We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michelle Gagliano a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Michelle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I love this question, because it is so complex. Many times, I do wish I had started my career earlier, but at that time women were not encouraged to be be full time artist and mothers. It was an either/or choice, and I wanted both. The advice early on from my male professors was that only serious female artists did not have children. So, I chose the married with children route. I loved being at home with the children, as it was a wonderful creative time for myself and the kids. We had a great time. Fast forward a few years and I found myself a single mother needing to support my family. My degree was in art and so I decided to make my living as a full time artist. I actually did not think of anything else. However, I did not know any other current artist who made their full monetary needs solely from their art, so I had no example or guide in that pursuit. I just went for it! My first gallery representation was in Santa Fe, 20 years ago! The gallery owner was wonderful and truly helped and advised me along the way. Lucky for me, she also represented her husband, so she ran the gallery from an artist’s perspective. This gave me confidence to expand to New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, NYC, London, and now Rome. At times, I do wish I had the self-confidence to have started my career earlier, then I lean back and think my artist voice was young, so maybe I would not have had anything significant to share with my audience. Or, if I did start earlier, would I have decided to have been childless- as so many of my fellow artists followed that path. So, to somewhat answer this complex question, ultimately, I started at the time that was right for me, my family, and my art. I think now, at this moment, I am still in process of developing a stronger meaning within my work. My artist belief is that art is the trace of our humanity on this earth, and I am still growing that voice.

Michelle, 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 am a full time artist and creating exhibitions for galleries and museums. I am most proud of setting my practice apart by focusing on creating a sustainable studio practice that upholds the value I have in the environment. I think this is really important that as artists who create that we do not destroy as we do so. I began this process, and it still is a process to keep the studio healthy for me, my collectors, while also finding solutions to the problems of the toxicity within the studio. I have found that the old master’s recipes are not only much more archival, but also sustainable. Acrylic is just plastic. Few people realize that when you wash your brushes, that plastic is going into the waterways. Most toxic paint supplies were created after the petroleum industry could produce cheaper alternatives. Raphael used walnut oil and a spike of lavender for his paints, mixed with ground pigment. My mission is to have collectors support more artists who also support the environment. I was honored to be recently named the “godmother of the sustainable art movement” in Italy’s “Ecological Art” exhibition and contest. Materiality is important within the context of my work and its important for the growth of the artist to always challenge oneself to create work that does not harm ourselves or the environment.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Such a great question – As an artist (i.e. small business owner), there are so many bumps in the road! When covid hit, and we were all in lockdown, I had several exhibitions cancelled. I decided not to panic (believe me, I did want to panic!), but to use that time to do all those things in studio that I had set aside due to always preparing for the immediate studio needs. I focused my work to be the “someday” studio. I had a large list of things I just wanted to do while not worrying about the sales. One of the projects that I always wanted to do was to put together a group of paintings I had created inspired by Dante’s “Inferno” into a book to give to my children. I shared this project with my gallery in Rome, and they were so supportive, that they showed it to the First Municipality of Rome (they organize museum exhibitions for the center of Rome), and I was given the president’s approval for exhibition. My modest project of just wanting to create something meaningful during lockdown is now awaiting exhibition at a museum in the center of Rome. My resilience came from remembering the true flow of life and continuing to work in slow times as well as busy times and to honor it all.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

There is so much that is rewarding as a creative and everyday I have a deep respect and love for this artistic journey I have chosen. I’m acutely aware how fortunate I am to have a vehicle to express my creative voice. I remember when I studied painting with the Texas artist Vernon Fisher, way back in the mid 80’s, he taught us that artists need to always be the “antennae for society”, always keep the antennae up! I truly did embrace that ideal. More and more, it becomes important to me to do so and my sustainable studio practice arose from this process.

I find it very rewarding that I am always pushing the creative envelope, and that I have the time and space to do so. I do not want to be making the same work I did 5, 10, 20 years ago. If an artist does that, it’s not being an artist; rather, it’s filling orders. I’m delighted to be able to push, question, and experiment on a daily basis as an artist and make a living doing so. I wanted to role model to my children they can make a living at whatever they set their passion on- and it’s so rewarding that I can and that now, I have a household of creatives.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.michellegagliano.com
• Instagram: @gaglianostudios
• Facebook: @gaglianostudios

Image Credits
Photos courtesy of Dave Brown, Angela King Gallery, Laura Rathe Fine Art, Galleria La Nica, and William King Museum