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

Alright, Patrice thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

When my painting career began, painting was meaningful in and of itself. It still is meaningful AND about five years ago I felt the need to inject more meaning into my life.

To back up just a bit, when one turns their passion into their work, the rewards being reaped change. Yes, it’s still exciting to create something new from inspiration to finished painting. Yes, each painting still teaches me something more about me, the way I work, the way the world works, and the ways I’d like to see things work better.

And it’s still work, it becomes a bit of a “job” when one’s livelihood depends upon it.

I’ve been writing email newsletters for over a decade and have a good long-term following. About four years ago, I proposed a new, smaller email newsletter that would go out on Mondays, titled Making Meaning Mondays.

Each Monday for over a year, I painted a small, mandala-like painting and sent it out to about 200 readers who replied by sharing their impressions of the painting. The following week’s email included their thoughts along with a fresh image to work with for that week.

After a year of painting and publishing weekly, I changed it to Making Meaning Monthly. The email now goes out the first Monday of each month.

The replies have become very meaningful to most of us. The “open rate is about 70% with 10–15 people commenting each month. Three people write poetry to accompany the image — something they grew into doing over time.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I, like most artists, dreamed of being an artist as a child. While I received my BS in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the 1970s, it was never my dream to be a teacher. Teaching simply felt like a safe choice to make — during a time when teachers were NOT in demand!

About 12 years later, after taking two graphic design courses, I landed a job as a part-time, temporary typesetter for a library supply company, DEMCO. Over the course of the next ten years, I moved into graphic arts, graphic design, and managing the creative services department — a staff of 10.

For the last three or four years at DEMCO, I would rise early 2–3 days a week to make art before going to work. I’m a morning person and knew that if I waited until the end of the day, nothing would be created.

Every morning, as I put my supplies away (oil paints or colored pencils or clay) I’d wonder, “how can I do this full time?”

Seriously! I had a great job and a mortgage on a house. How on earth could I make art full time and afford to live?

In January 2000, I took a one-week trip to Hawaii, to get into the Pacific Ocean and see the volcano. I had a friend in grad school and planned to stay with her for a night.

The trip was amazing — snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, boogie boarding at Sherwood Forest, walking out on the Hawaii Island lava field, seeing Kilauea in action.

In a scene that could have been in a movie, I got the opportunity to boogie board. Without knowing what I was doing or the right way to boogie board, a tour guide got me a wave and I rode to shore on my knees. Woweee!

I walked back to the car, tears of gratitude streaming down my face. Suddenly I thought, what if Sarah (friend I was visiting) gets her grant? She’s not going to want to lose her apartment, I could quit my job. I could sell my house and I could paint! I was tingling with energy running through my body and said those same words aloud to keep the energy moving.

I waited almost four months to learn that Sarah got the grant, giving me six weeks to make my decision and GO!

I’ll keep this short, but there’s a LOT more to be said about this part of the story. … My house sold in four weeks and I got on a plane for Oahu two days later.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’d been a professional artist, selling original watercolors and prints for about a year, when on September 11th, the Twin Towers were destroyed.

I felt SO alone, so far from family and the friends I’d left back in Wisconsin. It was a very scary time for all of us.

Overnight, the visitor market of the islands, a good portion of my “bread and butter,” vanished.

A few years later, the dot com bubble burst.

And of course, 2020 happened to all of us.

Through it all, painting has sustained me.

While it took time for me to make a living from my art, I spent all that time investing in myself, my art and business training. I joined other art groups on Oahu, met great friends, and found ways to make art work for me.

There were several times I thought I might fail, but I’ve never come close to giving up. That’s not me.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Art is a nonverbal form of communication and an incredible tool through which we can learn more about ourselves.

I enjoy talking about art with others, encouraging, and even teaching them to use art as a meditative tool, a way to get to know themselves a bit better, to calm down and relieve stress at the end of a day’s work.

Currently I’m also painting us through the paradigm shift, using the complementary colors of orange and blue. It’s my “Paradigm Project.”

Complements side-by-side make one another bright. When mixed together, they dull one another down. I’m working to keep the colors bright as they meander across the paper. It’s my way of working to keep our socio-political divisions “clean, clear, crisp, and bright.”

We’re going through this shift, it might take a while, but it is happening and I’d like to see us come out of it a kinder nation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artofaloha.com
• Instagram: artofaloha
• Facebook: artofaloha
• Linkedin: Patrice Federspiel
• Twitter: artofaloha
• Youtube: Patrice Federspiel

Image Credits
Patrice A Federspiel