Meet H. Grace Boyle

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

H. Grace, we are so deeply grateful to you for opening up about your journey with mental health in the hops that it can help someone who might be going through something similar. Can you talk to us about your mental health journey and how you overcame or persisted despite any issues? For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.

When I was younger, the world was my oyster – until wasn’t. At twenty-three, I was diagnosed with a serious mental health condition. The symptoms started when I was sixteen years old. I excelled at many things early in my life. I was intelligent, ambitious, creative, and gregarious. I had a bit of a laundry list of enviable qualities. I was also a showoff and a know it all. My ego was growing and an “I’m better than you” attitude started to develop. WELL, the universe was Johnny on the Spot to put me in check. By eighteen/nineteen I was having hallucinations of all types. I couldn’t trust my own mind. I wanted to end my life and being a chemistry major in college, I spent a lot of time researching chemicals and combinations that would help me do just that. “To be or not to be?” I wanted not to be. My twentieth year brought with it an incredibly beautiful, and for all intents and purposes, ridiculous idea. Propelled by an intense manic episode, I decided to start carving stone. As luck would have it, I found someone in the area who had blocks of Italian marble. What are the chances of that? My first piece of stone was a pyramidal block of Statuario Altissimo. With only pictures in art books and my own hands as reference materials, I carved a pair of lovers’ hands. This is how I began stone sculpture. Working in stone is a metaphor for my life’s journey thus far. Stone carving is painfully slow, boring, and sometimes agonizing work, which can lead to transforming a hunk of nondescript rock into something of deep beauty and meaning. It has taken me decades of medicine, therapy, struggle (sometimes hospitalizations) to get to a point where I am well enough to be self sufficient. It is because I had my life upended that I turned to art as a means of survival. Not financial survival, but the keeping my heart beating kind of survival. Maybe it’s the meditative quality that is inherent in the act of carving stone that has helped me regulate my frenetic mind. Maybe it’s also the ability to communicate my experiences and truth through the stone. Or perhaps stone carving has helped me cultivate the perseverance that has been essential to persisting despite my mental health struggles. I think it’s really all of these. The practice of stone sculpture and all that it entails has been and is a saving grace to the maelstrom of mental illness.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

After finishing graduate school in 2023 and earning my MFA with a concentration in sculpture, there has been a lull in my art making. I’ve been in an incubating stage. Currently, I am emerging from that cocoon and feeling surges of energy and drive to make sculpture. It’s time for me to put my head down and work.
I primarily make sculpture, both public sculpture and work that would be more suited to a gallery or museum. One of my preferred materials is natural stone. I feel a connection when working with marble, alabaster, limestone and others. I’ve felt a (contrived by me) need for my work to have a central theme, cohesive look, or some other means of being able to identify that it’s all my work. I’ve given that up. I cater to what a specific idea requires to make the piece the most successful it can be. By guiding and responding to materials, objects, and forms, I make art in a very intuitive way.

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?

Ignorance, Curiosity, Confidence, and Resilience are the hallmarks of my art making practice. I embrace these, keeping my childlike wonder, daring, and determination alive.
For anyone starting out on a creative path, the single most important piece of advice I can give is know that you’re going to have to change the plan at some point, i.e. fail. I try to steer away from using the word “Failure” because it comes with so much weight. But yes, there will be times for course correction, abandoning a project that isn’t working, and starting over.
Ignorance has served me well in some cases. What I mean by this is that quite a few times, I did not know that something was “too hard” to be done, so I did it.
Be resilient. Do the thing again. Once peace is made with falling on one’s face, when it does happen, it usually isn’t as bad as first thought. Just get back up.
Be curious. Ask questions. Seek the best answers available. Use more than one source.
Be confident. Take a risk. My uncle used to wear a hat that said, “No Guts, No Glory”. Afraid of what people will think of what you’re doing? I guarantee, you care about your projects more than anyone else.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

Both. Going all in on strengths and learning and improving in other areas are equally as important; just not at the same time. A huge encumbrance in my art making is playing it safe by doing the same thing that may have garnered attention and accolades. Having a growth mindset is critical to my success as an artist. Once I feel boxed into a specific style or means of making, my freedom is gone. Art is Freedom. While I have a leaning towards certain materials, my sculpture practice is multipronged. I create figurative sculpture, assemblage, stone carvings, and most recently, I’ve begun exploring glass. In my public works, I’ve used all different types of materials. Thematically, my work is equally as varied.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hgraceboyle.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/after.careful.consideration
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gracesculpts

Image Credits

Christy Lorio

Richard Vallon, Jr.