We recently connected with Séraphine …. and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Séraphine, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

In my first year of university fine art studies, I was introduced to a new paint, acrylic. Prior to that, everyone used only oils. In the humidity of Louisiana Cajun country, oils just did not dry. Sometimes it took two years for an oil painting to “harden” enough to call it dry. Acrylics, because of the humidity worked very much like oils except our paintings would be dry by the next day.

My first “real” painting was a 5’x4′ close-up of water drops on the surface of a leaf. I entered it in an exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art which was then called Delgado Museum. While there my college painting instructor came over, greeting me saying, “Oh, how nice, you came to see my work.” To which I responded, “No, I came here to see my work.”

At that moment, I saw my future.

Séraphine, 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?

After realizing my dyslexia made a career as a surgeon impossible and after visiting the museums around Europe, I knew I wanted to communicate with people in the future. Visiting a concentration camp in the 1960’s I saw how people will kill people however, preserve the art they created. I realized that if I wanted to be a time traveler, I could and would do that through my ability to draw and paint however, I didn’t really know how to draw nor paint well.

After convincing my father that I would not go into medicine, every pathway I chose, had an artistic map toward my goal, even working at a hardware store taught me some of the materials I would one day need.

I studied Advertising Design at Art Center College of Design because I needed to earn a living and my fine art was not a way for me to support myself. I paint not to make money to live, I live to paint. If someone wants to give me money for one of my art pieces all the better but I paint even if I don’t get paid to do it. I have to create.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I believe society as a whole thinks of artists, creatives and creative thinkers as a group of strange humans not quite in step with reality, nor the rules and regulations of the community. What they don’t understand is that we creatives see, think and feel differently than the majority of the general public. We are not sick nor mentally ill. We have the ability to see deep into shadows and highlights of the physical world. We have the ability to move in and out of the general public’s reality. Lots of time un non-creative people appreciate our look at their world of feelings and emotions . Each of us is showing the public what we see, hear or look at and we prize it when our visions are acknowledged.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had a job at a major department store in the 1970’s where I worked my way around various departments, color coordinating the merchandize. One day I found myself drawing people as they shopped. I wondered what was I doing in a department store.

Shortly after that I went to work at HANNA-BARBERA ANIMATION STUDIOS in the background department. My painting skills snowballed. I was the only female (early-feminist movement) in a department of 14 men/boys. They had to have at least one woman. One day the supervisor came in and while looking at me asked, “Who knows how to type?” I knew how but I kept my mouth shut. Soon another woman came into the department. I knew my time was limited as they only “kept” a token woman to comply with the union regulations.

From there I was accepted into Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in their Advertising Design Program. I wanted to be the person doing the hiring not the Graphic Designer, Illustrator nor Fine Artist trying to get hired. I graduated from a class of 7, set up an ad agency in a “she shed” working there for 13 years while still pursuing my fine art obsession. I often kept a small painting next to my phone to work on while I was on hold.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.longshadowstudio.com
• Other: I have other social media but choose not to list them as I don’t have time to keep all social media current.

Image Credits
All photos taken by Séraphine, the artist and some based on photos under the creative name of Vive’s Photography (Vive meaning Life)