Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Waggett.
Hi Elizabeth, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My earliest memories from childhood are of making things. I was always drawing, painting, cutting, sewing or building. All of the arts are unavoidable in my home city Manchester. It’s truly a creative mecca. After I graduated from university, I traveled through Southeast Asia and eventually began teaching art in the Middle East. The inspiration of living in places so vibrant and different played a huge role in inspiring me to become a professional artist. I try to bring inspiration from the places I’ve lived through in all of my work.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’m not sure any life calling is without its pitfalls and struggles, but the visual arts are a notoriously competitive field. Only about 15% of female artists make more than $10,000 a year. I think the earliest struggle was getting over the notion that success is only recognized in financial terms. While I’ve achieved what I would have deemed success more quickly than I expected, the real and newer struggle has been fighting for the time to be creative every day. The more my work has sold, the more time I spend doing things that aren’t traditional artists’ tasks. On a good week, 10% of my time each week is spent in front of an easel. The rest is spent running a business. I still know how lucky I am to do what I do, but I know I’ll continue to struggle for more creative time in the future.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m best known for large-scale, monochromatic drawings embellished with gold leaf. My subjects range from animals to personal objects, all imbued with special meaning from my travels. I’ve had solo shows in Los Angeles, London, Abu Dhabi, Miami, and New York and exhibited across the globe. My work has been collected by royalty and I’ve partnered with luxury brands like Saks and Soho House. What I’m most excited about right now though is my new series. It’s vibrant with new layers of depth and texture and is interwoven with intersectional feminism and environmentalism. There are such stories in the way a creature or a woman can be viewed, so much of which is left to the viewer. This series really puts that into perspective and has given my past work with the UN Lion’s Share and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy a home on canvas.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
It used to be a specific set of financial parameters. Now, I would say it’s being authentic in my work. It’s easy for anyone to compare themselves to others and try to fit into the right bracket. You can capture immediate financial success like that. But the more authentic I am with my work, the more people connect to it and the more inspired I am to make more of it. Authenticity is tied to my happiness in that sense. And the more authentic I am with my work, the more financially successful I become. There’s definitely a lesson to my younger self in there.
Pricing:
- $1000- $25000
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elizabethwaggett.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth_waggett/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethWaggett/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
