We recently connected with Rachel Silva and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rachel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents did a lot of things right, and the older I get the more and more I realize that and my respect for them grows. They moved me, my sister, and 4 cats across the world from rural Tennessee to Zürich, Switzerland when I was 9 and my sister was 5. This was the 90’s, there were no smart phones or google translate apps. My husband and I recently went back to Zürich and we realized we were the same age as my parents when they moved there. I was so struck by how brave they had to be to do that. But this is just how my parents operate, they have an innate sense of adventure and their own abilities to handle whatever comes their way, and they passed that down to me. I love travel, I love taking risks, I love living in the moment and trusting I can handle the future. I attribute that quality to the example they set, and that has influenced how I approach my work my whole life. They never put pressure on me to pick a lane, they let me explore, and I continue to do so to this day. Thanks mom and dad!

Rachel, 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 visual artist, and I say that because a title like “painter” or “illustrator” feels too limiting to me. I love to play with medium, I love to write as well. My life is my art and my art is my life, and I try to flow with that. Some of my favorite mediums are oil paint, colored pencil, watercolor, and acryla-gouache. I love vibrant colors with disconcerting content. I am always trying to walk that line between the beautiful and horrific, which is something I’ve always been drawn to. I’m deeply interested in humanity and the relationship between the conscious and subconscious. I am most often trying to pin down a fleeting feeling in my work, to capture them like a bug collection.

I also have a career in background design in the animation industry, which consistently hones my technical skills that I then bring back to my personal work. I’ve worked on Bob’s Burgers and The Great North primarily, along with some freelance projects on other shows over the years. I left animation full time in 2021 to focus on my own work, but I still freelance occasionally and I love the balance that brings to my life.

As far as what I’m most proud of, I would say I feel the most pride when I make people feel seen. I love art that makes me feel like I’m not alone, like someone understands me even if they’ve never met me, and when my work does that for other people I get very emotional.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding thing about being a creative is that the world is never boring to me. When you learn how to draw something, and the time it takes to learn to draw something well, you will never be bored again. The fact that this world is composed of so many shapes and colors that fit into perspective perfectly, the way light bounces off glass, the way shadows outside are blue and purple, nothing is ever black or grey. It’s endlessly fascinating and I’m often overwhelmed by it, even “mundane” things like telephone poles. Try to draw a telephone pole accurately and you’ll change your brain forever.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the creative process among non-creatives. Creatives need time to do “nothing”, or what looks like nothing to the outside world. We need time to take in our surroundings, experiences, and to process them before we can then turn that into art. There is a lot of work happening behind our eyes that only comes out a little with each painting, or whatever the artist’s product may be. What may look like nothing to a non-creative is fuel to us. There needs to be space for that without judgment from other people, or ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.rachelmsilva.com/
• Instagram: @missrachelsilva