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

Michelle, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had started sooner?

I wish I’d had the confidence to start my creative career sooner. It’s taken most of my life believe in my creativity and find the courage to pursue it. Only after experiencing a divorce, and choosing to reignite my passion for art as a way to maintain my sanity, did I even consider returning to art. During my divorce, I enrolled at the Art Institute of Atlanta to study Interior Design, and because the degree is a B.F.A, you’re required to take an extensive amount of Art and Art History classes.  Surprisingly, those classes resonated with me more than the Interior Design classes, and kept me sane during a very trying time.

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’m an Afro-Latina artist living in Atlanta, GA. My family is Panamanian (no, unfortunately, I don’t speak Spanish fluently – yet ) and I’ve found that my heritage influences my work quite a bit. When I was a kid, I remember my mother spray painting huge circles of gold on our ceiling. At the time, I thought it was weird, but today I look back at it as expressive and creative.  My mom was a dress designer / maker, so I suppose she was expressing her creativity through the spray paint.  Today, I find that I include gold paint in practically every one of my paintings – typically applied with spray paint. My work is vibrant, both in color and energy – both I attribute to my Caribbean and Hispanic heritage. I come from expressive, energetic, colorful people, and it shows in my work.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Expose artists.

There is a huge divide between society and artists – there always has been. I feel the problem is twofold:

• One, artists tend to be introverts; therefore, we don’t make huge efforts to communicate verbally with society – we do it through our work.
• Two, art dealers and galleries tend present art in a way that’s unapproachable and esoteric. Moreoften, their concern is revenue (which makes total sense), rather than community.

I’d also love to see a platform that connects local artists with potential local buyers (something I’m thinking about creating) where each city has a directory of some kind listing artists that live in their city, the type of work they create and how to contact them. Festivals are great but they ofent include artists that aren’t local too.  This would bolster connection and relationship with artists and community, to better understand their message, processes, interests, styles, etc.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Similar to my answer above, I want to make art more accessible. It’s been this weird, misunderstood, perplexing “thing” for far too long. It bothers me greatly when I hear people say, that they don’t “understand” art – especially abstract art. Being an abstract artist, my reaction to them is that there’s nothing to understand. A piece either resonates with you or it doesn’t. I also tell them that although scholars will often dissect the work of historically great artists, no one really knows (for sure) what that artist was feeling when they created a piece (hell, the artist probably didn’t know either). Therefore, try to look at art through your own eyes, and feel with your own heart what message, if any, is being conveyed. If nothing comes to you, move on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.michellethomasartist.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellethomasartist/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichelleThomasArtist/

Image Credits
Michelle Thomas