We recently connected with Will Day and have shared our conversation below.
Will , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I’ve always been a creative spirit. I have a specific memory of being 13 years old in Ms. Kay’s art class, working on a watercolor project that made the whole world stop. That was probably my first creative epiphany.
Since then it’s been a journey that’s taken me from the Peace Corps in Tunisia to working on Wall Street. I started pursuing an artistic path full-time when I lost my job in the Financial Crisis of 2008. It was a big leap of faith for me, and it ultimately led me to where I am today, painting all the time, on larger and larger canvases, working with collectors, exhibiting in galleries, and sharing my journey of living a creative life.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a large-scale abstract painter who works in a studio in Boulder, CO. How I got to this point is a nonlinear journey that saw me working for the Peace Corps in Tunisia, on Wall Street, and as an architect, until I finally pursued painting full-time in a leap of faith after losing my job in the Financial Crisis of 2008.
While I do provide commission-based works, which is its own rewarding process, I’ve also been focusing on bodies of work that tell my own story as well as the universality of emotions I want to express. My intent with these paintings, whether they exhibit in shows or are collected by individuals, is to bring healing, hope, and to change narratives of fear into love.
What I want people to know about my work now is that I want viewers to feel like they can step into a painting. I mean that literally with the large-scale nature of most of my paintings as well as figuratively with the emotional landscapes I’m conveying in every work. I see these paintings as moments to creative freedom, and that’s something I want to share with as many people as possible.
: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I like to think that we’re going to experience another Renaissance. That’s something I’d like to be on the forefront of, meaning, creating work out of dark and difficult times that point towards a common purpose. My ideas are built around the layering of emotions, spirituality, love, kindness, and future thinking. I can’t predict the future, but what I can do is be a positive inspiration for the future.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I’m grateful to have an audience that is genuinely involved, interested, and dedicated, specifically on Instagram. I owe a lot of that to Michael Smith of Mber Creative, who does all the gorgeous documentation of me and my work in the studio. My best piece of advice is to be natural. Let people into your studio, your practice, whatever it might be. It should be about building a community as much as my paintings themselves are about building common purpose.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.willdayart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willdayart/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/willdayart
Image Credits
Mber Creative