We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Heather Sebastian. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Heather below.
Heather , so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
I keep my creativity alive by insisting that art is a crucial part of my life, and I believe that for humans in general, creativity is a life-force and a foundation for everything we do. I would even argue that my creativity keeps ME alive. The desire I have to paint and create is an energy that refuses to be suppressed, no matter what the demands on my time and energy are. I keep my creativity alive by recognizing that my mental health relies on a constant cycle of processing and purging, and that art is the main way I do that. I feel like creativity is my superpower — I can bring clarity and calmness into my life by being creative. That and being in nature, which also fuels my creativity in more ways than one, from recharging my soul, to giving me sensory stimulation that triggers an idea for a painting, whether or not that idea is recognizable to any viewer, I know it’s in there in one of the layers of my work. Also, I think that moving in and out of different styles, mediums, and techniques keeps me creative — although large acrylic works remain my favourite — and always being curious about what’s going to happen. I honestly never know what will come out of me next. I’ve often had this sense of “there MUST be more to life — there’s got to be more to it” — and art takes me to those places.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I consider myself an artist and mother first, then a teacher. I’ve been teaching Art and English to high school students for over 20 years now, but I’ve been an artist as long as I can remember.
I grew up north of Toronto around a beautiful wild area called Fairy Lake. It was a magical place that fueled my imagination and my adventurous spirit. Nature was my first canvas — from building forts, to creating secret art pieces hanging in trees, to painting the ducks and red-winged black birds.
My studies took me around Ontario, out to BC, off to Germany, and then back to Ontario, where I paint, do pottery, teach art, hike, garden, raise my kids, and continue to marvel at the wonders of being human on this complex and beautiful planet. My two most recent paintings, -“The Mother in Ashes” and “The Mother’s Exhale” -are currently featured at The Georgina Centre for Arts and Culture in Ontario as part of the “Letters to the Earth” exhibit. They are both responses to the climate crisis and tell a personal story as well. I see art as one of the most powerful ways we can bring awareness to what our planet and its inhabitants need to flourish, connect, and thrive.
Something that I really think is special about my work is the hidden Morse code messages. I love hiding Morse code messages in most of my paintings, which range from highly symbolic expressionist pieces to pure abstraction. Within the planes of each painting, I try to create visual maps, stories, and codes for the viewer to take in and decipher. I love picking a message that links to my inner narrative around my painting and arranging it in Morse code right into the composition. I am fascinated by the idea that as humans we still have privacy in our minds, and I take pleasure in knowing that art can offer a cryptic translation of my inner thoughts, hence my studio name: secret studio. My primary impulse when creating is to just be and express whatever needs to be purged, projected, examined, or explored at any given time. The Morse code idea actually came AFTER I had already decided on secretstudio as my name. It came from a combination of the natural progression of my obsession with painting using dots and dashes, and my love of codes, privacy, and secret messages.
The next thing I want to do as an artist, besides just painting as much as I can, is to build an actual studio on my property. My “studio” is currently my house, which is small and packed with kids, cats, easels and art messes everywhere. It would be amazing to have a separate space to create, as well as to host workshops and artist retreats. For now, my home (which I call The Hollow) is already a hub for all my artist friends. There’s always paint and a canvas for anyone who wants to come over and get their paint on with me. I have outdoor art parties in the backyard, my she-shed is full of art supplies. I love being creative with other people (and okay, also alone in the middle of the night, which I find soothing) and I’m so glad I’ve created a place where people — mostly kick *ss, creative, gently-powerful women — feel inspired and free.
I’m also working on promoting my art through instagram (heathersebastiansecretstudio), my website (secretstudio.ca), and by submitting my work to juried shows, online platforms, and local venues. I’d love my art to be in peoples’ homes and venues all over the world. My art brings me so much joy. I just want to spread the joy.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
For my journey, I think the 3 most impactful qualities/skills/areas of knowledge have been:
1. PURE freedom in creativity — not creating FOR anyone else — just doing what I FEEL must come out of me and what I want to create in the moment. I guess this might be the opposite of knowledge. Just DOING instead of knowing what you’re doing.
2. Playfulness — is that a quality? I think that’s so important, because the more rigid I am, the worse my art is. When I’m just playing around and BEING is when I create my best work (and the art I love the most).
3. Building a community. When people come together and “get” each other, there’s something absolutely magical in that. Try to find your pod. Spend time with people who have the same creative goals as you and celebrate each other.
My advice for anyone early in their creative journey is this: comparison is the death of joy. Just do you. Be you. Go all in with YOU. Someone will get it.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
I love this question and you might not think a science fiction book would have a huge role in an artist’s development, but here it is. My absolute favourite book of all time is the science fiction book DUNE written by Frank Herbert. It’s one of those books that people seem to either love or hate, and here’s what it did for me.
When I first read it, I was so deeply changed by how FAR into the future Herbert imagined, by the concepts and ideas he came up with, by the powerful women (and some men too) and their abilities to manipulate time and space, by the creatures and their roles in the universe. This is the stuff my brain churns up every night when I dream. Honestly, whole worlds and realities and existences. So when someone writes it all down, and you can read it (or see it), it’s so powerful. When I first read Dune, I thought: all of this came out of ONE PERSON’S mind. It opened my brain up further to “what if” thinking, and even though I already did art when I read Dune for the first time, it had an impact on my LEVEL of creativity. Just because it has never existed doesn’t mean you can’t make it exist. SOMEONE has to imagine everything. So open yourself up and see what you can imagine. Actually a lot of science fiction has done that for me (although you don’t really SEE the influence in my work — it’s more my THINKING that is affected, my open-mindedness and speculation). Science fiction is a gift. Just like dreams, Just like art. I love the connection between them. Don’t limit your creativity to this lifetime. Go way way into the future – when you won’t even be here — it’s so liberating!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.secretstudio.ca/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathersebastiansecretstudio/?hl=en
Image Credits
Jason Knowles
