We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mona Houle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mona, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I had always been creative as a child, using art as a way to communicate. I attended Hallmark Institute of Photography, right after High School. It was the closest thing to art school that offered me the potential for a sustainable trade. I soon found the world was not as I imagined or trained for. Still a teenager, and a female in the 1980s, I faced so many challenges in a largely male dominated field. I was paid substantially less than my male peers and struggled to be taken seriously.
My focus shifted from photography after an injury. There had to be another way for me to express myself. After a few years of fumbling through jobs that I really didn’t enjoy, I took a basic watercolor class. I loved everything about it. Suddenly, I was on a new path that felt more natural to me.
I’ve lived many creative lives, tried many different mediums, and I always seem to end up back with my beloved watercolors. My subject matter changes, my techniques improve, and my love for this tricky, transparent, and unforgiving paint grows.
The most important lessons I’ve learned in decades of being an artist are:
1. Everything I’ve done before has lead me to where I am now.
2. Practice, experiment, and never stop creating.
3. The road is a lot smoother when you find your tribe of supporters and cheerleaders.
4. Take your business seriously.
Mona, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I have a deep love and respect for nature. I attempt to evoke those feelings in my paintings. When the viewer connects with the emotions I put into my work, I have succeeded.
I paint primarily wildlife and botanicals. My current work is a mixture of birds, southwest mammals, and succulents. I find endless possibilities when I travel and right in my own backyard in Arizona.
I post my work in progress on social media, drawing in my audience in to the process and inspiration behind my pieces. I feel that it is important to share the struggles as well as the triumphs in the studio.
It solidifies my confidence when people describe my work as happy, because I paint from the heart.
I participate in art shows and I have a loyal following of collectors that have grown over the years.
I teach workshops on watercolor and I have a mentor program for emerging artists based solely on the business side of art. I am excited when my students find joy in their work.
Most of all, art is fun.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
Art and artists have a long held stigma of being many things. Flighty, quirky, crazy, lazy, and of course, starving. This is not at all what my experience has been as a professional. Instead, try these on for size: resourceful, focused, determined, driven, inspired, confident, self starter, brave, savvy, entrepreneurial, and fearless.
We have to be. The roller coaster ride of running your own business is full of great successes and tremendous rejections. The number of times I’ve been rejected, far exceeds the number of acceptances. It makes those congratulations letters all the more meaningful.
The ability to pick yourself up and move on after a pitfall, determines your future. Quitting is just not an option.
People have said that I’m lucky to just be able to paint all day. Nothing could be further from reality. My days are filled with all the tasks of running a business, marketing, ordering, inventory, sales, taxes, filling orders, shipping, oh and then I get to paint. It’s a lot of work for a sole proprietor, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Support living, working artists. Like, comment, and share our social media posts. Attend local art shows and galleries. Tell your friends about that creative that you connected with. Buy our work. Give it as gifts. Don’t ask for a discount or haggle over the price. Appreciate the cost, time, blunders, and effort that goes into making art.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.monahoule.com
- Instagram: @monahoule
- Facebook: ArtByMonaHoule
Image Credits
All images Copyright Mona Houle, LLC