Diane Rolnick on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Diane Rolnick. Check out our conversation below.

Hi Diane, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
Born at the dawn of the 1950’s, my tiny self was placed in an incubator with a 50/50 chance of living. I think inside the enclosed cubicle my mind was pondering my choices of living on earth or returning to another place. I chose earth as possibly the greater challenge. From the beginning I had a wandering and wondering mind. I also walked many paths in my life that led me to pick up and move from one place to another.
I spent two years studying art at Drexel Institute of Technology (later Drexel University). At that time the school did not have a fine arts degree so I moved to and from various departments until I created my own special curriculum (special studies) with my favorite professors. Unfortunately, this did not sit well with the head of the department, and I was asked to leave after the term ended. There was procrastination on my part that Spring to apply to other schools. When I did apply, I was accepted to other two schools and put on the waiting list for RISD. But one morning out of a deep sleep, I sat up suddenly as my lips, (on their own) mouthed the word “RISD”. I opened my eyes and I thought, here is my path. I am going to Rhode Island School of Design. I left school without any decisions made, not knowing what would happen. About a week later standing in the dining room of my home looking for something in a drawer near the telephone, it rang. A woman on the other end told me I was accepted to RISD and the phone went dead. I hung up and thought. She will call back. What do I do? The phone rang and I was told I needed to be in Providence the next day to begin summer session. I shouted upstairs to my mother that we were going to Providence. I allowed myself to wander from the problem but somehow, I knew a path would open and I would follow. Many times in my life I have allowed myself to wander in my work or life. At a certain point, I would be shown a path through my work and my life as an artist.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I work with a painter’s mind and eye as a digital mixed-media artist exploring and excavating a rich layering of imagery. Many of my figurative portraits reflect personal experiences and real or imaginative histories or interactions.
Investigating the complexities, thoughts, and the behaviors of humans with the rhythms of our lives informs how I peruse the world and create my tableaus. I wonder and examine who we are as human beings and how we act, react, and sense others. Each of my pieces may combine engagement with others or solitary insular moments alone or in a gathering. The intertwining of humanity and nature is a core belief that excites my work. Growing up with a mother who was a horticulturist, I was surrounded by flowers and a spectacular garden which invested me with knowledge that the cycles of nature are parallel to our own lives.
My own history, stories, and struggles are situated in my work as I have focused on women and our fight through the years to be treated as equals.

As a very visual and curious child, I was lucky to have been born in New York City, one of the great art capitals of the world. My earliest memories at about 4 were painting a small piano in an artist’s basement studio. My entire being was at home in the arts. As a child with many health issues, I was home in bed more than other children and my mother provided all kinds of materials – drawing, building cardboard rooms, making puppets and more to entertain myself.
When I was 8 years old, I ventured into a local dance studio and instantly knew I had to dance. My mother, taken by surprise, enrolled me and saw me through my time as a ballerina which included studying at the School of American Ballet in NYC every summer and the Andre Eglevsky Ballet during the year. As a member of the Andre Eglevsky Ballet Company, we performed all over the New York area. When my body gave out at 16, I had to leave the dance world.
I studied at Drexel Institute of Technology that had a small but fabulous art department and then Rhode Island School of Design, earning my BFA in Painting while taking my last year in Rome, exploring the art museums of Europe, and spending another year as an au pair for an American sculptor and his wife taking care of a 5 year old child, and six cats and a dog.
Coming back to America after two years, I moved to Philadelphia, Boston, and then back to the New Year area, after earning a master’s in art teaching from RISD. I lived in Hoboken for 10 years teaching and showing my work until my childhood dream of moving out West brought me to New Mexico 29 years ago.
When I moved out to New Mexico, I began a series of bodies made from wood, encaustic, and digital imagery that featured self-portraits, family members, and political figures. In 2010 my mother was diagnosed with non-treatable bone cancer, and I found myself unable to work in the studio. I was living on a small ranchito outside of Albuquerque with a horse, 4 goats, and 2 dogs. I began to hang out at dusk in the barnyard photographing shadows and shapes and experimenting with printing images on silk and other materials, layering them together. My images led me to my current work as a digital mixed-media artist with a large format printer investigating ideas with various papers, silk, cotton, and substrates.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
My grandmother, Ottalie Popper Appel, a diehard New Yorker and a lover of the arts in New York City, began taking me to the museums, children’s plays, and theater when I was about 5 years old. I remember the feel of my small hand in hers as we slowly climbed the multitudinous stairs in the great hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. Above us was a sculpture of the Soleri golden sun twinkling in the light. As we turned right at the top of the stairs into the galleries, I remember feeling awestruck looking way up at Van Gogh’s sunflowers on the wall and loving the movement and bright colors. Dega’s sculpture of a young dancer posing with her head looking downward felt to me like one of the most beautiful objects I had ever seen. But it was the huge Jackson Pollock’s paintings that mesmerized my small self as I felt encompassed by the whirling swirling marks. I saw myself contained inside the maelstrom and never forgot those moments. My grandmother knew who I was, and I was learning.

What’s something you changed your mind about after failing hard?
When I was 8 years old, I was invited by a friend to watch her dance lesson at the local ballet school. The school was in an old building with steep stairs that led to the ballet school. I was shown into a narrow hallway with a blackened scratched one-way mirror that looked into the studio. As Ms. Betty, the teacher, started class at the bar, I became entranced! My whole world changed as I watched and said to myself, I need to do this!
It was the first time I felt and visualized a switch flipping open in my mind which indicated a very clear decision. That switch became a signal for me throughout my life when I strongly decided on a path forward. I went home to implore my mother for lessons and became an avid student, dancing in local shows. Ballet was my art and my soul. Eventually with help from Ms. Betty I was accepted into SAB, the School of American Ballet for the summer sessions. SAB was the feeder school training young dancers for the New York City Ballet run by George Balanchine. I was also introduced to the Andre Eglevsky Ballet School, where I took classes throughout the school year on Long Island and performed with his company around the New York City area. This was a time when George Balanchine wanted all his dancers to be rail thin. As I developed my skills in dance, my body began to tire because like many dancers, I had practically stopped eating to fit the requirements of the times. By the age of 16, I was anorexic and ill.
My mother was desperate to find a solution and tear me away from an art that was killing my body and mind. I was grieving and heartbroken inside with the idea of leaving the dance. This was happening in the Spring before the summer session in New York started. All alternative suggestions given were not approved by me until my mother invited a very interesting individual into our living room one night. Michael Cohen was a PHD educator and founder of a base camp for teens in Killington, Vermont. He set up a projector with slides of the western teen travel adventures for the upcoming summer of hiking, climbing, camping, canoeing, and spelunking. I was transfixed. I said yes to this adventure without thinking and began to change my life.
It took me many years, though, to work through my grief and feelings of failure. Looking back, I know this was one of the hardest tasks I had to resolve at a young age.
My change of heart began when I started my formal art training in Philadelphia at Drexel Institute of Technology. A fabulous group of artists took me under their wings and gave me back my spirit for the arts. Turning to a new creative direction; painting, drawing, photography, and mixed media opened my mind and heart. I began to forgive myself and turned away from failure to a wonderous challenge in the fine arts.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What’s a cultural value you protect at all costs?
As creative beings and makers of art, many of us develop our own sense of ourselves in a culture that surrounds us beginning in childhood. As we grow into our artistic processes, we learn about our passions, curiosities, interests, and feelings as experimenters. Through interactions with other artists, art venues/galleries, curators, and writings, we develop a good reading of the ever-changing competitive art world particularly since the age of the internet.
For myself, I tell my inner worries to “hold onto the edge of your seat” and maintain a healthy view of what is essential and important to me. This includes staying true to my cerebral wandering’s, bravery of thought, and personal practices. The outside world may make demands based on the latest “must emulate” or “follow the crowd” associations or ideas which may not be a part of my own belief systems. It is so important to me at this stage of my working dynamic to allow my sense of the world and inner tinkering’s to guide me in my paths of work.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
As a youngster, I already had very strong feelings about decision making. My mother would buy me a dress or sneakers in a style or color I did not choose, and I would refuse to wear that item. I do not know why I had such a strong reaction, but I was very clear about my determination. My actions were not the methods of a spoiled child because I remember being quite clear about my choices in a neutral place which was not about will or anger; it was something else inside me that reacted to the visual and kinesthetic as my place in the world.
Ever since I could remember, if I was told a story, or described an event, or place, I automatically visualized pictures in my mind. My mind creates images as soon as someone begins to describe a situation or place and that continues today. The kinesthetic and the visual arts are where I live. That is why at age 8, I “demanded” ballet lessons, because something inside me was exploding with joy and need. The visual arts was always a home that I recognized as a young child as I explained previously accompanying my grandmother to museums. Starting at age 4 and 5 I had immense reactions to the beautiful paintings and art I was fortunate to be in the presence of at such a young age. I have definitely lived a life I was born to embrace, and I give my family great credit for recognizing my soul as an artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dianerolnick.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/dianerolnick
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianegrolnick/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dgrolnick

Image Credits
Bill Kleinschmidt