We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Naomi Brown. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Naomi below.

Naomi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I was around age 23. I became a professional artist only within the last 7 years.

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 am originally from Twentynine Palms California. I was born and raised there and left that desert around 15 years ago to come live here in Queen Creek Arizona. I became an artist to try to capture the beauty of the desert. It’s in my heart My parents were a big influence as far as Art goes. They had original paintings hanging in our home that I grew up in. My mother also painted when I was young. I really didn’t understand this influence on my art career until lately.

I am a self taught artist. I really didn’t think about being an artist until my early 20s. I thought about being a professional artist in my early 30s not until the last 2 to 3 years have I been a full-time, professional, working artist at age 48. I started out, teaching myself to paint with watercolors I painted mini postcards, and sold them in my grandmas antique shop for $1.50 each. I then continue to teach myself to paint with acrylics and then in the last 6 to 7 years I’ve taught myself to paint with oils.

Probably the biggest challenge for me as a younger artist was to balance my time as a young mother of two daughters and teaching myself how to paint. Another challenge was to keep positive and believe in my self and keep my head up and keep moving forward with all the rejections I would get entering competitions and asking galleries to represent me.

The biggest challenges I have now as a recently established artist is time management and making sure the quality of work I produce for my galleries and museum shows is my best with all the demands of making sure I satisfy the needs of the collectors and galleries and most importantly my museum shows.

I don’t have a fancy studio, but it works perfectly for me. Right now I’m painting in our little casita while we are building our larger home next to it. It can be a little challenging with large sized paintings. I enjoy being around my family when I paint. I don’t have a studio that I can lock myself in and paint. It’s not who I am and I love that I can see my painting out in the open living room reminding me to finish it. I always have to have some music playing. Helps me to be creative and and stay focused on my paintings I need to get done.

The role of an artist in society, is to paint the subject that is close to the heart, so that the viewer can feel that human connection and experience we all yearn for. The familiarity of a place a sound scent can transcend to a persons heart through a painting.

The best advice I can give to an artist starting out would be to paint what you love and what is in your heart, and don’t listen to what other people want you to paint or what is popular to paint. Dedication and loving the subject your painting. Being passionate about your subject so you fall completely in love with it, and showing this love in your work.
I am passionate and in love with painting the southwest deserts. The Mojave and Sonoran Desert is where I get the inspiration for my work. I am always inspired by our sunsets here in Arizona. I love to capture the colors and the romance of sunsets in my paintings, so lately I am really enjoying and focused on capturing these beautiful sunsets in my paintings. I feel very fortunate to do what I love and be able to shed some light on just how beautiful these deserts are.

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

I just recently had an amazing experience lately that made a full circle in my art career. I was asked to paint for Arizona highways magazine along with other artist’s for a show called the December Project. I got to pick an image that spoke to me out of any of the issues of the magazine. Spanning almost 100 years worth of images. The sweetest part about this experience was that as a young artist, I was painting, lots of images, teaching myself how to paint out of the Arizona highway magazines. So it was a special treat to be able to paint a 1957 image of the superstition Mountains from a magazine that I owned and painted out of as a young artist learning how to paint.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

One of the most rewarding aspects of being an artist, is when I sell one of my paintings to a collector that I can tell emotionally connects to the piece enough to buy it and hang it in their home. It’s always an honor.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.naomibrownart.com
• Instagram: @naomibrownart