Meet Bela Fidel

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bela Fidel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Bela, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

As a child I grew up under very traumatic circumstances. I never felt safe and created the emotional barriers that allowed me to survive. As an adult I learned to recognize these barriers and why they were created. Once I understood that they were no longer needed, I worked hard to tear them down. But as a child, surviving under difficult circumstances became second nature: I had to be independent, self-reliant and determined.
This does not mean that overcoming adverse circumstances has been easy but when I look back at all the challenges that I had to face to make my way through life and get to where I am now, I must acknowledge that I have done well.
The source of my resilience must have derived from my mother, who had to face incredibly difficult challenges to raise two daughters on her own without any special professional skills. I am sure there will be other reasons for one’s character and characteristics but one would have to detour to other realms to explain them.
I feel that this question has an easy segue: how did I find my purpose? Becoming the artist I am today – which is not separate from the person I am – has taken and continues to take all my stored resilience. Being an artist involves a strong dedication to one’s craft and a deep connection with and understanding of our emotions, psyche and Spirit. This relationship with ourselves comes to collect on our resilience every single day. Facing our angels and daemons with integrity and honesty is not easy but this is when we are grateful to have been blessed with daring, determination and resilience.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I was born in Brazil and always wanted to be a writer. I have been an avid reader since I was about 7 years old . My uncle taught me to read when I was six years old and starting school at 7 I could already read fluently. As an adolescent I was among the finalists in a writing contest sponsored by one of the major newspapers in my hometown, Sao Paulo. Being immature and a perfectionist then, once I was chosen among the finalists, I felt I that next I had to write a perfect book. Nothing short of a masterpiece would do. I was fourteen years old and this daunting, self-imposed goal paralyzed me, and I quit right there and then.

After high school I completed three years of Secretarial School and decided to leave for Israel, where I obtained a B.A. in English and Spanish Literature and a partial M.A. in Romance Languages at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I speak 7 languages (4 fluently) and read in all of them. While in Israel I became a simultaneous translator and worked many years doing translations in Portuguese, English, Hebrew and Spanish.

Art had never been in my horizon. Until one day, while still in Israel, I painted a couple of small paintings depicting the Old city of Jerusalem. I did not make much of the fact that, our of nowhere, I felt compelled to paint. Back in Brazil in 1974 I took Art classes with local instructors. I painted assiduously and even sold some paintings. But I never thought of having a career in Art. Painting was something I did on Sundays and at weekly classes but I never planned or expected it to be the center of my life. I just enjoyed it and wanted to learn and improve my skills. After about ten years of painting regularly, I realized that I had to dedicate my life to it lest I lose my center.

I arrived in Los Angeles in 1984 to study professional make-up artistry. I did not want to be a secretary and felt that I could not support myself as an artist. The next best thing was to be a professional make-up artist, I thought. I spent 8 months at one of the best Make-Up Artist Academies in Los Angeles, another year building a portfolio doing free glamour shots, working in a Film Institute students’ project and a few TV commercials.

As I became more proficient and started participating in more advanced activities in the field, I realized that the “Hollywood climate” was not for me. I gave up my dream of being a professional make-up artist and sank into a serious depression. I decided to return to Brazil or to Israel and was told by relatives in both countries that “the situation here is not great, wait a little more”. As I “waited a little more” I got to know my now husband and the rest is history. We stayed in Los Angeles for 10 years before moving to Arizona in 1993.

In all these years I never stopped painting, taking workshops, in-person and on-line classes, and eventually teaching art.
During the pandemic in 2020 I signed up for The Creative Visionary Program, a two-and-a-half months on-line art course that changed my life, the way I think and feel about my work and the way I live and teach.

Art and creating art to me is who I am and is the absolute center of my life. I seek to express my Higher Self, my Essence through the medium of color, shapes, texture. this may sound highfalutin but this is what I seek: to be seen and felt through my work.
Having lived in different countries and been exposed to different cultures has given me the love of layers and textures. They allow me to express a universe of memories and the richness of all those different cultures. Still an avid reader, I want my visual work to express drama/passion and poetry, the love I feel for this medium and the importance it has in my life. Despite painting for so many years, I feel that I have only touched the tip of the iceberg. I continue to work on my self-confidence and self-esteem, two aspects of myself that were bruised in my childhood. I learned to show my vulnerability through painting, which makes my Art more personal, more authentic and, I hope, more genuine. I feel that should I have another 20 years to paint, I will most probably still see just the tip of the iceberg.

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?

I feel that constantly working on my craft and skills, the self-improvement I have to constantly and honestly undergo are the most important characteristics that propelled me and continue to propel me further and farther.

Resilience, doggedness, determination are imperative in my survival as an artist. Beyond craft, though, if I wanted to fully and genuinely express myself, I had to really know myself and have the humility and the wisdom to ask for help in this process.
I’ve had mentors who guided me and clarified what it takes to create authentic work, what it takes to stay the course despite rejections, failures and the deep work – that is certainly not easy – that is painting.

To beginners, including many of my students, I express the need to allow for playfulness in the early stages of their work; to accept the need for and importance of process; self-acceptance and self-love and, above all, the knowledge that a life in Art is not necessarily easy, that it requires sacrifices, continuity and dedication; but if they love Art these will par for the course. The return of their love for Art will be a beautiful and interesting life.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

In all my painting life spanning over 4 decades, I’ve been seeking to express my inner self with authenticity and honesty. I tried a few times to paint “spontaneously” but the results did not survive the barbs of my critical alter ego and I gave up immediately. I continued to paint as I always had: allowing the intuition in on occasion (not recognizing it as such, though) but relying on my intellect most of the time. Painting was, therefore, very difficult, often frustrating, and I berated myself all the time. Still, I never gave up.
In 2020 I took a two and a half on line course called The Creative Visionary Program I mentioned above. I signed up not to learn new techniques but only because they promised to teach us how to use our intuition in painting. That was a revelation, a rebirth. It was like being in a labyrinth and suddenly finding the way towards the deepest parts of it without any fear of not finding my way back. It was a joyful connection to myself, one that I proceeded to develop and nurture.
In the past 12 months I have continued to develop my reliance on and trust in my intuition. This has allowed me to feel more confident in my own authentic voice and to dedicate more energy to its development and expression. The Critic has calmed down quite a bit, my dependence on people’s opinions and critiques has lessened and I feel that I am being braver and more courageous in expressing what I want to express in my work. As the banner on my website says, “I want to look at my work and see my Self in the mirror”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fidelabstractoils.com
• Instagram: @fidelbela
• Facebook: bela fidel fine art
• Linkedin: Bela Fidel
• Twitter: @bela_fidel
• Youtube: Bela Fidel;
• Other: Substack – Bela Fidel

Image Credits

All images by Bela Fidel