We were lucky to catch up with Raquel L Malave recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Raquel L, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
The shortest answer would be that I am self taught. The philosophical answer would be that life has been my educator. The more nuanced answer would be that I’ve been blessed to be a child of wonder & curiosity and come from a family who understood the importance of creativity and nurtured it. I grew up in a time & place that still had the arts as part of public school curriculum and I’ve encountered brilliantly creative teachers who taught us to think as if the box never existed. All this is how I learned that art was a powerful language to express myself.
I’ve never taken any formal classes but I’m always spending time learning new techniques & ideas. Im a super visual learner so I watch a lot of videos of makers, artists, & creatives as they work thru their own processes. Play & exploration are also a super important part of my process. Taking time to try things out without pressure has let me find where my strengths, my natural talents, my weaknesses, & my ideas collide to express my artistic voice.
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?
Sometimes I find it hard to answer this question. I’m just a weird person who paints what she’s feeling and sells them online.
Seriously tho I’m a work in progress, creative entrepreneur who creates one of a kind abstract, mixed media artworks and illustrative style digital art. In my abstract work I use color to express unfiltered emotion. My hope is to open up a conversation around the commonality of emotions across humanity, cultivating emotion intelligence, and creating a safe space for discussion & understanding. On the digital side I love to create original characters who unapologetically think a bit left of center. Color helps me tell you their story.
Various Original pieces and digital prints can be found in my socials & online store.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I’ve had to unlearn a lot of things! Part of finding my artistic voice was learning to find my own voice in the noise of everyone telling me who I am and am supposed to be.
Unlearning perfection was the first step. Fully understanding perfection is unattainable because there is not one real set of standards was hard. The idea that there is an, exact, right, acceptable way to do anything, telling myself I wasn’t good enough and being too scared to try and fail held me back for years. It wasn’t until I could accept, see & recognize myself that I allowed myself to try. I’ve tried and failed a lot of things and they’ve all taught me to feel free to just be & do me. There will always be beauty in the unexpected.
Confidence was the next hurdle. I wish I had believed in my natural skills earlier so that I didn’t make myself miss opportunities. Honestly the most essential skill has nothing to do with creativity and is all about giving yourself some grace and room to fail. Sometimes you’re going to make crappy art and some ideas are just bad but you try anyway.
Then came unlearning the mindset that anything creative couldn’t be a viable career. That at some point you’d have to grow up and get a real job to sustain your life. Simply leave the dream as a dream and maybe you could just keep it as a hobby. I’ve sort of done things backwards and tried to avoid the dream so that I wouldn’t be sad to leave it behind. Instead working to survive showed me that I wanted to live the dream and I’ve shifted my hard work there.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Make The Arts an equally important part of the public school curriculum. Creative education develops creative thinking. When The Arts are an integral part of the school systems it nurtures a generation of creative thinkers who grow into creatively thinking adults who can then find new & creative solutions throughout all aspects of humanity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArEllemArt
- Instagram: @ar_ellem_art