Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Morrison
Hi Leah, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Sure! Ever since I was a kid, I was finding beauty everywhere. Run down apartments with barred windows, mud puddles, freezing cold days, you name it. I also loved painting, drawing, whittling, sewing, anything creative. Even so I was planning to be a teacher until one night when I was listening to music, feeling all kinds of things, when this picture came into my head. All I had at the time was some pastels and paper. I stuck it to the wall and started drawing. It wasn’t the greatest drawing ever, but it seemed like God was in it. I felt like I was supposed to do more of this. And I realized that I LOVE kids, but hated school most of my life, so teacher might not be the best fit. Haha!
I ended up in the Illustration department at Kendall College of Art and Design because it felt like maybe I could make a career out of it. Got married, graduated, had babies and knew I wanted to stay home with them while they were young. The plan became to start my career once my kids were in all in school. That day came about 4 years ago and I jumped in with both feet. Since then, it has been such a winding path, working with business coaches, talking with other artists and illustrators, working with a few publishers and authors. I’m always looking to grow and learn, push myself and press into the things that bring me a lot of life and joy. Most recently I decided to focus more on selling art and prints and developing myself as a fine artist. I still have a few side projects with some books here and there because those are bringing me income. But I’ve been exploring a more expressive style lately, thanks to the critique and advice of an artist friend.
Which I can’t recommend enough.
I think every artist should ask another artist who has made something of themselves and that you respect, to give you an honest critique of your work! I found it profoundly encouraging and life-giving being that I feel this distance between the impact I want my art to have and the one it’s having now. SO getting that critique was so helpful in connecting some dots I needed to keep me growing.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Absolutely not. I’m currently feeling the struggle. I have put a lot of time, energy and money into growing and developing something of a business doing this. HOWEVER, I’m still not selling as much work as I’d like to be. I’m selling some and many of you know that the result is rarely instantaneous. But still, I have to sell enough to keep doing this. The bottom line is that I need to do more than break even in order to make it long term.
As hard and frustrating as this year has been (on many personal levels as well), struggle is just part of the deal. I heard an interview with Stephen Colbert where he said, “if you’re going to be grateful for you life then you have to be grateful for all of it.” In other words, if you’re going to appreciate the growth, then you also have to be grateful for the pain and struggle that brought about that growth. And the truth is, if we’re living a life where we’re trying and risking over and over again, we should expect struggle. And that phrase, “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is only applicable if you’re going to face it head on. You get to decide what it does to you.
Rejection forces you to face your insecurities and decide how you will let it shape you. Not having much money forces you to deal with several things; a) how much do I really believe that this is who I’m supposed to be, b) how big of a price am I willing to pay to live this way, and c) how hard am I willing to work that creative part of my brain to find solutions, using the resources that I have at my fingertips? And I’m sure it does many other things, but then you have to decide, now what? When your artwork just isn’t selling, it forces you to step back and evaluate. Why is it not connecting with people? Is it just too niche? Have I just not found my audience? Do I need a different marketing plan or do I just need to improve my skill at visually communicating these ideas better? You can be angry and bitter about it all you want and on the rare occasion maybe you’re a Van Gogh who will just never be appreciated until you die, but at the end of the day, that’s really helpful information. And I have no doubt that even for Van Gogh, not selling work made him a better artist. If you really want your work to connect, let it push to figure how to paint in a way that DOES. A lot of artists are wonderfully sensitive, but the ones who make it seem to have figured out how to take feedback and critiques. That’s how I’m aspiring to operate anyway.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As I mentioned earlier, I have always been a person of wonder. And during seasons when I have lived out of that place of wonder, every other area of my life has been deeply impacted. I have definitely dealt with depression at various times in my life but not losing the awe and wonder I feel when the wind ripples across a tiny puddle, turning that ordinary fact of life into a miniature lake, opening up a whole realm of possibilities! I think wonder and awe lead to curiosity. And curiosity leads to discovery. Maybe scientific discovery, culinary discovery, philosophical discovery, you name it! And I believe that you don’t have to be anything special, or have an extraordinary amount of money or resources in order to find wonder and beauty. In fact, I know you can find beauty in a run down apartment with barred windows because I did. It’s accessible to EVERYONE at any moment.
So the thing I am trying to do through my artwork is to ignite the spark of ‘wondering’ in the viewers. “I wonder if that’s a spec of dust or a fairy? I wonder if that bush in the park is maybe, possibly, crawling with fairies unseen? What if it was actually a little house fairy that spilled my ink bottle, not just my clumsiness? What if there is more magic in my life than I realize?”
This is my pursuit. Trying to figure out how to paint in a way that wakes up a sense of wonder and awe at the beauty of the world inside the viewer. And I am convinced everyone needs this in order to thrive. I’m convinced that will make their lives better.
So sometimes I zoom in and paint fairies in very real plants I see around me or places I live. Sometimes I zoom way out and paint a landscape that makes you wonder about all the creatures and smaller things that reside within. As I said earlier, in my more recent work, I’m trying to paint with less “accuracy” such that the viewer has to pause and wonder, is that water reflections or glowing sparks?
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was a big time daydreamer. I struggled in school, couldn’t focus to save my life, had a hard time comprehending things I read. But I had a very active imagination, which has its upsides and its downsides. Upside is that I could imagine all kinds of wonderful things and disappear to the most magical places. Downside is I could also imagine the WORST things happening but that was usually just at night.
I remember when I was younger, our church was meeting on the campus of a catholic college. One time I wandered around and I stumbled upon this tall, stunning sculpture of Mary. That moment felt so sacred. I stood there forever (probably mere minutes in real time). I remember there were little yellow buttercups all around and I wanted to give this beautiful lady a gift. So I dramatically, silently picked some and placed them at her feet and sighed deeply as I walked away. This idea that her and I were the only two who knew something, or that she was in a part of the garden that no one knew existed, brought me a surge of excitement. I was quite the little romantic.
I was an always a big feeler as well. I’ve heard there are people whose senses are just much stronger than most people and they feel things viscerally. I am probably one of those people. Rain was one of the most wonderful things on the planet. It’s amazing what it does and how it works but even more than that, when it rained it felt ELECTRIC to me. The earthy smell of the fall leaves in the sun somehow feels warm to me. Certain sounds, esp low, rich, beefy sounds, like a heavy bass guitar excite me to no end. Meanwhile, thin, sharp or harsh sounds send a shiver down my spine and make me cringe. I also feel all the emotions strongly. This is a part of myself that I hated for so long, but I’m really coming to know and love about myself. And accept that sometimes being this way is really hard and I have to work harder than others to still love well in the midst of those big emotions. Sometimes I have to work very hard to not feel consumed or drowning in them. I’ve come to treat my emotions as helpful informants, but I need my mind to also be awake and working together with them because they aren’t very good drivers.
However, being this way also allows me to connect so deeply with other humans and I love that so much. It allows me to feel overwhelming love for another human being and that can be the most amazing feeling. It allows me to feel deep compassion for a friend. Even deep sadness for another’s pain is a gift. So yeah, I’ve kind of always been that way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.leahmorrisoncreative.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_morrison_creative/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leah.clemence
