Meet Natalie Featherston

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Natalie Featherston. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Natalie below.

Natalie, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I’m one of those weird artists that loves deadlines and structure. Nothing drives me to produce like a hard deadline for a solo show or to stack my painting schedule so I can take a week out of the studio to teach a workshop. When I was a kid I planned on being a professional cellist and left home when I was 15 to study at a performing arts high school. I think a lot of my work ethic was formed then — it wasn’t strange to spend 10 hours a day in a practice room or rehearsal. That’s been a huge benefit to me as an artist who paints high definition realism, which takes an extraordinary amount of time to create. I’m really good at deliberate practice and keeping focused.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I paint small, hyper realistic oil paintings in a genre called ‘trompe loeil’ – French for fool the eye. My work is focused around storytelling, and characterized by virtuosity, whimsy and humor. There’s a lot of darkness in the world, and I love to make art that sparks joy and happiness.

With my paintings many people can’t tell the difference between what’s painted and what’s real. While it might be described as an illusion or trickery, that’s what I strive for. Sharing that moment of perspective shift – where what you thought was real reveals itself as painted- is my favorite moment of connection with the viewer.

I exhibit with fine art galleries across the country and also have a busy painting workshop schedule, both online and in person. I shied away from teaching early in my career because I felt like I didn’t have time, but now it’s something I relish as an established mid-career artist. Teaching is a great way to refine my own work and also share and build community with others.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I went through a life changing event in my twenties when I dropped my career as a professional cellist to pursue art, having never even taken a drawing class. It could have been described as bold, reckless, or a little of both. Luckily for me, pursuing my creative dream paid off because of three qualities I developed early in life.

One is simply being stubborn. This meant I didn’t let go of the life I imagined living, even when faced with huge challenges. Another was a willingness to take chances and fail. I knew I wanted to be an ‘artist’ but how to go about it and what I wanted to do with it took years to figure out, and I made a lot of bad art while I was doing it. If I’d been easily discouraged my life would have had a totally different outcome. The other skill that’s served me well is developing my ability to focus. Filtering out distractions and having a laser like fixation on the task at hand has helped me accomplish my goals and advance my career.

I’m not sure how I could advise someone on how to be stubborn, that seems like something that’s baked into you for better or worse. But things that I find helpful are making lots of actionable lists, with both big and small goals. If something seems overwhelming and unattainable, the step you’re taking isn’t small enough. I also spent time visualizing what I wanted my life to look like, and that helped me make decisions that were in line with my goals.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

My parents were always supportive of what I wanted to do as a kid, but I was very independent and there was conflict between us. I grew up in the south and they had strong religious beliefs that didn’t interest me. The most impactful thing they did for me was letting me go.

I desperately wanted to leave home when I was a teenager to go to a performing arts high school and they let me go and supported me, even though that had to have been very difficult for them. Not just letting me make my own decisions at a young age (many of which were bad) but to study music with the goal of having a career in the arts. It didn’t work out exactly the way I’d planned when I switched form classical music to fine art oil painting, but my parents never discouraged me or tried to reason with me to get a degree or an actual job. I still regret that they both died too young to see me reach my goals and enjoy the career success I’ve had.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nataliefeatherston.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nfeatherston_fine_art/