THE SYNCREATE PODCAST: EMPOWERING CREATIVITY
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY,AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY,AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
EPISODE 8: GRIEF, HEALING & THE ARTIST'S LIFE
WITH ANNE MYERS CLEARY
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE:
Anne Myers Cleary is a visual artist, as well as a writer and musician, based in Indianapolis. Anne majored in art at Kenyon College, and studied vocal performance and opera at Longy School of Music in Boston and the Jacob's School of Music at Indiana University. Her work has been featured as part of the Encore Sotheby’s Visiting Artist Series, The Harrison Center for the Arts, Kuaba Gallery, the Carmel Clay Library, and the St. Margaret’s Guild Decorator’s Showhouse.
Anne shares in her Artist’s Statement: I believe in the importance of imagination, make believe, magic, and mystery, and the truths that are revealed therein. My work is an emotional response to the natural world. I'm interested in the complex and varied emotionality of places and the meaning we attach to them. How we feel in them, or gazing at them, removed. They are reflections of our inner psychological and emotional spaces. I am a traveler, capturing these sacred spaces as they are revealed to me in an attempt to understand human existence and its relationship to the natural world.
We discuss how Anne discovered her own unique creative rhythms and routines, as well as her connection to the place she grew up, and how that sense of place figures into her work. We also explore her creative and meaning-making process in connection with a recent series of paintings in oil and spray paint that explore grief and healing, paradoxically expressed through bold, colorful abstract landscapes.
Creativity Pro Tip & Accountability Challenge:
Do you have an artist statement? Whenever we work with clients or give workshops, we always end with an accountability challenge. Here's our challenge to you. In the next week, write your own artist statement, whatever your creative medium or pursuit. Try to create one that motivates and inspires you to move forward with your current work.
If you enjoy this episode, you might also like our conversations in Episode 3: Creative Polymathy with Musician, Photographer, and Podcaster Michael Walker, and Episode 7: The Syncreate Story with Charlotte Gullick.
Credits:
The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Creative development and video production by Shuja Uddin and Devon Foster at Tishna Films.
Artwork by Dreux Carpenter.
Anne shares in her Artist’s Statement: I believe in the importance of imagination, make believe, magic, and mystery, and the truths that are revealed therein. My work is an emotional response to the natural world. I'm interested in the complex and varied emotionality of places and the meaning we attach to them. How we feel in them, or gazing at them, removed. They are reflections of our inner psychological and emotional spaces. I am a traveler, capturing these sacred spaces as they are revealed to me in an attempt to understand human existence and its relationship to the natural world.
We discuss how Anne discovered her own unique creative rhythms and routines, as well as her connection to the place she grew up, and how that sense of place figures into her work. We also explore her creative and meaning-making process in connection with a recent series of paintings in oil and spray paint that explore grief and healing, paradoxically expressed through bold, colorful abstract landscapes.
Creativity Pro Tip & Accountability Challenge:
Do you have an artist statement? Whenever we work with clients or give workshops, we always end with an accountability challenge. Here's our challenge to you. In the next week, write your own artist statement, whatever your creative medium or pursuit. Try to create one that motivates and inspires you to move forward with your current work.
If you enjoy this episode, you might also like our conversations in Episode 3: Creative Polymathy with Musician, Photographer, and Podcaster Michael Walker, and Episode 7: The Syncreate Story with Charlotte Gullick.
Credits:
The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Creative development and video production by Shuja Uddin and Devon Foster at Tishna Films.
Artwork by Dreux Carpenter.
episode video clips
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episode-specific hyperlinks
Anne’s website: annelouiseart.com
Anne’s Instagram
Anne’s work on Saatchi
Artist Francis Bacon
Saybrook University Creativity Studies Program
Anne’s Instagram
Anne’s work on Saatchi
Artist Francis Bacon
Saybrook University Creativity Studies Program
episode transcript
Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. We view creativity broadly, and one of our primary goals is to demystify the creative process while expanding the boundaries of what it means to be creative. I'm Melinda Rothouse, and I help individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life.
My guest today is Anne Myers Cleary. She's a visual artist as well as a writer and musician. In our conversation, we focus mostly on her creative process in connection with a recent series of paintings in oil and spray paint that explore grief and healing, paradoxically expressed through bold, colorful landscapes.
One of the things that really strikes me about Anne is her artist statement and how she articulates the inspiration and intention behind her work. You'll hear it during our conversation. Anne and I both grew up in Indianapolis and we went to high school together. While we've known each other for many years, during the pandemic, she started sharing her paintings on Facebook, and her work really caught my attention. It inspired me to reach out, and we began to develop a deeper friendship and connection.
Anne: I feel like we picked up where we left off or maybe we never even got started. I feel like we always had this little dance around each other, sort of like, I know that I always sort of secretly admired you, but you were a little bit older,
Melinda: Just a little.
Anne: Just a smidge. And, you know, when you're in high school that some of the older, cool girls are a little bit, intimidating, and I always, you know, just kind of felt like you had just this, really amazing way to be very steadfast and intentive about what you believe in. So anyway, when we reconnected over the Facebook and over the pandemic I was like, oh my gosh, where have you been?
Melinda: Yeah...
Anne: It was great. And now we're like day to day.
Melinda: All the time. We talk so often now.
Anne: All the time. we have like these deep conversations too. That is something that I think I've been, I don't know, kind of starving for a lot of my life just like a deep, artistic connection with someone and it happens to be in the form of a childhood friend.
Melinda: It's really special. So I ended up buying a couple of your paintings after visiting your studio, two of which are hanging up in my studio in the Hill Country in Texas.
I want to start with kind of sharing a little excerpt of your artist statement, which I know you've been working on and thinking about. And so just let me read this to you.
Anne: Okay.
Melinda: And I'm curious to hear your thoughts. So you say:
I believe in the importance of imagination, make believe, magic, and mystery, and the truths that are revealed therein. My work is an emotional response to the natural world. I'm interested in the complex and varied emotionality of places and the meaning we attach to them. How we feel in them, or gazing at them, removed. They are reflections of our inner psychological and emotional spaces. I am a traveler, capturing these sacred spaces as they are revealed to me in an attempt to understand human existence and its relationship to the natural world.
So how does that feel to hear that read back to you by someone else?
Anne: It honestly feels really good. It's strange to be in the spotlight like this but I will be really honest and say that it actually feels really, really good. It's taken me a long time to get to this point, both personally and in my artistic endeavors. That chunk of my artist statement has taken years. I mean, that's sort of the nature of the beast, isn't it? As you evolve, you're constantly honing and chiseling away at what it is you're doing and what it is we are doing in these creative endeavors and I finally feel like I'm at a place where I'm having more times of deep understanding. And that that is what it has been revealed, so when I refer to the truths that are revealed therein, it really is the process is the point of it, and that's what I finally figured out and I'm good with it.
Melinda: Yeah, well, I think that's quite a thing to be able to distill your work and your ethos down into a statement like that. You know, that's something that in Syncreate we really encourage people to think about. You know, what is their personal mission statement? What is their creative or artistic mission statement? And, easier said than done.
And just, creating anything is not a linear process as we've talked about so much. It's a journey through the wilderness and there's no perfect roadmap for that, because we each have our own process; people are working in different mediums, different contexts; there's no one way to do it, right? And so it's really a matter of figuring out what are our creative rhythms and how are we able to get things done, but you are a writer as well as a painter and musician. And one thing that really strikes me about you and our conversations, and in your work and your writing, is your ability to articulate your inner landscape And I'm just curious: How did you learn how to do that? Was it something that came naturally? Did you journal a lot as a kid?
Anne: It sounds flaky but it is honestly the truth like I've just always done that and it has just been something that is just part of my DNA. I mean from the time I learned to read and write as a young child, I always had pockets stuffed full of envelopes and I always had a pencil or, more often than not, I would be running around the farm and then have to run into the house and find a piece of paper and jot something down because something, came to me.
And I just thought that was just a little strange quirk of mine that I always had the need to write down these thoughts and ideas, and back then it was usually in the form of a poem, like about my kitty cats or the sunset (that hasn't changed that much) or the hay field. Or you know back then, even actually now that I'm saying this, it had to do with the natural world and my surroundings, which was my playground where I grew up, which you know, 40-some years later, is coming back to have just profound deep meaning, and a meaning that I'm having to sort of take some distance from and, rethink some things about place. But no, I've always written. Some of it's good, some of it's not so good, but the point of the matter is to just keep doing it.
Melinda: Yeah. I believe that we're all creative, right? So that's one of my mantras, but those of us who feel inclined to express that creativity also tend to be reflective, have a sort of vivid imagination and internal life and perhaps a natural inclination to express that. Not that it can't be cultivated, I believe that it can.
But you mentioned your home. And so I want to mention that because you talked about the farm. So though we both went to school in Indianapolis, you did come from a more rural area outside of the city. And I know that a lot of your current work, including the series of paintings you've been working on called Homestead Story, really is reflecting on the place that you grew up.
And for those listening on audio, I'm going to try to express a little bit about what I see in these paintings. They're bold, they're colorful, very multilayered. You work a lot in oil and spray paint and many, many layers. So there's a depth to the paintings, a sense of just vibrance with all the colors and movement. So I find them to be very enlivening and life affirming, but I also know that this particular series came out of a moment of deep grieving in your life and have been part of your healing process. And that's something that, you know, in creativity studies, we talk a lot about the connection between art and healing and how art, as an endeavor unto itself, can be a very healing and cathartic experience. So I'm curious, can we hear a little more about what inspired this particular series paintings?
Anne: Yeah, I mean, I will touch upon that, somewhat loosely, but with a few details. You know, none of us are immune to death and tragedy and family dynamics. I mean, it just, you know, it's the human condition and the way that my mind works is that when I am taking walks or outside, I just sort of go to a place of reflection, and I will say that these paintings did come in a time of intense grief and sorrow, and they were a real surprise to me, that out of some real dark places, that something that was really celebrating a wellspring of abundant joy and just gratitude to be alive.
Just, really appreciative of the beauty of the world, and acknowledging the darkness of the world because many times, two things are true at once. And so I was sort of thinking about opposites and two things being true at once and how that sometimes takes the form of like a personality within one human being. And what was going on in my life when this series started was we had just lost my father in a rather horrific accident.
He walked out in front of one of his horses at a racetrack. It was a standard bred and he was trampled. And so, it was a horrific way to go out. And, I don't know that I've unpacked that part of it yet. That may take me a little bit, but, it just sort of unleashed a lot of bottled up emotions within my entire family.
And so, there was a ripple effect from that, there was a ripple effect from some losses that happened when I was in high school and my sisters were in middle school. We lost our mother to cancer. She was ill for about four years and my dad really just never got over it. I think he really was sort of the wounded healer type that, it sort of was, he was a physician, so he obviously was very comfortable in a command position, and he was very smart, he was beloved by his patients, and rightly so.
He was just an absolutely wonderful, empathetic physician. Sometimes that doesn't always translate at home, and when you're used to be in charge of everybody, you don't necessarily need to be in charge of everybody all the time. And so, long story short, there was just a ripple effect in our family. And when he passed away, it sort of ripped the band-aid off of a lot of latent emotions and it ended up kind of destroying what was left of our little family.
In the midst of processing all of that, and really just to survive, I think, emotionally and mentally, I just dove into this flurry of paintings. And you would think that going through something so heartbreaking really tragic, I mean just sort of losing your sisters, losing other family members, just like this nuclear bomb went off you would think it'd be like a Francis Bacon-like dark, you know, just gruesome but the opposite was true.
And I will say, you know, I get the question a lot, what are your paintings about? And it is the most difficult thing in the world for me to answer that question because the truth of the matter is like I don't really know until I start in, and I don't start in a linear fashion, like none of this is step one, step two, step three. I literally just always start in the middle of something. It's usually with a color idea or I've absorbed the structure of the forest. Or some little detail is interesting to me and it'll just sort of be on my mind. But I don't really set out to, I'm going to paint a picture of this. That is just not how it works. Where I find the deep meaning is when I step away from things. And how often is that true in life, where don't really see where we’ve been until we get a little further away from the thing.
And so, I think a lot about life reflected in which is not a new concept. But yeah, so I just really surprised that these paintings, I mean, they've carried me through. I don't know why they're happy. To me, it just, it's the most honest representation of how I feel about life, even in the midst of deep, deep sorrow, here comes this wellspring of vitality. I think there's hope. I think they are a complete act of faith in the beauty of the world and also acknowledging that the darkness exists at the same time.
Melinda: You know, there are sort of darker colors in all these layers, and then there's these beautiful, colorful, floral patterns and there's a lot going on here. And I love what you were talking about, you know, kind of that paradox of like the dark and the light, you know, the the yin and the yang. It’s like you can't really truly appreciate and embrace the beauty of the world without acknowledging the darkness, and I think the creative process is very much, you know, touches into that. It's like embracing the full spectrum of life, right?
Anne: Even within nature, I mean, I'm painting these beautiful flowers, and then there's a lot of references to like a lake, and all the beautiful things, but the truth of the matter also within nature, I mean, nature is violent.
Melinda: Yeah.
Anne: And there we go again with two things being true at the same time.
Melinda: Yes.
Anne: And that is something that you have to accept about life. That that as you go through life those two things will always be hand in hand.
Melinda: The theme of nature is so important. And yes, nature is not always beautiful and docile, right? We're up here in Northern Indiana right now, and we're sort of socked in by the smoke from the wildfires in Canada, you know, and, these things are, we nearly found ourselves in the middle of a tornado driving up here the other day. Nature is intense.
Anne: This is true…But we survived.
Melinda: So nature I feel is a cornerstone of your work and, you know, on the show we're exploring the connections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality and I think for you, those things seem to come together very much in the way that you express your connection to the natural world.
So I'm curious to hear a little bit more, because so much of your recent work is focusing on this place that you grew up. Could you maybe describe it for us a little bit?
Anne: Sixty acres with a horse barn, a hayfield, and vast woods with a creek. So, it was an ideal playground for a wild tomboy. [Laughter] My dad had horses and I was sort of his barn-hand, turn-back girl, and I just roamed around. I had two cousins that I grew up with and we were just always playing make believe and using our imaginations and building things and skinned knees and just a little rough, probably, around the edges.
And it can be lonely at times, too, living like that. It's kind of, you know, in this day and age, you look back on the way society has changed, and, we talked about that on one of our car rides yesterday around the beautiful countryside up here, which is a different landscape. You know, at that time, it was kind of a strange way to grow up, and I know that when I, went to the school that you and I both went to, you know, we tested in and we drove in and it took us about, close to a half hour to get there and, we were pretty far out at that point.
So it could be kind of lonely, I kind of felt like I was missing out, you know, I was missing out on, you know, we had a gravel driveway, like it was an event to pack up our bicycles and go to like a church parking lot 10 miles away to like ride your bike around on pavement. But I mean, that was like a big deal. You know what I'm saying? So, as a grown woman and, with my own kids and, you know, like I look back on our childhood as some of the most magical, creative times of my life and it really was the formative years of just allowing my mind to wander around and just try everything out.
Now things changed, when my mother passed away, and it was like this shroud just came over our family. I mean, we lost someone who was the backbone and was just a bright, beautiful spirit, creative in her own right, she kind made the engine hum along, and over time and over years, that place became, I guess figuratively, haunted, and the house started to feel not so good. And then it kind of, over the years, turned into a place that you just, it just evoked a sense of dread. Like, was as if a pillar or an altar to my mother had been created by my father. And it just stilted our family emotionally, just across the board. It just, it, the failure of my dad to be able to move on from that had ripple effects. We all kind of dealt with it in our own way.
Melinda: Yeah.
Anne: Solitarily. You know what I'm saying? But it is, it is because what I'm realizing in this body of work is that if you don't have any place to put your feelings, or you're having a hard time acknowledging your feelings, it’s going to come out one way or another. And probably nine times out of ten, it's gonna come out in a negative way. I certainly lived through that in my own life. You must do what you need do. You do quote unquote “the work.” And what I've realized is that that is directly tied into my artistic process.
Melinda: Yeah, intergenerational trauma. It's a real thing. We're learning more and more about that from the research. But this, for you, it sounds like it really anchored you. I mean, you carry that with you, even though you're no longer in that place, but growing up there and all of those accumulated experiences, and then, this idea, which I can resonate with a lot of what you are talking about in my family situation as well, you know, it seems like the resilience really comes from being willing or able to let go of certain things and move forward in different direction, and art and creativity is an incredibly sort-of skillful way of doing that, if we can find our way to that and, art so often is about product, it's what we see in the end. But yet, there's so much about the process and how healing it can be to simply engage in the creative process.
Anne: Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with that statement. It is as if, you know, we at times in our families put so much weight on, sort of holding up the past, or the way things used to be, as if being stuck in a situation or a mentality, again generational, is the way to honor that, when I feel like the opposite is true. Being an artist has a motion to it. It has its own feeling of aliveness and of moving forward versus just getting through something. Trudging through. Like, it’s an act of grief. But yet, it's still covered with beauty the world.
Melinda: And yet, again, I think we can sense when we look at this work, the depth that is there. That it's not just all pretty on the surface. You're grieving the emotional landscapes, the inner landscapes that you've had to traverse. And I think you're right. I think it's something a lot of people can resonate with when they make work, particularly writers who write memoir. And there's always this hesitation or this feeling of like, oh, I'm going to be betraying these people that I'm writing about. And yet, you also have to be true to your own experience, and how do you navigate that?
Anne: Like everything else in my life, I kind of just have to feel my through it and, how do you know when a painting is finished? You know when you know. It's really not probably the most satisfying answer to hear. But it is also true.
Melinda: Yeah, exactly. And so what it means to be an artist or a creative, it's not just about having the ideas. It's not just about coming up with possibilities, which is an important piece, but there's also like consistent discipline. There's intention. There's daily practice, right?
And, you know, for example, I've been teaching class at Saybrook, where I did my PhD, on creativity and Jungian psychology and some of our recent discussions have been around like, well, what are, as a creative, what are your daily habits? Do you work better in the morning or the evening? And the thing about it is we're all different. There's no formula.
So what we really have to do is figure out what are our natural rhythms, what are the ways that we work best, and then sort of intentionally harness that. So I'm curious, for you, and we've talked a little bit about this, what are your daily routines as an artist? And, you know, trying on this idea of living the artful or the artist's life. What does that look like for you?
Anne: I don't know if it's even that interesting. I mean, I will say that I am in a situation in my life where I have the luxury of devoting a great deal of my time to my creative endeavors. I owe my circumstances that diligent work. And it hasn't always been that way.
Melinda: Yeah, you were raising three kids.
Anne: I was raising three kids. They’re a little bit older now. The oldest one's now going off to college, and I have two other ones that at times I feel like I'm just trying to keep them alive, or like they're trying to kill me. I get up very early, like 6:00 (to me that's very early), most days, and I just drink some coffee, I do some reading, and then when I'm taking my kids to school, I do that, and then when I'm not having to take them to school, I am in the studio for hours at a time.
And then when I need to walk away from the work, I take the dogs on a walk, I roam around the property where I live. So I do try and schedule my day like a work day, but I also like the fluidity of, putting life-y things in the midst of my work-y things. And I'm pretty good toggling between those, but I do like have set time of studio work, and I feel like, you know, it's like practicing an instrument.
Melinda: Absolutely.
Anne: It really is. It's just doing it day in, day out, day in, day out.
Melinda: Yeah, consistent.
Anne: Yeah, you have to keep up your instrument.
Melinda: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we are about at time. Thank you so much.
Anne: Pleasure is mine. Entirely.
Melinda: This has been so fun and the conversations leading up to it and the fact that we could be here together live in person today is wonderful. So, if people want to learn more about your work, how can they find you?
Anne: My website is annelouiseart.com. And my Instagram is @annelouiseartanddesign.
Melinda: Thank you so much.
I mentioned at the top of the episode, one thing that really stands out to me about this conversation is the power of creating an artist statement, a guidepost to remind you about your intentions and why you do what you do.
So here’s a question: Do you have an artist statement? Whenever I work with clients or give workshops, I always end with an accountability challenge. Here's my challenge to you. In the next week, write your own artist statement, whatever your creative medium or pursuit. Try to create one that motivates and inspires you to move forward with your current work.
Thanks again to Anne for the conversation.
You can learn more about her work at annelouiseart.com. She's also on Instagram and Facebook. We'll link to these in the show notes.
This episode was produced by Mike Osborne with production assistance by Christian Haigis. Follow Syncreate on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, where you can also find out more about all we do at Syncreate.
Thanks for listening, and see you next time.
My guest today is Anne Myers Cleary. She's a visual artist as well as a writer and musician. In our conversation, we focus mostly on her creative process in connection with a recent series of paintings in oil and spray paint that explore grief and healing, paradoxically expressed through bold, colorful landscapes.
One of the things that really strikes me about Anne is her artist statement and how she articulates the inspiration and intention behind her work. You'll hear it during our conversation. Anne and I both grew up in Indianapolis and we went to high school together. While we've known each other for many years, during the pandemic, she started sharing her paintings on Facebook, and her work really caught my attention. It inspired me to reach out, and we began to develop a deeper friendship and connection.
Anne: I feel like we picked up where we left off or maybe we never even got started. I feel like we always had this little dance around each other, sort of like, I know that I always sort of secretly admired you, but you were a little bit older,
Melinda: Just a little.
Anne: Just a smidge. And, you know, when you're in high school that some of the older, cool girls are a little bit, intimidating, and I always, you know, just kind of felt like you had just this, really amazing way to be very steadfast and intentive about what you believe in. So anyway, when we reconnected over the Facebook and over the pandemic I was like, oh my gosh, where have you been?
Melinda: Yeah...
Anne: It was great. And now we're like day to day.
Melinda: All the time. We talk so often now.
Anne: All the time. we have like these deep conversations too. That is something that I think I've been, I don't know, kind of starving for a lot of my life just like a deep, artistic connection with someone and it happens to be in the form of a childhood friend.
Melinda: It's really special. So I ended up buying a couple of your paintings after visiting your studio, two of which are hanging up in my studio in the Hill Country in Texas.
I want to start with kind of sharing a little excerpt of your artist statement, which I know you've been working on and thinking about. And so just let me read this to you.
Anne: Okay.
Melinda: And I'm curious to hear your thoughts. So you say:
I believe in the importance of imagination, make believe, magic, and mystery, and the truths that are revealed therein. My work is an emotional response to the natural world. I'm interested in the complex and varied emotionality of places and the meaning we attach to them. How we feel in them, or gazing at them, removed. They are reflections of our inner psychological and emotional spaces. I am a traveler, capturing these sacred spaces as they are revealed to me in an attempt to understand human existence and its relationship to the natural world.
So how does that feel to hear that read back to you by someone else?
Anne: It honestly feels really good. It's strange to be in the spotlight like this but I will be really honest and say that it actually feels really, really good. It's taken me a long time to get to this point, both personally and in my artistic endeavors. That chunk of my artist statement has taken years. I mean, that's sort of the nature of the beast, isn't it? As you evolve, you're constantly honing and chiseling away at what it is you're doing and what it is we are doing in these creative endeavors and I finally feel like I'm at a place where I'm having more times of deep understanding. And that that is what it has been revealed, so when I refer to the truths that are revealed therein, it really is the process is the point of it, and that's what I finally figured out and I'm good with it.
Melinda: Yeah, well, I think that's quite a thing to be able to distill your work and your ethos down into a statement like that. You know, that's something that in Syncreate we really encourage people to think about. You know, what is their personal mission statement? What is their creative or artistic mission statement? And, easier said than done.
And just, creating anything is not a linear process as we've talked about so much. It's a journey through the wilderness and there's no perfect roadmap for that, because we each have our own process; people are working in different mediums, different contexts; there's no one way to do it, right? And so it's really a matter of figuring out what are our creative rhythms and how are we able to get things done, but you are a writer as well as a painter and musician. And one thing that really strikes me about you and our conversations, and in your work and your writing, is your ability to articulate your inner landscape And I'm just curious: How did you learn how to do that? Was it something that came naturally? Did you journal a lot as a kid?
Anne: It sounds flaky but it is honestly the truth like I've just always done that and it has just been something that is just part of my DNA. I mean from the time I learned to read and write as a young child, I always had pockets stuffed full of envelopes and I always had a pencil or, more often than not, I would be running around the farm and then have to run into the house and find a piece of paper and jot something down because something, came to me.
And I just thought that was just a little strange quirk of mine that I always had the need to write down these thoughts and ideas, and back then it was usually in the form of a poem, like about my kitty cats or the sunset (that hasn't changed that much) or the hay field. Or you know back then, even actually now that I'm saying this, it had to do with the natural world and my surroundings, which was my playground where I grew up, which you know, 40-some years later, is coming back to have just profound deep meaning, and a meaning that I'm having to sort of take some distance from and, rethink some things about place. But no, I've always written. Some of it's good, some of it's not so good, but the point of the matter is to just keep doing it.
Melinda: Yeah. I believe that we're all creative, right? So that's one of my mantras, but those of us who feel inclined to express that creativity also tend to be reflective, have a sort of vivid imagination and internal life and perhaps a natural inclination to express that. Not that it can't be cultivated, I believe that it can.
But you mentioned your home. And so I want to mention that because you talked about the farm. So though we both went to school in Indianapolis, you did come from a more rural area outside of the city. And I know that a lot of your current work, including the series of paintings you've been working on called Homestead Story, really is reflecting on the place that you grew up.
And for those listening on audio, I'm going to try to express a little bit about what I see in these paintings. They're bold, they're colorful, very multilayered. You work a lot in oil and spray paint and many, many layers. So there's a depth to the paintings, a sense of just vibrance with all the colors and movement. So I find them to be very enlivening and life affirming, but I also know that this particular series came out of a moment of deep grieving in your life and have been part of your healing process. And that's something that, you know, in creativity studies, we talk a lot about the connection between art and healing and how art, as an endeavor unto itself, can be a very healing and cathartic experience. So I'm curious, can we hear a little more about what inspired this particular series paintings?
Anne: Yeah, I mean, I will touch upon that, somewhat loosely, but with a few details. You know, none of us are immune to death and tragedy and family dynamics. I mean, it just, you know, it's the human condition and the way that my mind works is that when I am taking walks or outside, I just sort of go to a place of reflection, and I will say that these paintings did come in a time of intense grief and sorrow, and they were a real surprise to me, that out of some real dark places, that something that was really celebrating a wellspring of abundant joy and just gratitude to be alive.
Just, really appreciative of the beauty of the world, and acknowledging the darkness of the world because many times, two things are true at once. And so I was sort of thinking about opposites and two things being true at once and how that sometimes takes the form of like a personality within one human being. And what was going on in my life when this series started was we had just lost my father in a rather horrific accident.
He walked out in front of one of his horses at a racetrack. It was a standard bred and he was trampled. And so, it was a horrific way to go out. And, I don't know that I've unpacked that part of it yet. That may take me a little bit, but, it just sort of unleashed a lot of bottled up emotions within my entire family.
And so, there was a ripple effect from that, there was a ripple effect from some losses that happened when I was in high school and my sisters were in middle school. We lost our mother to cancer. She was ill for about four years and my dad really just never got over it. I think he really was sort of the wounded healer type that, it sort of was, he was a physician, so he obviously was very comfortable in a command position, and he was very smart, he was beloved by his patients, and rightly so.
He was just an absolutely wonderful, empathetic physician. Sometimes that doesn't always translate at home, and when you're used to be in charge of everybody, you don't necessarily need to be in charge of everybody all the time. And so, long story short, there was just a ripple effect in our family. And when he passed away, it sort of ripped the band-aid off of a lot of latent emotions and it ended up kind of destroying what was left of our little family.
In the midst of processing all of that, and really just to survive, I think, emotionally and mentally, I just dove into this flurry of paintings. And you would think that going through something so heartbreaking really tragic, I mean just sort of losing your sisters, losing other family members, just like this nuclear bomb went off you would think it'd be like a Francis Bacon-like dark, you know, just gruesome but the opposite was true.
And I will say, you know, I get the question a lot, what are your paintings about? And it is the most difficult thing in the world for me to answer that question because the truth of the matter is like I don't really know until I start in, and I don't start in a linear fashion, like none of this is step one, step two, step three. I literally just always start in the middle of something. It's usually with a color idea or I've absorbed the structure of the forest. Or some little detail is interesting to me and it'll just sort of be on my mind. But I don't really set out to, I'm going to paint a picture of this. That is just not how it works. Where I find the deep meaning is when I step away from things. And how often is that true in life, where don't really see where we’ve been until we get a little further away from the thing.
And so, I think a lot about life reflected in which is not a new concept. But yeah, so I just really surprised that these paintings, I mean, they've carried me through. I don't know why they're happy. To me, it just, it's the most honest representation of how I feel about life, even in the midst of deep, deep sorrow, here comes this wellspring of vitality. I think there's hope. I think they are a complete act of faith in the beauty of the world and also acknowledging that the darkness exists at the same time.
Melinda: You know, there are sort of darker colors in all these layers, and then there's these beautiful, colorful, floral patterns and there's a lot going on here. And I love what you were talking about, you know, kind of that paradox of like the dark and the light, you know, the the yin and the yang. It’s like you can't really truly appreciate and embrace the beauty of the world without acknowledging the darkness, and I think the creative process is very much, you know, touches into that. It's like embracing the full spectrum of life, right?
Anne: Even within nature, I mean, I'm painting these beautiful flowers, and then there's a lot of references to like a lake, and all the beautiful things, but the truth of the matter also within nature, I mean, nature is violent.
Melinda: Yeah.
Anne: And there we go again with two things being true at the same time.
Melinda: Yes.
Anne: And that is something that you have to accept about life. That that as you go through life those two things will always be hand in hand.
Melinda: The theme of nature is so important. And yes, nature is not always beautiful and docile, right? We're up here in Northern Indiana right now, and we're sort of socked in by the smoke from the wildfires in Canada, you know, and, these things are, we nearly found ourselves in the middle of a tornado driving up here the other day. Nature is intense.
Anne: This is true…But we survived.
Melinda: So nature I feel is a cornerstone of your work and, you know, on the show we're exploring the connections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality and I think for you, those things seem to come together very much in the way that you express your connection to the natural world.
So I'm curious to hear a little bit more, because so much of your recent work is focusing on this place that you grew up. Could you maybe describe it for us a little bit?
Anne: Sixty acres with a horse barn, a hayfield, and vast woods with a creek. So, it was an ideal playground for a wild tomboy. [Laughter] My dad had horses and I was sort of his barn-hand, turn-back girl, and I just roamed around. I had two cousins that I grew up with and we were just always playing make believe and using our imaginations and building things and skinned knees and just a little rough, probably, around the edges.
And it can be lonely at times, too, living like that. It's kind of, you know, in this day and age, you look back on the way society has changed, and, we talked about that on one of our car rides yesterday around the beautiful countryside up here, which is a different landscape. You know, at that time, it was kind of a strange way to grow up, and I know that when I, went to the school that you and I both went to, you know, we tested in and we drove in and it took us about, close to a half hour to get there and, we were pretty far out at that point.
So it could be kind of lonely, I kind of felt like I was missing out, you know, I was missing out on, you know, we had a gravel driveway, like it was an event to pack up our bicycles and go to like a church parking lot 10 miles away to like ride your bike around on pavement. But I mean, that was like a big deal. You know what I'm saying? So, as a grown woman and, with my own kids and, you know, like I look back on our childhood as some of the most magical, creative times of my life and it really was the formative years of just allowing my mind to wander around and just try everything out.
Now things changed, when my mother passed away, and it was like this shroud just came over our family. I mean, we lost someone who was the backbone and was just a bright, beautiful spirit, creative in her own right, she kind made the engine hum along, and over time and over years, that place became, I guess figuratively, haunted, and the house started to feel not so good. And then it kind of, over the years, turned into a place that you just, it just evoked a sense of dread. Like, was as if a pillar or an altar to my mother had been created by my father. And it just stilted our family emotionally, just across the board. It just, it, the failure of my dad to be able to move on from that had ripple effects. We all kind of dealt with it in our own way.
Melinda: Yeah.
Anne: Solitarily. You know what I'm saying? But it is, it is because what I'm realizing in this body of work is that if you don't have any place to put your feelings, or you're having a hard time acknowledging your feelings, it’s going to come out one way or another. And probably nine times out of ten, it's gonna come out in a negative way. I certainly lived through that in my own life. You must do what you need do. You do quote unquote “the work.” And what I've realized is that that is directly tied into my artistic process.
Melinda: Yeah, intergenerational trauma. It's a real thing. We're learning more and more about that from the research. But this, for you, it sounds like it really anchored you. I mean, you carry that with you, even though you're no longer in that place, but growing up there and all of those accumulated experiences, and then, this idea, which I can resonate with a lot of what you are talking about in my family situation as well, you know, it seems like the resilience really comes from being willing or able to let go of certain things and move forward in different direction, and art and creativity is an incredibly sort-of skillful way of doing that, if we can find our way to that and, art so often is about product, it's what we see in the end. But yet, there's so much about the process and how healing it can be to simply engage in the creative process.
Anne: Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with that statement. It is as if, you know, we at times in our families put so much weight on, sort of holding up the past, or the way things used to be, as if being stuck in a situation or a mentality, again generational, is the way to honor that, when I feel like the opposite is true. Being an artist has a motion to it. It has its own feeling of aliveness and of moving forward versus just getting through something. Trudging through. Like, it’s an act of grief. But yet, it's still covered with beauty the world.
Melinda: And yet, again, I think we can sense when we look at this work, the depth that is there. That it's not just all pretty on the surface. You're grieving the emotional landscapes, the inner landscapes that you've had to traverse. And I think you're right. I think it's something a lot of people can resonate with when they make work, particularly writers who write memoir. And there's always this hesitation or this feeling of like, oh, I'm going to be betraying these people that I'm writing about. And yet, you also have to be true to your own experience, and how do you navigate that?
Anne: Like everything else in my life, I kind of just have to feel my through it and, how do you know when a painting is finished? You know when you know. It's really not probably the most satisfying answer to hear. But it is also true.
Melinda: Yeah, exactly. And so what it means to be an artist or a creative, it's not just about having the ideas. It's not just about coming up with possibilities, which is an important piece, but there's also like consistent discipline. There's intention. There's daily practice, right?
And, you know, for example, I've been teaching class at Saybrook, where I did my PhD, on creativity and Jungian psychology and some of our recent discussions have been around like, well, what are, as a creative, what are your daily habits? Do you work better in the morning or the evening? And the thing about it is we're all different. There's no formula.
So what we really have to do is figure out what are our natural rhythms, what are the ways that we work best, and then sort of intentionally harness that. So I'm curious, for you, and we've talked a little bit about this, what are your daily routines as an artist? And, you know, trying on this idea of living the artful or the artist's life. What does that look like for you?
Anne: I don't know if it's even that interesting. I mean, I will say that I am in a situation in my life where I have the luxury of devoting a great deal of my time to my creative endeavors. I owe my circumstances that diligent work. And it hasn't always been that way.
Melinda: Yeah, you were raising three kids.
Anne: I was raising three kids. They’re a little bit older now. The oldest one's now going off to college, and I have two other ones that at times I feel like I'm just trying to keep them alive, or like they're trying to kill me. I get up very early, like 6:00 (to me that's very early), most days, and I just drink some coffee, I do some reading, and then when I'm taking my kids to school, I do that, and then when I'm not having to take them to school, I am in the studio for hours at a time.
And then when I need to walk away from the work, I take the dogs on a walk, I roam around the property where I live. So I do try and schedule my day like a work day, but I also like the fluidity of, putting life-y things in the midst of my work-y things. And I'm pretty good toggling between those, but I do like have set time of studio work, and I feel like, you know, it's like practicing an instrument.
Melinda: Absolutely.
Anne: It really is. It's just doing it day in, day out, day in, day out.
Melinda: Yeah, consistent.
Anne: Yeah, you have to keep up your instrument.
Melinda: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we are about at time. Thank you so much.
Anne: Pleasure is mine. Entirely.
Melinda: This has been so fun and the conversations leading up to it and the fact that we could be here together live in person today is wonderful. So, if people want to learn more about your work, how can they find you?
Anne: My website is annelouiseart.com. And my Instagram is @annelouiseartanddesign.
Melinda: Thank you so much.
I mentioned at the top of the episode, one thing that really stands out to me about this conversation is the power of creating an artist statement, a guidepost to remind you about your intentions and why you do what you do.
So here’s a question: Do you have an artist statement? Whenever I work with clients or give workshops, I always end with an accountability challenge. Here's my challenge to you. In the next week, write your own artist statement, whatever your creative medium or pursuit. Try to create one that motivates and inspires you to move forward with your current work.
Thanks again to Anne for the conversation.
You can learn more about her work at annelouiseart.com. She's also on Instagram and Facebook. We'll link to these in the show notes.
This episode was produced by Mike Osborne with production assistance by Christian Haigis. Follow Syncreate on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, where you can also find out more about all we do at Syncreate.
Thanks for listening, and see you next time.
