Story & Lesson Highlights with Margaret Archambault of Historical Downtown Neighborhood

We recently had the chance to connect with Margaret Archambault and have shared our conversation below.

Margaret, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
I’d say Energy because both intelligence and integrity are directly connected to the energy we embody. If the energy that we operate from each day is one rooted in honesty, joy, love, peace or some higher vibrational place, then we automatically open ourselves up to compassionate creative thinking from a place of sincere integrity. Likewise, when we are thinking critically or intellectually it’s vital to be in a creative energy during the process. Problem solving, (in whatever energy we choose to embody) is what I believe art is at it’s core. It requires both intelligence and integrity and our energy is the key to both. Personally, and as of late, I’ve actively been keeping my energy high and positive, no easy task I’ll admit. Even when external forces attempt to sabotage our peace, or when the dark days threaten our hope, we must press forward with the energy of knowing it will pass and that our principles will remain intact if we hold our energy to the highest standard.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am an abstract painter whose work focuses on my unrelenting desire to connect to the viewer and share a sense of commonality. Life living isn’t easy and although each of us have our own individual experiences, we all share common desires, similar memories and universally relatable challenges. Even our most unique experiences contain common threads. My work relays my own stories through a distinctive lens that attempts to connect these ideas through a variety of compositional elements. Generally speaking I work in three categories, Expressionism, where my focus relies on oil color and mark making with ink, pastel or pencil. Abstraction where my characters tell the story using oil and spray paint and Collage where I incorporate antique / vintage paper to focus on an specific idea. Regardless, all of my work is injected with allegory and narrative. Everything from the color palette I am working with to the tools I choose to use, my work always comes back to a story I am telling and my titles are always a direct reflection of that story.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
If I think too much about this question, I could easily find many things that I’ve grown to know that I didn’t know in my youth. That being said, and with a desire to stay focused on my art, there is one thing that changed my entire artistic journey and has helped me become the artist I am today and that is understanding that you have to break the rules. When I was younger I thought I had to do things in a specific way to achieve certain goals and dreams. Over time I learned that following the rules will not automatically make you a better artist. You may develop technique that ensures your painting of the basket of strawberries is precise, but it won’t necessarily bring those strawberries to life or represent why they are or aren’t important. Sure, it’s true that some rules such as the correct way to stretch a canvas must be done in an important order or that painting acrylic paint over oil paint is a mistake, unless you intend to peel it off, but rules that tell you there is only one way to create, will stifle that creation. Creating within the lines only encourages reproduction. Had I not thrown out the rule book, and started attacking the canvas the way I wanted, then I would never had developed my own distinctive, recognizable style that continues to evolve even after more than 30 years.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Gratitude and a sense of resilience, knowing that we are truly capable of anything. The old adage “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” may be aggravating to hear when you’re in the thick of it, but it’s absolutely true. No matter the degree of suffering, if you push through and refuse to give up and keep climbing over the obstacles life places in front of you, you find that the path continues on the other side. Every time you overcome, you become. I would not be who I am today without learning this lesson and although I admittedly have wished for ease, especially where finances are concerned, I couldn’t be more grateful and proud of my dedication and my accomplishments. The struggle is often what prevents artists from creating, but what I’ve experienced is that some of my best work has been created during the most difficult periods in my life and I can now carry those triumphs forward into the new work like a talisman. If you live your life to create, then life will create a way for you to do it.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
I recognize that some will find my response to this question to be a little “woo woo”, but I’ve seen the evidence time and time again and after decades of difficulty, I’ve learned it to be true. Each of us has an energy force deep within our subconscious that we can actively control which has the ability to alter our reality. Our thoughts have power and how we acknowledge those thoughts, and act or don’t act, determines the momentum that propels us forward. For example, if we choose the “pursuit” of happiness rather than to choose “happiness” then we will perpetually be in a state of pursuit. If you want to be happy then you must BE happy. Let me be clear that I’m not talking about simple positive thinking here. I’m talking about a core change in the way we process the world around us and the way we respond to it. We have ultimate power over our vessels and the diversions, difficulties, obstructions and situations that alter our direction are opportunities that have the potential to enhance our intuition and promote our individual evolution. When you experience periods of lack and spend all of your time trying to overcome the lack, focusing on the lack, fighting with the lack, rather than leaning into and celebrating even the tiniest victory you perpetuate more lack. I could share a myriad of examples that I’ve personally experienced, but one in particular stands out and acts as reminder if I start to slip backwards. During one of many periods of financial lack I found a penny. Yes, I picked it up and convinced myself with actual emotion that “all the day I’d have good luck”. That same night I unexpectedly sold a small $100 painting that allowed me to go to the grocery. Every item I purchased I treated with exceptional gratitude and joy. A simple bunch of bananas became glorious, a box of pasta, sublime, a loaf of bread, each slice pure joy. I celebrated those items as though I had won the lottery and it created a momentum of change that I still continue to embrace each day. Everyone knows that the one thing we can always count on in life is change, right? So, create it. Be the change you want no matter how distorted your reality appears because you have the power to produce any result you desire

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you tap dancing to work? Have you been that level of excited at any point in your career? If so, please tell us about those days. 
I don’t know if you can call it tap dancing as most of my artistic career has been more akin to slam dancing, but recently I experienced a moment closer to a waltz and it was beautiful. After decades of submitting artwork to competitions, grant proposals and solo exhibitions outside of my own city and collecting the mountains of rejections, this past spring I finally landed my number one choice location for a solo show; Chicago. In December of 2020 I participated in a group show in the lower east side of Manhattan which was an incredible experience and one that I hope to recreate in the future, but Chicago has sat atop my dream list since I was a kid. I grew up in South Bend, IN, and spent many years visiting the city and after moving to Louisville, I still always found myself returning to Chicago. As a young girl and even into my teen years, I always knew, truly knew, that someday I’d be working in some capacity in Chicago, I just never imagined it would be at a coveted gallery, sharing my work with such a respected audience in a market that is practically unobtainable in Louisville. I drove back and forth from Louisville to Chicago throughout the 2025 summer and felt myself shedding old skin with each mile. Those six trips back and forth and the days spent in the city showing, sharing and talking about my art marked a series of goalposts for me both professionally and personally that ensure, at least in my mind, that the best is yet to come.

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