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a modern impressionist, meaning I paint like Vincent Van Gogh or Monet but in my own style. My style is less heavy, I play more with translucent oil paint, it looks like watercolor, I paint oil on canvas on the floor and look for the magical accidents that happen when colors mix, kind of like Pollock did. I say I’m a surfer because painting to me feels like that, it’s a rush. I hope to communicate that, an emotional high. I paint landscapes and places and moments I love and because I was born in Madrid Spain, have lived in California and New York, I’ve been lucky to capture some gorgeous places. I used to paint empty gorgeous beaches – a big theme of mine, Madrid my hometown has no beach – but during Covid I took to painting cities and people, I missed that. I also adopted a dog called Elvis and my process is I photograph a moment when I’m walking him (my website is now called WalkingElvis.com) and then paint off the photo I took. I must have an emotional connection to the place or it doesn’t work. To me the painting is a portal to that moment and place that I’m offering to people. It’s pretty amazing when someone feels the pull and the connection. I believe in the metaphysical power of art, it is the only other thing other than sometimes nature (that we can lose our connection to) that has the power to deeply change us through simple contemplation. Art is always there, as a talisman, a mystical slap to wake us up from our slumber.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
My biggest lesson was to trust myself as an artist and trust my own process. I used to think that because I paint so fast I couldn’t be a good painter. I was trained in Madrid, took some classes at the famous school of royal arts, and the old school thinking is you must toil and suffer over a painting. That’s not my process. My process is fast. If I toil, I mess it up. It either comes out perfect or it belongs in the trash. I have trashed a lot of art. I used to see that as failure but I see now it is not. Other artists start over on the same canvas, piece of wood, iterarte over and over again. I have to start over. I need the blank page. I need the art to come out fast and fresh. I have even rationaled that it’s because I’m painting a moment full of emotion and if I take too long I lose touch with that one emotion, it becomes something else. Vincent used to say he had to paint fast because the light would change, the field he was looking at would never look the same. I think it’s the same with me. I furiously must paint the now. And that’s more than okay, that’s beautiful. It took lots of trial and error to be able to do that.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I think the most misunderstood aspect of being an artist is people think it’s a choice. It’s not, it’s like breathing. You are an artist like it or not. Like Bowie said some of us look at reality as something we can use. We study it, we look at it a lot. In my case I’m devouring life visually and emotionally, especially through light and color. If I don’t put it out on a canvas it’s like a wave that brews inside of me. I’ve been traveling a lot this last year and I feel that restless ocean inside of me because I haven’t painted so much. I think everyone can relate to this because secretly, we’re all artists of something. Think of that one thing that makes you happy when you do it, that you lose yourself and stop thinking. Maybe it’s cooking, maybe it’s dancing, maybe it’s fashioning, maybe it’s walking your dog. That feeling is what we artists feel when we create. I think each of us have an inner design to dance, paint, write, sing or simple be our true unique selves. It’s a wonderful way when we can finally be that. For visual artists it just also happens to be something of mine that you can hang on your wall.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.marcialorentehowell.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apaintingaweeknyc/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcia-lorente-098986/
- Twitter: @surfergirlny
Image Credits
I have the rights to these images.