We recently connected with Rosalinda Post-Lucas and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Rosalinda, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
I have spent my life working as an art educator and artist. As such I see my success as two fold. As an art educator I have had the opportunity to reach out to students who felt like failures simply because they didn’t fit the traditional mold of being athletic, or gifted in math or language skills. So many young people struggle to fit the norms when, in reality they are talented in so many other ways. Working with them in art allowed them to realize they are creatively talented. These people are the thinkers and innovators that we so desperately need appreciate and to move ahead in society.
In my mind my success as an artist has little to do with being rich, or famous. I am female, live in middle America and I’m now beyond middle age. My success has more to do with my personal exploration and evolution. I work in glass, oil, acrylic, watercolor, ceramics and a myriad of materials. My personal goal is to explore and through exploration I create. Every project is a new opportunity to challenge both my abilities and the possibilities of the materials. I often work with a wide variety of things and combine them in new ways.
Over the years I have won regional, state and national awards ranging from some honorable mentions to some best of show awards. My awards have been for painting and my glass work.
The visual art commuity can be very rigid, which I find confusing, irritating and unpleasant. When I have an art show I sometimes get a reaction as though I should only do one type of highly identifiable art. Granted, I know many artists who will just stay within very limited paramaters, because that is accepted and encourages sales. Buyers love to have friends come to their house and immediately identify the artwork. While we seem to feel a need to limit artist, we simultaneously applaud others like Picasso who went on to explore different paths as being highly creative.
How do I measure my success? I have been successful because I am pleased with my personal evolutin and the growth of my students. One day a student informed me that I was famous. I assured her that I was not. She smiled and said “Yes you are! You’re famous to me.”
Rosalinda, 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?
Art intrgued me from a very early age. In kindergarten I was far more fascinated by the paint running down the paper on the easel than I was with painting little flowers and houses. My evolution into an art educator naturally formed as I went through high school and headed to college. When teaching jobs were scarce I worked more in areas such as artist in residence. I also went back to school for a masters in legal studies, which tied in with my not for profit work.
Eventually I went back into teaching art full time. Since my retirement from that I have been doing private art lessons and judging exhibits, working on a variety of art boards and continuing to take lessons with the hope of always improving!
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My mission is fundamentally self awareness and improvement. That mission applies not only to myself, but to other artists around me. We all need to work to uplift and encourage each other, not to try t step over the wounded souls of others. That is even more critical as we face this time of division in our country.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
The best thing any person can do to enhance their business efforts is to build great community relationships with individuals and other businesses. I once asked my doctor to donate some wine from his other business. (Yes, my doctor has a lovely wine store.) He sighed and said he gets asked for donations all the time. Without giving it a thought I said that I had been asked to donate my art to 6 different medical events this month alone and I gave to each one. He then turned and said “Okay, send me a letter.”
Contact Info:
- Facebook: Rosalinda Post-Lucas
Image Credits
All mine.