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Monica Faith

Artist's Interview

What, besides your art, brings you creative fulfillment?: I stumbled onto EBSQ several years ago when I was checking out other artists on ebay and found one with a link to their EBSQ site. The love in my life thoughtfully purchased me a Lifetime Membership as a gift a couple years ago, and convinced me to enter a couple of the shows. Prior to getting involved with EBSQ, I rarely allowed others a peek at my studio or my work. I was very guarded with my art. Since EBSQ, I've interviewed for newspaper and a local news station, and even eventually allowed visitors even when I'm painting. EBSQ has been invaluable to me.

What other artists and movements inform your work?: Mary Cassatt is a favored painter. I'm typically informed more so by modern artists however, and several are here on EBSQ (such as Tracey Allyn Greene). Artists that impress upon me are often not visual artists though. From Mozart to Metallica; from Tori Amos to Alison Krauss ... music played in the studio has a huge impact on my work. I study architect Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural works, and architect Antoni Gaudi. Anne Geddes is a favorite photographer. It's often a thousand different things taken in that touch my work. Whoopi Goldberg conveys a message in her role in The Color Purple. That message can become a painting. A ballerina in Swan Lake; her dance is her painting. My photography is my poem, and my painting a song. (Anyone who has ever had to hear me sing appreciates this!).

What are your motivations for creating?: I read and studied a poem in middle school, "Ode on a Grecian Urn". That poem is my motivation, and I can't say it better than John Keats did. Period.

What is your medium of choice?: I don't know yet, and I may never know. Sometimes I see a subject and it screams to me that it should be a mosaic. Sometimes I see a pattern on a plate and immediately think "this could be the pattern for a giraffe mosaic!" Sometimes I see a subject and it seems to beg to be painted. Sometimes I see something and think I'd love to paint it, but I end up with photography as my medium instead. This happened with hummingbirds. My photography came into play as I was studying them through the summer before setting out to paint them. My photography became my painting. I love oil paintings, but I know I don't have the patience for oil paintings because I have the attention span of a ferret and poor time management when it comes to the process. However, I would love to learn pastels. As if I'm not torn between too many mediums already!

What would you like your fellow EBSQ artists and collectors to know about you and or your work?: I'm incapable of painting the same subject ten times. I'm incapable of forcing myself to create five drafts before starting on the final piece. Thus far, I've been incapable of finding a "niche". My interests are so varied, and my moods sway so quickly, that even though I've received much positive feedback from critics and judges when it comes to individual works, as a whole my body of work has on more than one occasion received criticism. I'm told it's because one is often unable to determine whether the same artist did all of the works they are viewing. This has been a serious thorn in my side. I disappoint myself. At this point, however, I still have no idea what to do about that. In truth, I don't know that this part of my personality can be altered. So, for now, I continue to create whatever my heart desires, be happy with each and every individual completed piece, and ignore the massive amounts of unfinished works that end up in the garage after my interest has shifted to something else before I can complete a piece that struck my fancy just a few days prior.