We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie Swilley recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Stephanie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?
Having started with art in my 30s – married with kids – I often wonder what it would have been like if I had found this passion in my youth. The closest I’ve had to formal training were my public school art classes in elementary and middle school (I was in band, so there was no room for art class in high school). I wonder where I would be now with so many more years of experience; would I have gone to art school instead of music school for college? What would it be like not learning everything through YouTube and good old trial and error?
However, I do feel that there’s no wrong time to begin creating art, and I’m just grateful that I did begin.
Stephanie, 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’m a self-taught mixed-media artist living in Northern Iowa with my husband and two boys. My creative life started originally in music (undergrad in Bassoon Performance!), but I had to stop playing due to some injuries. After floundering for several years and really struggling to maintain an identity beyond “mom,” I got the crazy idea to dye some silk and create butterfly wings for a friend’s daughter. I loved it and spent several years hand-dying silk scarves, which evolved into exploring with fiber art, and now I just embrace all mediums!
Currently, my work primarily features the female figure and nature through abstract realism, exploring my relationship with myself, my children, my community, and the natural world. I try to create something beyond what I see with my eyes, reminding myself and others to stop, sit with ideas and experiences, and look beyond the surface. The idea of a cohesive body of work really chafes at my need to not be boxed-in, so I impose no limits on myself, style, or mediums (though, I am partial to pastels, charcoal, and graphite).
My most recent and ongoing collection, “Unboxed”, is created with pastels on paper, and explores my near-visceral fear of being labeled and forced into a box and my transformation to viewing the boxes as something that I hold, rather than something that holds me. In my 37 years, I have denied some aspects of myself and forced others in an effort to not fit into any neat, predefined labels of: female, mother, wife, musician, white, southern, and so many more. In these works, the layers upon layers of boxes represent all the labels I have carried with me throughout my life. Some of these labels fit perfectly – like a glove tailored to my hand – while others hung awkwardly from my shoulders.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The ability to communicate ideas, especially centered around rest, freedom from expectations and “shoulds,” and connection with ourselves and others is like magic to me. When I share my art and words and someone tells me that my work made them truly stop and reevaluate their thoughts, It feels like every torn-up attempt is beyond worth the effort.
I often create pieces that focus on lessons I’ve learned in my life, permissions I’ve given myself, so to share those with the world and have them resonate with and impact others is truly a gift.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When I started to take my art seriously, I definitely felt like there were “right ways” to do it…and all of those right ways centered around creating the same or very similar works on repeat. I tried for a long time to follow the art business advice that I found and ended up miserable because I was losing touch with the authenticity in my work.
At this point, I’ve embraced the fact that I don’t like feeling limited by anything other than my skills, and I love that I’ve found a community that encourages me to follow my intuition and put my art first (rather than business strategy).
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stephanieswilleyart.com
- Instagram: @stephanieswilleyart