AG: Hi Lynette, I’m so thrilled that we were able to have this time to talk about your art. We both did Art 2 Life’s CVP programme in 2021 and I’ve enjoyed following your progress ever since.
Can you start by sharing a bit about your artistic background and journey, how did you first get involved in art?
LR: Well, I feel like I’ve been a bit involved in art my whole life. My mother started painting when I was young and she does really beautiful landscapes and florals and things like that, and I always had to be making something. I always had my hands in something, but I never really did anything with it until I was probably in my 20s and living in New York City.
I went back to school at Parsons for interior design, switched my major halfway through to do ceramics, and then ended up moving back to California to do some acting so there that went! After that you know I started illume candles and even though that was a business, a lot of art is involved. Creating the concepts and the direction and art direction of everything in the fragrances, and all of that. But I didn’t start painting as an abstract painter in any real or serious way until COVID. I was in Italy at the time. I had been going back and forth every other month to Italy as my partner was here and so I was here when COVID hit, and in Italy it was really bad. I was still working, I have a job in California, working full-time for a candle factory. I’m a fragrance expert in the home fragrance industry so I consult with a lot of big retailers and brands and all of that. But work got very slow during that time, so I bought some art supplies online and started watching YouTube videos. I eventually found my way to Nicholas Wilton’s Art 2 Life CVP programme and that is kind of how I got really involved. That’s when things really started to explode for me.
AG: Can you describe your preferred medium and artistic style, and how do you choose the materials you work with?
LR: This is interesting because I’m a painter, I can’t even say I’m an abstract painter because in the last couple of weeks I’ve been painting these gigantic flowers. As for artistic style, this one’s always very tricky to me because I like to try new and different things all the time. I feel like my style is constantly changing, although other people tell me that they can always tell it’s my work, so there must be a continuous thread through the work that I don’t really see. I’m not looking for that though, I’m just doing things that I love in the moment. I guess since it’s all coming from me that there’s gonna be some sort of style, but I have no idea what it is. Most people say that my work is very energetic, vibrant and full of life and I would say that’s probably true because my biggest thing is I love being alive!! I love life! I love every moment of being alive, and I love to put that out there. I feel like I do that through my art. The materials I work with mostly it’s acrylic paint but I also do collage. I love spray paint, I love anything I can get my hands on that that just does what I want it to do, so I do have some Sakura solid acrylic sticks and I really love those. Pastels, oil pastels, charcoal – just kind of anything that that will work.
AG: What does a typical day in your studio look like? Do you have a creative routine?
LR: No! I’m not good with routine. I like to do what works for me in the moment. I still work full time, so Monday through Thursday I work for the company in California. As I live in Italy, the hours are very tough on the 62 year old body – but I do it. That just leaves mornings for me to paint in. I have an office at home and I have an office space in my studio, which is a 5 minute walk from my home. It’s a gorgeous walk through a little Italian town it’s literally a “pinch me, am I dreaming”? situation, but on the days I choose to work from the studio it’s really nice. When I get tired of looking at the computer screen I can get up and I go and paint for half an hour. Then Friday Saturday and Sunday are my paint days. It’s just a case of – where did I leave off from the time before? what do I feel like doing now?
AG: Can you give us insight into your painting process, it sounds like it’s pretty intuitive?
LR: There isn’t really a specific process. I sometimes start with colour, I sometimes start with line. I sometimes start with an idea in my head, and I sometimes just start with putting down paint. But, I always, always react to what I just did before by doing something opposite. So, whether it’s a contrasting colour, or a thickness of line, or transparency compared to opaque it’s always something opposite. It keeps it interesting, and it’s really more just about expressing how I’m feeling at the time. That’s my process. That being said, it does at a certain point need to come together. It needs to make sense, it needs to have balance and all the things that make a painting work ,so at a certain point my brain has to come into the process and I make adjustments to pull things together.
AG: One of the things I admire most about your work is how free and expressive it is, and full of interesting mark-making. Do you have a favourite tool that you couldn’t work without?
LR: No. I think even if I was only left with just my hands, I would still make it work! I do have things I like those rubber spatulas which I think are amazing, but there was a period where I had to use them all the time, and then I go through periods I don’t use them at all. I was using my hands the other day on these new flower paintings. Sometimes it’s my water bottle, you know, a water spritz bottle. I use that a lot but really there isn’t anything I couldn’t work without I would always find alternatives.
AG: Collaboration in the art world can be very fruitful. Have you had the opportunity to collaborate with other artists or professionals? If so, how did it impact your work?
LR: So, collaboration, I love this question! I do have a collaboration going with another artist I met doing an art fair in London. Our work is really different from each other’s, but we really hit it off, and she came to Italy to help me teach one of my workshops here. We started doing something while she was here where I would work on something and then I pass it over to her then she worked on it and passed it back to me and so forth. The result was just so dynamic,. It was really incredible, and we got a show out of it so we’re preparing for that and we’re doing big pieces – so that’s one collaboration.
Another collaboration I’m doing is with a tattoo artist whose work I really love. He’s actually done some of the work that’s on me. I just adore him, he’s young and you know he’s also really positive person and he’s Italian, I think what I love is that we’re really different and I really believe that contrast is what makes everything interesting. Whether it’s an age difference or our backgrounds. And so this tattoo artist, he’s male, he’s young, he’s really edgy and he lives in Germany right – so we’ve got so much contrast, but we’re gonna do something together. He’s going to create some designs I will use in my painting.
I also do surface pattern design now as well as painting. I sometimes incorporate some of my paintings into that. I’m working on several projects right now. A really big one is with one of the biggest retailers in the world for a collection that will come out in March of next year.
Different collaborations are awesome, but I think do it with somebody that is just so different from you so that they really bring a completely different perspective and that element of contrast.
AG: Do you ever have times of creative block where you become stuck in your practise?
LR: No! actually I really don’t, yeah sometimes things do flow better than at others, and sometimes things suck, but do they ever become stuck? No. If they suck I just push through I just mess it up until it starts to work! I don’t know, I just don’t ever feel or get stuck!
AG: Compared to most artists that get asked that question that’s unusual and a real gift! It probably stems from the wonderful freedom you seem to have from any concern about the opinions of others.
On a different tack – what are your feelings about the business side of being an artist?
LR: Ooh…wait this one is huge! Okay, so I am a business person. I started Illume candles in 1994 in the States. I also had a perfume company. I had 150 employees in a factory and I’m very entrepreneurial and but here’s what’s really crazy. It finally occurred to me at the beginning of this year after I’ve been painting for four years now, when I realised that I wasn’t approaching this like a business. I was getting frustrated that I wasn’t making enough money doing this, but didn’t know why. It’s like I’d been sitting out in a boat in the water with my fishing pole but with no bait on the hook, thinking things were just going to happen, and that realisation really was a big wake up for me.
I completely changed everything this year. I went and learned how to do surface pattern design so I could incorporate my art into something that would make money. I now have 4 licencing deals all from this year. Two are for Prints, two for my surface pattern design. I’ve actually got a pending thing happening maybe with a big Paris Fashion house for my work to be on fabric. I’ve got a big Italian furniture and home decor company that wants to collaborate, I even met last week with a film producer and writer who are wanting to maybe do a story or a movie loosely based on my life! (which is hysterical!) but we’ll see what happens with that- it’s a long shot.
But I did realise that I was not approaching this like a business, and that I needed to just really put myself out there and learn more skills. Also I think one of the biggest things is stop listening to the *** out there like “if you do this or that you are not a real artist. You know it’s a bunch of *** and sorry to be so blunt but it really is. I don’t like listening to other people’s opinions and I don’t know why I was listening to them. Maybe I didn’t have the self-confidence that I do with other things because art was newer to me and art seems, I don’t know, more mysterious perhaps. But we can do what we need to do to make money and still be real artists, and I think once I really took that in and then started approaching this like a business, all of a sudden this year so many things are happening now. None of them are making me a cent yet, but you know its licencing, and its royalties, and all of that will come next year. I’m setting myself up now to finally see some broader success, and paintings are selling. You have months where a couple of them sell, and then you have months with none, then other months when you sell a bunch of them.
I do have a show coming up in October, a solo show in Milan which I’m excited about. So – you just have to approach it like a business, and you have to not be afraid of anything and you have to not listen to the external noise.
AG: Can you share a memorable experience or story related to the creation of a specific piece of project what made it particularly meaningful or challenging for you.
LR: You know I’ll just give you one challenge. I did a Commission for somebody – to match their pillows, and I know people say well whatever you know it’s not real art if it matches the sofa or whatever. I don’t know about that but she wanted a painting to match these pillows. I’m not going to say no to business first of all and I’m also not going to say no to a challenge! The pillows were really pretty but the painting came out phenomenal and it came phenomenal because I really put myself up for the challenge. I’m like I can do this, I can make this work I’m not gonna let anything leave my studio that I don’t love. It just really came out well so I think that one meant a lot to me it was also for a friend and she has a bunch of air B&B’s in California and it went in a wonderful air B&B right on the seaside. It just looks it looks stunning there.
AG: Wow, that’s a lot of progress in just a few months! What advice would you have for aspiring artists starting their creative journey?
LR: Learn learn learn learn learn learn learn! Follow other artists, watch videos, learn techniques. Try not to listen to the nonsense of other people’s opinions, (they’ve got so many opinions!) and just learn technique and keep doing it – paint paint paint paint paint. I typically spend every day painting even with a full time job and all the other projects I’m doing. So keep going, keep painting, putting yourself out there. Don’t be afraid of what anyone else thinks or says about you because it does not matter. It really doesn’t matter – your people will find you, who cares about the others? just keep going and putting yourself out there.
AG: Great advice!
You have so much going on already, it makes me exhausted just thinking about it – but what’s next for you?
LR: What’s next for me is I’ve got my solo show in in October. I’m super excited that I have all these collaborations going on for my surface pattern design. I have some really big projects coming up. One is huge and that comes out in March of next year. Also Illume candles is having their 30 year anniversary this year. I sold the company back in 2000 and I haven’t had anything to do with them for 24 years, but they invited me back to do a collaboration for the anniversary. They’re putting my paintings on nine of their products and those will all launch this month. I’m flying to Atlanta on Monday for the launch party in the showroom, and I’m going to be seeing people I haven’t seen in 25 years and it’s going to be pretty amazing so I am super psyched for that. It’s going to be great exposure for my art.
AG: So much going on for you! Thank you so much for finding the time in your busy schedule to talk to me. I’m sure this is going to be an inspiring read. Finally, and just for fun give us three things you love and three things you loathe.
LR: I love being alive! A fiery sunset, and a cracking thunderstorm
I loathe Bullies/mean people/gossip (all one category!) Crowds and hot weather
AG: I resonate with all of those, although I don’t have to deal with as much hot weather as you do 😂
Thanks again, and I’m sure readers will want to join me in wishing you all the very best in all of your new ventures, and I look forward to following along on social media.
You can follow Lynette on Instagram @lynette_reed_art
And her website is https://www.lynettereedart.com
