Today’s Artist of the Day features an interview with Elizabeth Marie. Please find our conversation below.
Thanks for joining us and we’re so excited to have our readers learn more about you and your creative works. Kick things off for us, what should they know?
First off, let me give some context to my art. It’s all over the place! From the canvas to the written word, I love the creativity that flows through me. I have over the decades thrown it away, opted for a “real job” instead and somehow it keeps coming back to me screaming “You are a creative, create girl!”
I grew up in a home that lived by cultural norms; the males do this and the females do that. While I watched the boys outside with my dad mowing the lawn or building something out of the fresh-cut wood, I worked in the house, my sister and I cleaning, preparing food, and playing with dolls. My heart ached to be outside, soaking in the smells of fresh-cut wood and building something with all those tools in the shed.
My outlet was journaling and doodling alongside my words. Those humble beginnings transformed into my art to this day. While the journaling is more about connection and hope now, the art is expressed in books by being an author and illustrator to the acrylic paint pressed onto the canvas.
My art is storytelling, and my books are wisdom stories. I’m a really good listener. A wall flower, a fly on the wall, a light in the darkness and I translate that into a visual medium. Gosh, art is amazing.
How has your art evolved over time?
My art has evolved over time as my circumstances evolved. Art for me in school was a task to be accomplished. Receiving grades that didn’t warm my heart to the aspirations of a thriving artist, I leaned into my degree in Communications Studies with a minor in Visual Arts.
I married and with the excitement of building our home from ground up, I took to learning ceramics and tile making. That led me to working with home builders creating custom tiles, sinks and paintings for their client’s interiors. I also partnered with another artist and we created numerous home decor items like lamps, furniture, religious items and dinnerware we sold through various companies including Neiman Marcus and Spiegel catalogs.
As my marriage ended and the reality of the real world being just me, my painting became an outlet of managing my emotions. The bright colors and bold patterns spoke of my journey. It wasn’t until I was appointed the decorations lead for the non-profit I was on the Board of Directors for, that I realized my art had value. One by one, the painted canvas’ used as directions and backdrops were auctioned off, pulling in a few thousand dollars for the organization. I realized with the dark black outlines of the colorful images in my paintings, I was speaking of living in the boundaries of the past. A true reflection of how we all live.
Time passed, and this style of art is my storytelling of the journey in life as a single woman in the throes of finding herself through others, through my soul, and through loving myself. This all led to the Soul Portraits, which came about with a girl’s night out to a psychic reading. The psychic I chose, proclaimed my bright and bold colored art as awful and I needed to paint dark.
I was so angry at him that I painted the canvas black and waited. The rest became magical. Through the years of painting Soul Portraits for clients, I find it to be a revelation for them. For me, it’s a time to remove myself from the internal talk that painting for myself brings and be there for another.
Today, my journey is one of self-healing as I go through treatment for a rarer form of cancer. The me I know, now bald and living day by day, has found beauty in myself and an expression in my art of the world around me, including what’s bugging. Words are hard to share, as many have left our friendship out of not knowing how to be around someone that is going through this; others have stepped up in ways I couldn’t never repay and others make it about them. So much to paint about. Currently, I’ve reacquainted my artistic talents into vintage insects and my love of the desert with India Inks.
Alright, before we go, let’s do a quick lightning round.
Favorite artist?
Spanish artist ALVAR -Alvar Sunol Munoz-Ramos
Favorite book?
Charlotte’s Web
Favorite movie?
Lady Hawk
Favorite genre of music?
More like era-60s & 70s
Favorite cuisine?
Middle Eastern, or seafood, or steak, okay, I like them all!
Surprising Fact
I was the stand-in for Gates McFadden for the character Dr. Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation during certain seasons.
Ketchup or Mustard?
Mustard
Savory or Sweet?
Aww, common on! Both!
Sparkling or Still?
Being still while I drink sparkling!
How can someone support you?
As the saying goes, ‘Like and Follow me’! My FB and Insta are elizabethmariefineart. Come by the Best of the Best gallery in Houston, Texas for 2 years now, Art Machine Gallery in The Silos at Sawyer Yards suite 215 and check out my exhibition and purchase my art. Right now, with the medical needs, that would be my blessing to be supported by art lovers’ purchases and in philanthropic ways. Purchase my books and the books I’ve collaborated with on Amazon: An Eagle Soars, Leaving The Nest, Don’t Forget To Bloom, Don’t Forget To Bloom coloring book, and Metta Magic. Stop by my website www.emarieart.com for prints and originals.
I enjoy collaborating with aspiring authors. I have wonderful stories of making their one-page dream of the book into reality, as is the case with Don’t Forget to Bloom with Lisa Walker and Metta Magic with Sylvia Colbourne. I enjoy collaborating with other artists in finding ways to inspire and sell our art. Heck, I really just hang out with fellow creatives, whether in music, entertainment, photography, and visual arts. To hear their life stories and see their setbacks and successes makes being a wall flower glorious.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elizabethmariefineart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethmariefineart/
