We recently connected with Lana Guerra and have shared our conversation below.
Lana, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
Most of the time I feel like there’s never enough time in a day, week, or month to do even half the creative things I’d like to make. If i do find myself having a creative slump I’ll go for a walk and just seeing all the different colored houses, patchwork walls and graffiti always get me back into the mood to go paint either street art or on a canvas. Another thing that motivates me is cleaning / rearranging my art studio, I’ll find art supplies I forgot about and that gets me excited to make something new.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am a painter primarily, outsider art, but I also make a lot of other types of art from puppets, masks, wigs, costumes, crochet art pieces, tufted carpets that look like my street art, photography, and I also tattoo. This is why I do not get bored very often or fall into a creative slump. If I am not in a painting mood I switch gears to make something else. My online brand name is Crude Things and perform under the name Flutterbug- clown, noise musician and puppeteer. I am based out of New Orleans. You can find my art in different galleries in the French Quarter and I have street art all around the city. Right now I am planning to make a 2nd stop motion short film with my friend Omer Gal of Cookie Tongue, who is also a puppeteer here in New Orleans. If you would like to see all fun things I am making, you can at @crudethings on IG.
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?
What ever the art you are passionate about creating, do it every day, even if it is for 15 minutes a day. The more you practice the better you get and think of it as playing, just let loose and have fun!
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
Last year I decided to do this live art battle where you only have 20 minutes to make a painting onstage competeing with other painters. So, I bought a new painting art pad and would do 20 minute timed paintings, usually 3 to 4 a day for a couple of weeks. It was really hard to do at 1st for sure. I love to just go for it, grab colors and paint, no preplanned photos of something I was trying to paint, just let your imagination work. It also was fun to see how each day would be completely different, it was almost like a diary. Next i moved up to the large canvas size we were going to use onstage, which was really hard at 1st. After the art battle I made this part of my daily warm up exercise before I would work on one of my regular paintings. I hated it at 1st but it taught me so much and I also had more affordable pieces for my followers to purchase. This is important when you are a full time painter, it gave me even more new collectors. This year I was even trying to get down to 10 minute paintings. It’s a lot of fun to constantly challenge yourself plus you learn new techniques.
Contact Info:
- Website: crudetrhings.com
- Instagram: @crudethings
- Facebook: lana guerra
- Twitter: @crude_things
- Other: crudeart.etsy.com
crudethings.etsy.com
patreon.com/crudethings
Image Credits
One painting is a collab with Eugor, the black gallery wall shot
