We were lucky to catch up with Stacey Pydynkowski recently and have shared our conversation below.
Stacey, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
I like to keep a notebook and pen on hand to catch stray thoughts, musings, and observations – things that, in the moment, seem really mundane – like, why did I write this down? – but often they’re the biggest sources of inspiration when I’m ready to pick up a paintbrush.
I write down things like quotes from late night phone conversations with friends, scribblings of words when I need to unpack my mind a bit, little poems about flowers, and when I feel stuck, I can flip through all the fragmented thoughts that fill the pages – almost as if I’m paging through this tangible version of my mind, and generally it expedites reaching that coveted moment of inspiration when trying to conceptualize an image for a painting.
It’s a practice that feels natural and automatic after a while, and I recommend it to anyone feeling a bit uninspired. An added bonus is that over the years, you begin to develop a collection of all these little snapshots of the day-to-day, a little time capsule of thoughts.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I use acrylic paints to create portraits that are emotive, whimsical, and full of nature-inspired motifs like clouds, tree branches, and especially flowers – flowers pop up everywhere in my work, my clothes are covered in them, there’s a mess of them growing in my garden.
We’ve talked about creative inspiration emerging from unexpected places, and this was definitely the case with the evolution of my work. My heavy use of floral motifs was born from being on the receiving end of an act of kindness about six years ago.
It was springtime in 2018, and I was feeling lost and unwell and undergoing treatment for Hodgkin Lymphoma. Flower bouquets started to show up at my doorstep, and I was so touched by the gesture. I wanted to find a way to honor and immortalize the love that went into the petals and stems before they wilted and started exploring floral preservation techniques, eventually embedding dried flower petals into paintings, covering canvases with vibrant floral motifs, and it’s still a big part of my creative practice now, six years later.
I will forever associate all flowers with what they symbolized during that time – each petal is a vibrant reminder of hope, resilience, and cheer during moments that feel void of those things.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
For those just embarking on their own creative journeys who are wanting to share their art with the world but maybe feel hesitant or apprehensive, know this: 1. Your work is worthy of being seen and shared. It can feel extremely vulnerable at first, like your soul is being bared on this canvas for all to see and judge, but I promise it’s worth it and you deserve to have the experience of creative expression, connection, and conversation. 2. For every piece of art, there is an audience somewhere, there’s someone who will deeply resonate with it, there’s someone out there who will feel less alone and feel seen, someone who will experience a glimpse of hope and connection amidst their own storm – all from your art. 3. The creative process is a journey, and the resulting output is always evolving and shifting, just like us as humans navigating through this life, and that’s a beautiful thing.
We all have our own unique vantage point from which we watch life unfold, and I love that we have these creative languages that transcend the written word to communicate and share our stories. Your story is interesting, important, and worthy.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
I love to seek out collaboration and community-oriented projects, but, often, the work of a painter is done in solitude, isolation, and often at night after completing other tasks during the day. A big challenge of this solitude is being mindful of when we are starting to get perhaps too stuck in our own heads, letting self-doubt cloud our creative progress.
Knowing when it’s time to go outside of ourselves for a different perspective or insight is crucial in these moments – whether it’s listening to a podcast, reading a chapter of a book, or picking up the phone and calling a friend. I’m so grateful for my local art community, especially my dear friends who are always a phone call or message away. Our close bonds and brainstorming sessions have ushered me through all the hurdles and challenges of art-making, creative entrepreneurship, and life in general. I owe any successes I’ve had on this painting journey to them.
A funny thing about creating is we don’t really get to experience our own art from the perspective of someone else who is seeing it for the first time because we are so intimately intertwined with every layer, every mistake, every complex feeling we’ve experienced while going through the creative process. It’s okay to step away for a moment and come back later with a refreshed perspective.
I like the notion that we are always painting and problem-solving in our minds even when we’re not in front of a canvas, and often when I’m stuck and step away from my easel for a short walk or a phone chat with a friend, I find that when I come back, I suddenly know exactly what the painting needs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thoughtsinpaint.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/something___witty
- Other: Stacey is represented by Firebox Art Studios in Carnegie, PA. https://www.fireboxartstudios.com/
Image Credits
Photos of the artist and the painting on the easel were taken by BridgePerspective, https://www.bridgeperspective.com/. All other photographs of artwork were provided by the artist.
