Artist Interview: Fiona Craig
We chat about growing up surrounded by nature, gathering infinite reference photos, hoping to inspire an appreciation for nature through her work, remembering the subjectiveness of the art world, and recovering from an unsuccessful art show.
ASM: Fiona, your paintings are just exquisite. The way you portray the play of light and shadow is captivating enough to capture viewer's gaze for hours. The nature brings an endless source of references. How do you build your relationship with the objects that inspire you? How do you settle on which one of the perfect flowers to paint?
F: Thank you. Some of the objects - such as Australian flora - are very familiar to me, whereas others - such as peonies - are relatively new. Growing up in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, familiarised me with the local flora. By early adulthood, I was obtaining native flora from florists who specialised in it. That way, I began to familiarise myself with flora from outside my locality, across the nation. I took bushwalks, seeking interesting leaves, trees, and flowers to photograph. When overseas, I spend hours at a time in forests, nature preserves, and botanical gardens, enthusiastically taking in unfamiliar objects and scenes. This has a visually refreshing effect, so that I'm constantly inspired.
I've built up a large collection of reference photos over the decades that I can choose from. It's often difficult to choose which to paint next, because I have far more photos than I can paint in a lifetime! Sometimes I agonise over which new work to start, because I also have to consider which is going to fit into a series, which I feel most inspired to express, or which has a better chance of selling. While the financial aspect is an annoying consideration, it's all good. Once I start putting paint on canvas, I enjoy whatever I'm working on.
I came to appreciate that I still need to examine flowers to see how they're made. For me, it's not enough to rely on photos alone. Therefore, it's also important for me to paint alla prima, or at least try to have some fresh flowers around when I'm painting from a reference photo. Memory also plays a part, so it's useful to try to build up a clear visual memory by observing as long and as frequently as possible.
I've always been interested in the way light plays on the subjects. While I delight in colour, I appreciate that tonal values play the most important part. Therefore, I place my subject at different angles to determine the best ways the light and shadow will fall. When outdoors, of course I can't turn the subject, so I walk around it or visit it, when possible, at various times of day and in various seasons. All these factors help me decide which floral or landscape subject to choose.
Have you been always inspired by nature?
I suppose I've always been inspired by nature, even when I took it for granted because of living in the Blue Mountains for about half of my life. This is partly due to absorbing the surroundings and fresh, eucalyptus-infused air, and partly to it being nurtured by parents who were highly enthusiastic about art and gardens. My father was an architect who took up pottery as a hobby. My mother was a fibre artist who taught fine art and crafts to children in a non-academic way. Throughout our youth, my parents took my brother and me on outings to Blue Mountains gardens and bushland swimming spots. The forest behind our home was my playground, site of explorations, and place for peace and quiet. I much preferred being outside than inside - the existing technological entertainment was only TV and radio. My mother encouraged me into portraiture, which became my first art career. However, I found more artistic freedom and less pressure to render 'perfect' likenesses in painting nature. There were times, here and there, when I was inspired by urban scenes and other subjects, but I leave that to other artists because I want to focus on mastering natural subjects.
Every person takes something different from an artwork than the person before them. What do you hope the viewer will take from seeing your work?
I hope the viewer of my artworks will experience something of the delight and sense of beauty that I try to put into my pieces. I hope they'll share in the fascination for fabulous and unusual flora that I attempt to bring to their attention. I hope they'll take away an inspired appreciation of the high value of nature and our necessary, inseparable connection to it.
With a strong CV experience as yours, we thought you would be the perfect person to answer this question. We are strong believers that the more people discuss failure, the less significant the possibility of it becomes. In our society, we are so terrified of possibility of something not working out, that it halts all our efforts to begin with. We ask all of our interviewees if they can share a time where something (a project or opportunity) did not work out and how did you move forward?
Failure is almost certainly par for the course in any career, and seems particularly so for the arts. The arts is such a personal and subjective field that it's often difficult to keep up motivation when one's art is rejected from a competition, criticised negatively by a family member, friend, or teacher, or just isn't selling. Let me repeat and emphasise the word SUBJECTIVE because the art world is such. For that reason, I rarely enter art contests unless I feel my artwork somehow fits the current style (or diversity), and judge's tastes.
In recent years, two solo exhibitions at galleries didn't do well. I was very disappointed, as it's doubly exhausing - not to mention embarrassing - to make all those paintings and then have them sit on walls with little result regarding turnout of guests or sales. To get through these crises, I began with 'autopsies' informed by my long experience, and by information/feedback from selected people. My conclusions were that it had been too long between shows (I used to present them every year or two), I didn't have enough Australian native floral content (my best seller), the timing for one exibition was out (competed with a major sporting event final), and the galleries handled promotion poorly. The latter I ultimately had no control over, as brick-and-mortar galleries don't tell us artists who our clients are, and, moreover, expect us to bring clients to them. We may get to meet a few of our collectors at our exhibition openings, or they may contact us via social media or our websites. That said about galleries, there was another aspect to consider: the 'elephant in the room' was the changing nature of art purchasing due to the impact of online venues.
My solution was to get back to the easel and increase my portfolio of Australian flora, reminding myself of how special it really is due to it's uniquness in the world, and that my way of painting it is unique to me. I also did some paintings of other flora and landscapes I wanted to extend myself with and explore because it keeps things fresh. I took control of my own website, transferring my domain to Squarespace, whose team are gradually helping me to build it (I'm one of the 'technically challenged'). I took up part-time teaching after a break of five years, to provide some regular income, as I was out-of-pocket due to lack of exhibition sales. I found I really enjoyed the social contact and being around other art lovers. That's come to a temporary stop now due to the COVID-19 epidemic, so I've taken up jewelry-making at home. I've uploaded some of my paintings to online galleries, thus increasing my chances of beeing seen. That's proved moderately successful regarding sales in both online and brick-and-mortar galleries, and private commissions. My message here is to keep moving and if we need a rest break now and then, that's okay but don't stagnate. There's so much to do it can seem overwhelming, but building the pathway a pebble at a time will eventuate in a sturdy surface preventing sinking into the mud (thank my grandmother for that allegory - and BTW, one of the larger pebbles is drawing lessons). Also, bear in mind that success is not necessarily measured in financial terms, but more importantly in the joy and satisfaction of the art-making process and its results.
Any events, projects, or exhibits you'd like to share with the audience? Has any of them cancelled due to COVID?
My first solo exhibition at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden has been postponed til late 2021. As it was to be held during the 2020 annual Waratah Festival, it was to feature many paintings of that well-known Australian flower. The waratah is a major feature of the botanic garden, and some of my paintings feature the flowers there. In the meantime, I'm continuing to paint waratahs, the floral emblem of my home state, New South Wales, so that I'll have enough on hand to choose from by the time I'm able to exhibit in public. I've started to upload them on my website and social media to build a gradual virtual exhibition this year.
I've also lost my in-person teaching at art centres in Chicago for as long as they're closed. That's been difficult for me to deal with from social, artistic, and financial points of view. I now have to film online lessons, a challenging prospect.
You can find Fiona via her website is at www.fionacraig.com and Instagram @fionacraig.fineart
