Meet Grey Grumm

We recently connected with Grey Grumm and have shared our conversation below.

Grey, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

Short answer I didn’t!
I think imposter syndrome is something we all grapple with. It’s nearly impossible not to question yourself especially when you’re in the vulnerable position of sharing creative work. The self-doubt is amplified by our current reliance on social media and ‘likes’ to justify our existence. Rather than trying to overcome, why not embrace the insecurities or better yet, embrace the knowledge that there is room for everyone to make and do—the world needs more art.

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

I am an artist primarily working in oil paint, as well as watercolor and pastel. I am most interested in figurative work but have recently been exploring emotional connections and expressive techniques to discuss the current world order, particularly government corruption and corporate greed within the United States. I teach adults in drawing, watercolor and oil with a local studio called Tinker, as well as maintaining the role of Visual Merchandising Manager with Two Hands Paperie—this includes window displays; the most recent a work exploring how pencils are made, hand drawn in graphite.

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?

Looking back I was far too busy thinking I knew everything already! I think it’s common for anyone of any vocation to want to emit an air of confidence, but some of the advice I come back to most often, are bits of knowledge I scoffed at initially. For example, working with what you have; you might not always be in a position to buy a new brush or canvas, what can you use that already exists and can you still make art? The answer is always yes, but it might require more creativity to get to the end goal. More recently I play with the idea of concept v what’s produced—a lot of schools rely heavily on the idea of concept being the most important over skill, the older I get the more interested I am in what the process was behind a piece, what the artist was thinking. This plays into my final thought which is understanding the rules before you break them. Think of Picasso, I bet the first thing you picture are his cubist pieces, but Picasso didn’t start out a cubist. He learned realism and hyper realism well before he experimented. It’s important as professional artists to know how to do the basics well, the ‘rules’, then you have all the footing you need to break all of them over and over with intention.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

I grapple with social media everyday. It’s not a unique problem, almost every artist I talk to hates the game. I always say if I could afford to hire someone, that would be the first role I’d fill. What’s interesting is that I make content for Two Hands’ socials, I actually worked for four years with restaurants photographing and posting; but when it comes to myself I am so disinterested in the subject I would rather show nothing than try to keep up. Changing algorithms aside, I also have a hard time aligning my values with billionaires who prop up hate speech—the pros are so far below the cons now that I rarely find it interesting to be involved in that world, the caveat of course, learning when protests are happening and seeing first hand videos the American media is censoring more and more.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.greygrimm.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greygrimm
• Other: http://www.artrewards.net/artists/grey-grimm