How Artists Find Their Voice and Create from the Heart

Antrese Wood: Hello, hello, it's Antrese, and welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast. If you are a longtime listener of this podcast, I just want to take a second to say thank you so much for being here and welcome back. If you've just found the podcast, I'm so glad you're here. Savvy Painter is the podcast for artists who want practical, tactical tips to create a meaningful art practice that is fulfilling and supports you.

Now, this episode is part of a series where I brought together a roundtable of artists from Growth Studio. Every episode is a standalone, so if you are just coming in now, don't worry about it. You don't need to listen to these episodes in order. Oh my gosh, in this episode, I'm so excited to introduce to you these members of Growth Studio. We have Louisa, Jack, Braighlee, and Elisabeth, and I'm going to let them introduce themselves with a little bit more detail in just a moment because for now, I wanted to tell you a little bit about what we're about to talk about.

In this episode, we are going to talk about finding your voice. We're going to talk about what it is, give you some ideas onto how you can connect with it. If that's been something that's been difficult for you, you're going to hear some stories about how these artists have connected with their voice and how it brings meaning into their practice.

Of course, this is a big topic, so this is a wide-ranging conversation, but it's so important, the things that we're talking about in here, so I hope you'll enjoy it. Let's start off with some introductions.

Braighlee Rainey: Hi, I'm Braighlee Rainey. I'm from Reno, Nevada, and I really enjoy painting in oils mostly and I love painting the feminine figure and portraiture. Yeah, I'm just obsessed with the feminine state of being. It's really interesting to me.

Antrese Wood: Yes. Yeah. Louisa.

Louisa Jornayvaz: My name is Louisa Jornayvaz, and I am a classically trained, primarily portrait artist for the last few decades, but I am right now in the middle of a transition. I have just stopped doing portraits and I'm exploring that delicious intersection of abstraction and realism, and I'm using cattle as my muses now, as much as people, which has been really fun. I'm from Texas, but I have spent the last four decades in Colorado, so I'm like a homing pigeon, I think, a little bit back to my roots and really interested in the livestock and wildlife of Texas, as well as figures still. Anyway, I'm on a new journey and I'm very excited about it.

Antrese Wood: Love it. Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Svendby: Hi, I'm Elisabeth Svendby and I live in Oslo, Norway. Right now I'm mostly painting figures and also in oils or wax pastels and, yeah, paper and canvas, I switch in between them.

Antrese Wood: Nice. All sorts of stuff. Jack, how about you?

Jack Wray: Howdy, howdy. Jack Wray, I'm living in Portland, Oregon, working in oil paint, doing animal portraits right now.

Antrese Wood: Nice. Let's kick this discussion off with just thinking about the artist's voice. What is your definition of the artist's voice? When you hear that, what does that mean to you? Louisa, let's start with you.

Louisa Jornayvaz: When I think of an artist's voice, I think of being able to experience that person through their art, that I feel the echo and the personality and the spirit of the artist through their work. I know that's maybe hard to understand, but you know it when you see it. It's that thread that goes through each piece of art, whether it's, again, a highly realistic piece or even something with more abstraction, there's something about the spirit of that artist that lingers in each of those pieces.

Antrese Wood: I love that. I love the idea of the spirit of the artist being in it. That's such a vivid image for me. I absolutely love it. Anybody else want to, Braighlee, want to add anything to that or what are your thoughts?

Braighlee Rainey: Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. I was also going to say, I think the artist's voice is similar to what we want to say to the world. I think that there are so many of us here on this planet and I think it's just our tiny way of saying, “Hi. This is what I want to say to the world right now,” and just add to not the noise, but our own personality and to create uniqueness in the world. I don't know if that makes any sense.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, it does. It makes absolute sense. Part of the reason why I wanted to kick this off asking you this question is because our voices are so unique and also our definition of the voice and what that is, what it means to us is also unique. I think that informs how we look at our art. Jack, what are your thoughts about the voice?

Jack Wray: I don't know if there's anything I would change from what I've heard so far. It's a really good definition. The only thing that comes to mind is that what was really helpful with me in thinking about it was to think of it as like handwriting. It develops with repetition as you write your style of writing, as you paint your style of painting.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, and it's unique and you can't.

Jack Wray: Yeah.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, it's always there. I think that's what's exciting about it. It's always there. It's like your handwriting, your thumbprint. You can't not be you. Elisabeth, how about you?

Elisabeth Svendby: I don't think there is much to add, but it sounds easy when you say it's not just like our handwriting, but it's so true. It's not easy. I know we're going to get into that, because I think the hard part is that my voice might be a confused one for a while. Do you know what I mean? Because I'm going to try other voices on in the beginning. That's what I've been doing for a long time, I think.

But I know some things will shine through like Louisa says. My soul is in there still. But it's taking those layers off that it feels more and more real to me that voice as the years go on.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. What you brought to mind for me is as we learn, as we learn anything, we mimic other people. We mimic other artists just to understand the process. If you think about how babies talk, they just start by mimicking voices. Then as they learn the vocabulary, then they start to talk and they start to have things to say. I think it's only natural for artists to learn from other artists by copying, by replicating, by taking notes, and then that creates our own DNA, for lack of a better term. Braighlee, were you going to say something?

Braighlee Rainey: I was going to say something similar. I think that we’ve spoken about this but it reminded me of, obviously, I’m a visual person so when I started trying to find my voice, I felt like I was adding these rubber bands to a rubber band ball. Then eventually over time, I felt like I was starting to peel off these rubber bands and trying to find the center of the core of the ball, who, this rubber band ball for lack of a better term, is what's underneath that. I think that I remember the moment where I officially felt like I wasn't grasping anymore for different ideas, and I had felt like I had truly found my voice.

Antrese Wood: I mean, first of all, I love that visual. It's so good because, for me at least, what I'm seeing is all these different colors of rubber bands and just this massive ball. It's so accurate, these little things that build it up. How do you know when you're connected to your voice, Braighlee? If you're thinking about what you're saying, I remember this feeling of finding that core and I'm wondering what that felt like.

Braighlee Rainey: I think that it's inside of you always but I think that the feeling that you get when you are connected to it, it's honest and true and very childlike, I think. I think it goes back to the core of what really makes us happy in this life, just the small things that we find joy from, the small things that I find joy from are different from the small things that you find joy from, even things like my favorite kind of cake, my favorite flavor of ice cream, just those small little things add up to who we are.

I think that at the core of it, it's very childlike and innocent, the things that we accept, that we enjoy, and the things that we accept that we want to talk about and want to paint about.

Antrese Wood: Yeah.

Braighlee Rainey: We don't berate ourselves anymore. Maybe that's what it feels like.

Antrese Wood: That's sort of uncensored childlike list.

Braighlee Rainey: Acceptance.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, yeah. Louisa, you look like you're about to say something.

Louisa Jornayvaz: Oh, gosh, a lot of the things that Braighlee was saying certainly resonated with me as well. I think of it as almost like integrity. When we say things that really line up with our true values, when we live our values, we just feel so integrous. I think our painting is like that as well, when it lines up with what we believe in, what matters to us, when it lines up with our values, whether it's the subject matter that you're painting or the emotions that you're evoking, if that's what is true to you and is authentic to you, then to me, that's what that feels like and looks like on the outside as well.

Antrese Wood: Hmm. Elisabeth, what are your thoughts?

Elisabeth Svendby: I'm just stuck on these thoughts about the long journey that I've been on to, to peel off enough layers to feel my voice. I think it depends a lot on what you've been through. I have been a designer for decades and a designer's job is to solve someone else's problem. So you put on and you're a lot of demands or, I don't know a better word for that. But you have to solve puzzles for someone else all the time and make them happen, to then reach this point where I take all of that away, this long journey for me really is.

Being a shy person from the beginning too, being in a job for as many years as a chief designer with all the responsibilities, you also have to build a shell when you're home to the workplace, and that shell needs to come off too. Because you need to figure out who are you now, who you are underneath, all that stuff you put on to be in a company and do all those things. I've come far since joining Growth Studio, but I know I have a lot left, because I guess [inaudible] and I deflect with humor and I do all those things really fast. I know it's just like relax and breathe into it and feel what's right for you like Louisa said. Struggle is the wrong word because it's so nice. But it is something I have to work on, still.

Antrese Wood: Mm-hmm. Braighlee, what were you going to say?

Braighlee Rainey: Well, when I think about Elisabeth when you're talking, I think that the word that you're looking for is courage. I think that it requires so much courage to find your curiosity again, which I know we've talked about a lot in Growth Studio, but courage to find curiosity, especially with all of the voices and the requests and the demands from so many other voices in your head that still play.

Elisabeth Svendby: Yeah.

Braighlee Rainey: You're doing a really beautiful job.

Elisabeth Svendby: Thank you, but it also needs to be directed towards me. That's very new because I love solving all those puzzles and figuring things out, but has never been about me before, which is a huge difference.

Antrese Wood: I can really resonate with that, because my job working at Disney was basically what I created needed to look like somebody else's work, exactly like somebody else's work. You learn this skill of sussing out what does that look or what does this other person need in your case? What is the client asking of me? So you become really good at picking up on what other people want and ignoring what you want.

Now you're being asked to ignore what everybody else wants and only focus on what you want. Sometimes, I don't know about you, Elisabeth, but at first, I was just like, “I don't even know what I want.” Yeah.

Elisabeth Svendby: Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, we're all in so many different places and with so many different backgrounds. That's why I wanted to talk about this because I know people listening, it's such a vast array of backgrounds out there, and your stories I think really help people with that.

Louisa Jornayvaz: One thing both of you all were just saying about your backgrounds sort of freeing you up, but also bringing you to this precipice of asking a lot of questions about what you really want, it made me think about our backgrounds and, Antrese, how much they inform our path forward because I was a television reporter and anchor for 20 years before I started doing art and I chose that profession for a reason and I really started asking myself what was it about that that drew me to it?

Because I really loved my broadcast work. It's telling stories. It's that part of television news that was so fascinating to me is people are so interesting. People and their expressions and their souls and their lives are just endlessly interesting to me. That informed my art and it became figurative in nature. Also, I loved the variety and how many different ways you can tell an interesting story. That informed why I like art probably for the same reason.

I find at least for me that my background and my previous lives, we all have so many lives, cross-pollinate and form the next chapter and take us to our core and help us understand who we really are by what we've been drawn to since [inaudible], what is it about our world as a child that we were drawn to, our early careers, those kinds of things.

All of us find a new freedom when we start creating art that's different from our previous careers, if we had those. There's still some of that that is meaningful to me. It's a mine to dig in, a mine of gold, you know?

Antrese Wood: Yeah, and I mean, it impacts everything that we do. Our backgrounds are part of that handwriting as Jack puts it, it does influence what we do. Also, everything that we did, I'm thinking about some of the experiences I had at Disney and some of the other places that I've worked at. They all add into this, I don't know if I want to say soup, but this beautiful blend of skills and talents and viewpoints and experiences that when we think, even if it's not something that we're painting, it informs what were our perception of the painting, what we see in the painting, what we see in our subject matter.

Jack, I want to hear your thoughts on this.

Jack Wray: What's come to mind is two things I'm still learning and I have been really excited to learn what I have so far about listening to my body. I'm new to being an artist. I spent a lot of my lifetime learning to ignore my body, working manual labor. That was a useful skill back then, but not so much now. Then when I'm creating, there's this really specific place that I like to create from, Braighlee kind of touched on it where it's fun, but it's scary fun.

There has to be a little bit of fear that I'm pushing through, but I got to be excited and happy about it. It's like cliff diving for the first time. If you've ever done that, it’s like that. I want to jump, but I don't want to jump, and it's really exciting, and that's the part I like to be in when I'm at the easel, but learning how to navigate my emotions has been the most important part of getting there.

Antrese Wood: Hmm. Braighlee.

Braighlee Rainey: Just one more thing on that thing that you just touched about, Jack. When Louisa was talking, I remembered this thing about, I used to also be a graphic designer and I remember there was a specific moment we had been acquired by another company and I didn't feel that my values aligned and I could feel it in my body that this was not what I wanted to do.

Either listening to what you do love doing like Louisa was talking about, but also listening to your body when it feels that sense of “Oh, this is not it. I know that this is not it.” Using that to also pull away those rubber bands and take those feelings to find the core also helps to not just notice what you love doing, but also notice what you feel in your body is that sense of almost rejection in your body. I don't know how else to describe that.

Jack Wray: The first one that was easiest.

Braighlee Rainey: Yeah. Sometimes that is the easiest.

Antrese Wood: I'm wondering from what you all are describing, what your thoughts are on the process of finding your voice and how that voice has maybe evolved for you or changed. I know you're all in slightly different places, so I would love to hear all of you speak to this idea of, “Okay, so first, I have a voice. Do I have a voice? Yes, I have a voice,” and tuning into that. Then I guess the follow-up is how has that progressed for you or has it? Who wants to go first?

Jack Wray: I feel like I'm at a really exciting part with that. I just sunk my teeth into this animal portrait project that I'm working on. I'm just so excited to see where it leads. I'm on the edge of the cliff. I got one foot off right now. That's great.

Antrese Wood: I'm just curious, because I do love this cliff metaphor. Do you feel like you have a say in how high that cliff is? I'm projecting my own experience with cliff diving. I have this very vivid memory of trying it and going up, jumping, and feeling like, “That was okay,” then going up a second time and realizing I went way too high and I'm freaking out right now. I'm just curious if there's that sort of, it's cliff diving, but is there any dipping your toe in the water in that regard?

Jack Wray: Yeah. For me, that makes me think of my raven painting, that was the first time I painted big, and it's the biggest painting I've done. I don't care to go that big again. I can bring it down a couple of feet on all sides. Maybe that is something like what you're talking about. But maybe working in smaller pieces, maybe more emotionally, where it's like, “Is this a subject matter that I'm brave enough to share out in the open?”

I definitely have piecemealed my way into the hearts of the animals. I hid them in the feathers and the scales for a long time before I was brave enough to just share out loud and open what it is that I'm seeing. Yeah, I guess in that sense, it was working my way up the cliffside.

Antrese Wood: How about you, Elisabeth?

Elisabeth Svendby: The process for me has been really long and there's a circular process with the pendulum if that makes sense. I'm going to different extremes all the time but I'm still also circling back to what I feel like is myself. My extremes are landscapes versus figures. It's not that extreme perhaps. For many people, they do combine these things. But that has been mostly because I think my interest for the figures keep coming back when I'm feeling fairly healthy.

It's like when I have a bit of extra energy in my brain and I have a bit of extra courage, perhaps, that linked for me, at least. Every time, I get braver and braver. At the moment, I feel like I couldn't be much braver, which is a great thing. Every year I do make a calendar. I’ve always done that with my art. This year, I'm just finishing it now, and I basically put into it everything that I love, but that my scared brain is telling me that most people probably won't love, that I've been following it so far, because it's pretty far from the other stuff I've been doing.

It's just very different and not the typical pretty art that is pretty in a different way at a sensitivity and a good thing. It's where I want to go. I feel like I'm making a statement to myself too like, “Be brave when you pick out those paintings.” It's a big deal to select the ones, every single painting, I was like, “No, do the one that is you. Choose the one that's you and don't think about anyone else or if no one buys it, that's fine. This is a step on your way to getting more authentic.” This is an overused word, but that is what I want.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, yeah. I mean, every time you choose your voice, you're showing your voice, you're saying yes to it and giving your voice strength to be a little--

Elisabeth Svendby: It’s so exciting because it doesn't matter now what people think about this. It's fine. On insecure days, I will get disappointed if no one likes it when I put it on Instagram or something. There are these like crickets. Then I remind myself, “This is where I want to be.” I will find my people because we always do. I'm not that unique that no one else likes what I like so you'll be fine in the end.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. I'll just throw in my two cents on that. Just think about everybody you know, your family, just not to overstate it but your world, we're so similar in so many ways, and yet we are all very, very unique. When you think about your partner, your kids, your loved ones, they're so unique. They've got these little quirks and they've got all the things that just make them so special.

Even animals. If I think about my dogs, they've got their own little quirks, which are different than Braighlee's and your dog, and yet on the surface, you see all these dogs and you're like, “Oh, well, it's just a bunch of dogs.” But if it's your dog, it's so different. I'm getting Little Prince vibes right now.

Braighlee Rainey: I just wanted to highlight something that Elisabeth had said. You were talking about your pendulum, and I just wanted to say too that the journey to find your voice is not linear. It's wibbly-wobbly. It is curvy-wurvy. It's all kinds of think of any kind of fun little saying that you can think of. But truly, you go back, you find something, and then you always swing back to something else, and then you are fine, it's just this little beautiful journey that we're always on. I think it's always changing.

Then the other thing too, that yeah, I totally agree that our voices are unique, but there's going to always be somebody that resonates with it, always. There's always going to be somebody that sees your work and it really hits them. I've seen it time and time again. I think to myself while I’m creating something, “Oh my gosh, everyone's going to hate this?” the little things that go in your head, “This is too weird.” Then there's always somebody that really resonates with it. That weirdness inside of you meets the weirdness inside of them perfectly.

Elisabeth Svendby: That's exactly what I meant when I said that before. Thank you.

Antrese Wood: Louisa, were you going to say something? I think I crossed over you.

Louisa Jornayvaz: No, no, no, that's fine. It's like a slinky that goes ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, and in a good way, because the slinky still can go up the stairs and down the stairs. It just doesn't go with all its power and force down the stairs at once. It has to come back up and collect a few things or go back and get some things from a previous work that inspires the future work.

But you know what, one thing that came to mind as we were talking about what is this journey of finding one's voice, for me at least, early on, there was a lot of time in the weeds learning, just in the weeds, just really mastering skills so that frankly, ultimately, then I became free to explore with greater confidence, or without the necessity to necessarily follow the rules because maybe I learned enough to know what I could break away from and it'd still be okay.

Then that gave me more confidence to really, at this stage, I look at the future of my art life as this open, beautiful unexplored field. I can't wait to get in there and start exploring. Yet I don't feel in a hurry. It's this really interesting intersection of curiosity and peace. I just am loving it. Again, there are obviously a lot of other pieces to all of our lives. I, like you all, have my life's a pizza and there are a lot of other pieces that oftentimes take a lot of time. It's where I want to give time.

Then that time spent in that piece of the pizza influences my art and reminds me who I am. Then like the slinky, that starts to fold into the next series of pieces because I just learned something deeper about myself that, as Braighlee was saying earlier, is what I want to express, what I want to say. It's just endlessly beautiful.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. There's that, I love that you mentioned this idea of that peace when you find your voice that certainty of, “This is who I am.” What I've noticed at least is that when we allow ourselves to really settle into that voice knowing that this is now, this is who I am as a painter. This is what I am obsessed with right now. These are the things that I care about.

This is me incorporating all the pieces of the pizza and I'm still going to evolve and I'm going to change because my life can continue to have experiences and all the experiences that I have added to this voice. They add to what I see and what I choose to highlight at any given moment.

When we really integrate that, when we really say, “Yes, this is me and I'm okay. I'm okay now and I will be okay in the future,” I think one of the most interesting things to think about with our voice is, “I'm okay now. I still want to evolve and change, and that doesn't mean that I'm not okay now. That doesn't mean that my voice now isn't valid and/or relevant. It just means that I'm constantly evolving.”

Braighlee Rainey: I love the pizza metaphor. Now I'm hungry.

Jack Wray: For me, that brought some to mind just the development of skills part. I remember this time when I was learning how to paint and I started representationally. I was learning how to accurately represent what I was seeing. Then I got to a point where I felt like I could do that. I can do that with anything. Now, where do I turn my attention to? There was this long moment of, “Where do I turn my attention to now?” So having my attention tuned on something does feel really good and like a relief.

Antrese Wood: Hmm. Elisabeth, you're nodding your head. What are your thoughts on that?

Elisabeth Svendby: Yes, I've been flailing a lot, learning things. Then the second I feel I'm mastering it on any level, basically, I'm quite impatient. When I get bored easily, I just jump on over to the next, the next, and the next to learn something new, because I get addicted to that too.

I haven't given myself that much time to settle into anything really because I think I need to learn all the time. It's going to be exciting to see how long I'm going to be able to settle into this, what I'm doing now, but hopefully a little bit longer because I would like that, even though I'm changing and that's okay, evolving, but I don't need to change both style and theme.

You don't have to change everything all at once. That makes a bit of a mess of things for me. I need to find my rhythm and my calm, like Louisa says, to feel that calm. I haven't really felt that as much even though I've been painting a lot for almost eight years now. It's been a while. That's the feeling I'm looking for too.

Antrese Wood: I'm curious for somebody who's in this place where they're just not really sure about their voice, what advice would you have for them? Or what are some things that they can look for in order to get some clues about where they might want to go next? Louisa and then and then we'll go to Braighlee. I just went to whoever I saw.

Louisa Jornayvaz: That's a great question and obviously, it invites introspection as well. I do think that when we go to museums, when we go to art exhibits, when we experience other people's art, we learn about what we like. We learn about what elevates our spirit and ignites our hearts.

I think we are drawn to certain pieces for deep reasons and the things we choose to put on our walls. Those lift our spirits, or they don't, and if they don't, oftentimes we take them down. I'm guessing that most people tend to start to follow that inspiration into their own studio and create what they're attracted to and what they choose to look at around themselves.

I can speak personally that when I was drawing work in an atelier, I did not like what I produced. I felt like it was dark and I would never want it on my wall. I wouldn't want to be looking at it. I remember thinking, “I don't want to paint dark pieces like this.” That told me to go in a different direction, even though I learned valuable lessons, it was very helpful in terms of fundamentals. It wasn't me. It wasn't what I wanted my family to see either. I have a little bit of an awareness always around me, and Jack, you may feel this too. Elisabeth, I'm not sure if you have children, but my children are watching me and my grandchildren are watching me now.

I think about that in terms of what I'm putting out in the world and how I'm conducting myself as an artist, finding my voice, and what that messaging is. That matters to me because I think we're leaving a legacy, all of us.

Antrese Wood: Interesting. What I love about what you just said, Louisa, there are a couple of things that is, A, just that certainty when you were in the atelier and learning of knowing that this doesn’t resonate with me and being able to take the lessons from other artists and choose what pieces of it you'll keep and what pieces of it you'll give away or just let fall off.

I was thinking too, about what you said about going to museums that the pieces that we gravitate towards are clues about what we like. They're all visual information. At various places in my life, I've really gravitated towards different artists. I think that it's when we really, really love an artist, there's something about that work that is speaking to our inner voice, speaking to that part of us.

It's our job, I guess, to look at that and be like, “Okay, so what exactly is it? Is it the subject matter? No? Okay, so is it the texture? Is it the colors? Is it the skill of the way that they did this?” I might not like so many things about that work, or maybe not want to do that type of work, but, “Oh, man, those hands,” or something like that. It's so interesting. It's so fun to just start pulling all that together. Braighlee.

Braighlee Rainey: Yeah, I was going to say something similar, but I would take it even one step further in that, not just noticing when you're at museums and when you're looking at art, but also noticing just day-to-day moments when you're looking at a landscape or your partner's hands or the bird that's flying above your head.

Just like those little tiny moments and starting to take either visual documentation through photos or writing it down in a journal and just start taking a ton of notes about what you love, what makes you happy, and what really brings your attention, what your attention is, I guess, being drawn to or what you're finding joy in those little small moments. When I started doing that, that actually really helped me find my voice. That really helped me find the things that I was finding just joy in and peace. Jack.

Jack Wray: Yes, and I found it difficult to turn off the “shoulds” when I would have these things that I'm drawn to, these green lights, but it was really hard for me to move past that, “But I should be making this or people will be more likely to buy this,” that sort of thinking. Turning that off was a challenge for me, and still is.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. It's just as much about what we say no to as what we're saying yes to.

Elisabeth Svendby: I'm going to bore you with my calendar again, but it's like that. I have a list in my head of people who say they're waiting for it, and [inaudible]. That's exactly the thing, you're kind of stuck where you know you're going to make stuff that's going to challenge their taste for sure. We'll see. They might like it, who knows. But I'm just going to have to live with that.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Part of what we do as artists, and piggybacking on what Louisa mentioned about leaving a legacy, is it's such an amazing opportunity to really look at what is it that I want to use my time here for. That sounds morbid, but I do think about that that often.

We're given this beautiful round of this journey around the sun as many times as we get to do it. What is it that we're going to leave behind? Part of that is helping people see things differently than they may naturally see. Elisabeth, I know from conversations with you that with your art, there's so much of it that comes directly from the heart and it connects with people in that way too.

Anytime that we are able to have somebody just to go like, “Oh, that's so interesting. I wouldn't have thought of doing it that way. I wouldn't have thought of saying it that way.” In a weird way, I think of Braighlee and the ball, it's like, “Oh, I wouldn't have thought of saying that, but that's so beautiful and it's so perfect. Now I love this visual of the rubber band ball.”

For me at least it's all colorful but for other people, it's going to be different and I think that's what's so exciting about this journey is both challenging ourselves to come up with what is it that I see and what is it that I'm connecting to and then sharing it with other people and there is a little bit of challenge there.

It's that innate thing in us where we see something amazing and beautiful and we're just like, “Oh, my god, did you see that?” It's the immediate reaction that we have is this wanting to share, not just share, but communicate with that and hear other people's experiences too.

Braighlee Rainey: I just came up with another metaphor, but it all relates because I wanted to share it because I didn't actually come up with it, but I heard it recently and I think it relates to this actually, that finding peace and somebody was saying meditation is a lot like trying to remove the stones from a river.

I think that it's very similar to finding your voice in that you're removing these pieces to find this flow. The smooth flow of energy. I know that was a side topic that we were talking about earlier, but I just wanted to bring that up because I feel like it's very similar to meditation in a way.

Antrese Wood: I love that.

Louisa Jornayvaz: There's another thing that was brought up. Also, Jack mentioned green lights. It made me think Jack might have read Matthew McConaughey's book, Greenlights. Those green lights, it's really about tuning into the green lights. Not the red lights, those are the nos, and the yellow lights are truly not at your core sense of self. They're close, but no cigar. The green lights are just the path and it would be so fun to talk about how we tune into these green lights.

Antrese Wood: Hmm. Yeah.

Louisa Jornayvaz: What's that journey about? What's that process like to be so dialed into the green lights and with the courage, we use the word courage in this conversation, we've used a lot of words that are so applicable, how do we have the courage to lean into those green lights? Like you said, Jack, ignore the “shoulds.”

Antrese Wood: Anybody have--

Braighlee Rainey: Yeah, I was going to say, “Go for it, Louisa.” I'm so interested. Tell me more about this.”

Antrese Wood: In terms of finding the green lights, it's connected to, “What are you curious about? What lights you up? All of us could be standing in front of the same model or the same landscape, and we will all paint it differently. All of those paintings will be amazing.

When I think about a landscape, as an example, some people might just be like, "Oh my God, the light on that tree," that's the green light for them. It's the thing that just sparks that sensation in your heart, I guess, that really makes your heart sing and trusting that.

I think for me, it's that finding the curiosity, finding that spark, and trusting that that's you that's correct. That's a yes. That is a green light, it is an emphatic yes. Once you start doing that—I'm going to mix all the metaphors up—it is like the river. It doesn't matter if there are stones in it. The water's just going to flow around it. Those stones are going to make the water a little bit turbulent there. That's what makes it really beautiful and really exciting, knowing that it's not going to be completely smooth, yet those challenges, back to what Jack mentioned, is what makes it interesting and what makes it fun.

I think finding the green lights and how do we find the green lights? I think we know what the green lights are for us and it's having a little bit of courage, which is doing something even though you're scared to do it. We're never going to be scared. It's, “Can I have a little bit of that and do it anyway?”

Every time we do it, we just reaffirm, “Oh, my gosh, I just did this thing and I'm okay.” Then the next time it's a little bit easier to be courageous. It's like, “I just did this thing and I'm okay.” I feel like all of our metaphors are coming together right now. “I just jumped off the cliff and I'm okay.”

Braighlee Rainey: I was going to say you can't wait till the river is smooth to create, you can't wait for that to happen. You have to still create while it's messy and turbulent. I think that's the beautiful thing that you just said, that's what brings character to our work, is when it's not perfect, it's not perfection. That's all I was going to say.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. This isn't necessarily about green lights, but if you're a Pixar Disney fan, you probably have heard this story, but the first time they did Toy Story, it didn't work. It didn't resonate because everything was flawless. Then they realized it was just too perfect.

So they went back in and put scratches on the walls and dings and everything because there's no such thing as perfect. If somehow we made something that was “perfect,” it wouldn't resonate with people because none of us are perfect. So that I think makes us a little bit uneasy.

Braighlee Rainey: I just thought of something that was really curious thought for me was that I think I brought up the river metaphor because I think that ideally in the future when I have figured out my voice perfectly, I would think that it would just effortlessly flow out of me but when you think about it and the things that I find or bring me joy is the challenge, the cliff jumping, that thrill, the motorcycle riding, why would I want it to be flowing out of me effortlessly when I can fight for it? Then it feels so much better when I've won it in the end. I don't know if that makes any sense.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, it does.

Braighlee Rainey: The fight for it is half the thrill for me anyway. So why would I want it to just be so easy?

Antrese Wood: Elisabeth, I see you really nodding your head.

Elisabeth Svendby: Yeah. Isn’t that a thing in psychology? Getting the satisfaction for the things you actually get through working for it, as opposed to just getting joy through social media and scrolling. What’s that term?

Antrese Wood: Yeah. I don't know the term. Does anybody else know?

Braighlee Rainey: Louisa.

Louisa Jornayvaz: Well, I was going to say, it falls in the basket of meaning-making. We all feel better about things that have meaning to us and how we trade our life gives things meaning oftentimes.

Antrese Wood: Yes.

Louisa Jornayvaz: Because everything is a time trade.

Antrese Wood: Yeah, that’s true, everything is a time trade. Thinking about that, if none of that turbulence, and everything was so easy, if we already knew the answer, we wouldn't have any questions. Painting is, for me, at least, asking a lot of questions, like, what is it that I see here? What do I want to say about it? How do I want to say about it? How do I want to say it?

Braighlee Rainey: One thing on that, in the beginning when I first joined Growth Studio, I remember that I had this feeling of curiosity. You kept bringing up curiosity and I was like, "Antrese, you don't get it though. I was told curiosity kills the cat. Don't ask too many questions. Stop being annoying." That kind of stuff.

That continued to play a reel in my head over and over and over when I was creating. I know that I've worked on that a lot. When I'm curious about something, I don't really think about it then because I'm like, “Okay, just don't think about it. You just do it.”

If I find that curiosity at that moment, I tend to make impulsive decisions in my paintings, but it means that I'm satisfying that part of myself in my painting instead of maybe in my relationship or in my life or those things that are stable and that can't change. I change a lot in my paintings all the time.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. Now we're going to go full circle to Elisabeth, this idea of, “I was taught this thing that in that context it made a lot of sense.” In the context of being a graphic designer, making sure the customer was happy and that I was bringing everything, that made sense.

But in the context of my work, it no longer made sense. In the context of—I mean, I have opinions about this for sure—but in the context of schools, though, it is important that there is some order to the classroom, let's say, but oftentimes we are taught not to be so curious because it's “disruptive.” Those are the things that we have to unlearn in order to find our voice and paint the paintings that we want to paint. Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Svendby: Curious is one word. The word that's strongest to me is sensitive because I'm a hypersensitive kid who was told all my life basically until I quit my job. I was still told this not to be so damn sensitive. I could still cry at work when I was in my 40s because you had nowhere to go when you kept blocking it in all areas of your life, being told that everywhere.

Antrese Wood: That sensitivity is such a gift in your artwork. Those are the things and those are the quirks, that's our handwriting. That sensitivity, that curiosity, those are the things that so often we're told not to do or just weren't appropriate to do. It feels so weird in your work, like that is the thing that makes your work.

Louisa Jornayvaz: Elisabeth, reframing is such a valuable tool. Can I encourage you to reframe sensitivity as your superpower?

Elisabeth Svendby: Yeah, I have a bit of a way to go. But yeah, that would be nice to completely accept it as a superpower. Yeah, for sure.

Antrese Wood: It is.

Elisabeth Svendby: I love it in others. That's helpful. You know how you resent things in people that you're not allowing yourself to do and be? That's been pretty strong.

Braighlee Rainey: That's a green light though. That's a green light that you're noticing in other people. How does that feel, Elisabeth? I'm just kidding. That's your green light, babe. Go get it, go chase it.

Jack Wray: Good call out, Braighlee. Sometimes those green lights are hard to notice, so they're not things we really want to go for, but that's where the attention is. That's the thing to work on. I wrote down earlier, to bring something to help find your voice, for me, what was really helpful was getting out and seeing new things.

It's really hard for me. I'm very shy and introverted and going to art openings and big busy places is very difficult, but that's been super helpful in meeting people and getting exposed to new ideas. I would encourage that.

Antrese Wood: Yeah. I would love to hear from all of you, what have you learned in Growth Studio, either from me or from your peers that has helped to find your voice or helped you connect with your voice.

Louisa Jornayvaz: Antrese, I'd love to answer this because it has stuck with me almost since my very first session in Growth Studio. It was something you said, and I hope the other three were there that same day because it was so helpful, you said, “You need to fall in love with your painting. Be in love with it like a love relationship.”

Whatever painting you're working on, that is the feeling that we're all going for is to be in love with our painting and miss our painting when it's gone. Excited to see our painting when we get to the studio like a lover that you just can't wait to experience time with and be infused by their energy. This painting is your love relationship during the time that you're working on it. That's, to me, the North Star feeling.

Antrese Wood: Oh, my gosh, I love that. I love that you picked up on that.

Braighlee Rainey: I just got chills.

Jack Wray: I remember love letters, yeah.

Braighlee Rainey: Yeah. I think that you said but I can't remember where I heard it, or maybe it was just through this conversation or through something else. But that art is, I think it's an Antrese quote. Art is a love letter to yourself. But I think for me, the biggest thing was finding my curiosity.

I just didn't simply understand that it was so important in my journey as an artist going in. Just again, curiosity has been a big mountain to climb for me, to understand what that is, day to day in the moments of asking those questions, the what ifs, “What if I did this? What if I did that?” Those little small things for me make a big impact.

Antrese Wood: Beautiful. Anything that I haven't asked or anything that you all would like to add as we wrap up this conversation on finding our voice? Actually, as I'm saying this, finding your voice is my shorthand for this conversation, but I don't think we need to ever find it. I think it's there. It's always there. I think we just need to allow it.

Braighlee Rainey: I just realized that that quote that you always say, "What's happening in your studio is a direct reflection of what's happening in your life,” I think that's it. It's something very similar, but I just always remember that of everything that I am going through in my studio or if I'm struggling over just a technique or berating myself, whatever it is, I can feel that I'm also going through that in life.

But it helps me understand a little bit better about both things, what's happening in my life, but also what's happening in my studio. It's just this mirror tool that I can use now that you taught me. That feels good.

Elisabeth Svendby: Can I say something else before I forget? I just thought it was so nice that Louisa brought up, that you brought up the part about, I have a stepdaughter and the part about how what we want to put out and how I want to be seen by the next, because that's a good, what's this, when the needle goes in the right or the wrong way, how I feel when I think about [inaudible] because when you sent that I was like, ding, “What I'm doing right now is perfect. That's exactly what I want to be communicating to the next generations.” I don't think I really felt that before.

I actually got to test it when I was an art tutor for the first time, she was [inaudible] drawing from books and I got her to try my methods. Her mom said she's never been happier. She sang the whole way home and she ran to her sister with the drawings. That was huge, I think for the both of us. It just spreads when you hit that point where you know this is true for me and what I'm doing, I'm really onto something. It works for everyone.

Antrese Wood: Thank you all so much for being here, for sharing yourself, and for sharing your experiences and your views with the Savvy Painter community. I really appreciate you all. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast.

You can find examples of these artists' work in the show notes for this episode, as well as links to connect with Elisabeth, Braighlee, Louisa, and Jack. Until next week, I'm Antrese Wood with the Savvy Painter Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon.

If you want to take what you are learning here on the Savvy Painter Podcast, even further, join us in Growth Studio. Growth Studio is a unique community of artists. We meet multiple times a week for live coaching, critiques, and demos. Just go to savvypainter.com/join.