Meet Rebecca Rebouche

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rebecca Rebouche. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rebecca below.

Rebecca, 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?

Keeping my creativity alive is like steering a ship, knowing my true north. When you get off course, you can tell because the natural impulse to create starts to weaken. I find that when you remain in tune with your creativity, it will be the gauge that tells you when you are on track and when you are off course. For me it’s not about keeping creativity alive, it’s about continuing to court my own creativity so it doesn’t run off with someone else. Just as in love, you have to continue to be the person they fell in love with, I think it is the same with creativity, or your muse. When I stay loyal to creativity, when I hold creativity in high regard, when I honor and respect my creativity, she stays by my side through thick and thin. When I neglect creativity and waste my time on nonsense like emails and minutiae, then expect creativity to be ready to go the moment I need her, she reminds me it doesn’t work that way. She remains hard to get in my calendar, her dance card is seemingly full and I may have to wait weeks or months to be a priority again. So it works in the reverse. Through a lifestyle of always putting my creativity first, I feel like her top priority. She feeds me ideas in the middle of the night, and even circles back if I’m too busy to jot them down. She leaves me little love notes in the form of fluid creation and ah-ha moments. She stays steadfast by my side when the hours draw long and the back aches. When I make creativity my priority, she is there with me every step of the way like a best friend I love to hang out with. Navigating the open seas is easy when you know which way to go. That “knowing” which way to go is the gift of a great relationship with your creativity. She will always guide you through the dark.

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

I am a visual artist. I create paintings on canvas and design products for the home. I also license my work to brands like Anthropologie. This year I created the scenic art for the Carolina Ballet production of The Little Mermaid. Currently I’m painting for a big show called Wonderland happening at my Atelier in March 2025, and I’m working on the scenic art for two more ballet’s with the Carolina Ballet for Alice in Wonderland and Swan Lake premiering in Spring 2025. I sell wallpaper murals and wall art on my website and host gatherings at my South Louisiana Gallery. Part of my ongoing legacy work is custom heirloom artworks called the Family Tree Painting which is a six foot tall allegorical representation of a family and their story. I’m currently painting for two families and accepting new bookings for 2025.
What I love about what I do is that I pour all my attention into a concept that I turn into a collection of art and an experience for the viewer. Sometimes that work is licensed for products or events. Sometimes we turn it into wallpaper or wall art at my studio. Every three years I put on a big show where I welcome people into that world that I’ve created. I choose the venue, the food, flowers, invitations, and design the entire experience to showcase the art. It’s the most fun I have. It is this style of storytelling through art that makes me who I am and creates a whole enchanted world to explore.

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?

1. Resourcefulness
I remember being a young artist and just wishing someone would pave the way for me. Let me tell you a secret: even if someone had, it wouldn’t have allowed me to learn how to make the most of that way. I probably would have squandered the opportunity. Learning to be resourceful is one of the most impactful skills I can recommend. It means making a plan, finding the money, putting in the work, looking it up when you don’t know the answer, making do with what you do have, reframing your mindset, changing the rules, not complaining, and giving yourself permission to be the one who solves the problem. Resourcefulness will separate you from the pack every time.

2. Pleasure
This may sound silly but most of us need to be reminded that we are free to enjoy this. All of it. Learning how to ENJOY and take pleasure in the journey will change your entire life. We are often so mired in the doing, the trying to achieve something, the seeking and the wishing, that we end up head down on some path that isn’t bringing us joy. We buy into some silent concept that someone will come along one day and give us permission to have fun at some point in the future when all the work is done. Well, that day is not coming and the work is never done, if you’re lucky. I say that because hopefully you’re doing something you love, and hopefully you quickly teach yourself how to do it in a way that you could do it for 200 years if you wanted. Remember that you can enjoy today exactly as it is, and the sooner you do, the sooner you will find your work and your life rewarding and fulfilling and THAT begets success.

3. Magic (and the Illusion of Fear)
Fully committing to a magical existence will change your options in life. We are all secret magicians. It’s just that most of us are unknowingly doing magic we don’t like. We are manifesting results we don’t want and obeying rules we didn’t write. Once you accept that you are doing magic with your thoughts, feelings and actions, you can start to see the world as a beautiful hologram of your own design. This sure beats being someone’s victim. And nature itself is pure and natural magic. When we are tapped into that source code, we can finally step out of the fear-costumes that keep us trapped like pawns in a game. When you realize you can stop time with your attention, create hidden passages in your mind, ask for answers and guidance, and participate in the creation of the universe unfolding day by day, you can finally step out of the dark cloud we can be coerced into living under. When you create distance between the real you and the thrashing teeth of your base fears or worries, you create space for much better outcomes to alchemize.

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?

The Van Gogh Blues was such a helpful book to me, especially in my early career. I feel that most artists have to contend with heightened feelings. Empathy, sadness, overwhelm, sensitivity, love, regret, passion. It is often the very thing that drives us toward creativity that also hampers that creativity or the expression of it in a healthy way. Historically, we have seen so many talents succumb to suicide, or unhealthy lifestyles or the diminishment of their talents because it was all just too much. In The Van Gogh Blues, author Eric Maisel encourages artists to, among other things, “contend with the facts of existence”. He illustrates the common struggles of atrusts and how they might overcome them without diminishing their creativity. And this is GOLDEN because of this: We so often, as a culture, seem to just accept that its par for the course that creative individuals, artists, musicians, etc, are more prone to be “starving artists”, or “live fast and die young”. We are also told to grow up, get it together, accept that you can’t do what you love and make a living or live a healthy lifestyle, or support a family or run a business. But imagine if we changed that paradigm. Imagine a world full of empaths, creatives, visionaries, provided with the skills to “contend with the facts of existence” in a healthy way, and equipped to “perform life” at the level of their gifts and talents. Imagine a world where that was the norm. That’s the world I want to live in.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rebeccarebouche.com
• Instagram: @rebeccarebouche