We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Casey Cheuvront a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Casey, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
From working all my life! Ha – Also – I get bored without a project and a goal. And I like the idea of being a “lifetime learner,” which means there’s always something else to try, learn, or accomplish.
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?
My favorite shoes are hiking boots. For years I explored the wildernesses of the Southwest, hiking, backpacking, hang gliding and mountain biking – interacting with our wild places up close and in person. This has profoundly influenced my work. I believe we are incomplete without a connection to, and appreciation of, the natural world, and that we should cherish and protect it.
To that end, I create impressionist/realism oil paintings for those who love the Southwest landscape and wildlife, to share that spiritual relationship. I want to promote deeper respect and connection with our vanishing wild places and the creatures that call them home.
You can see my work, catch my latest shows, find a gallery carrying my work and check out upcoming workshops and classes (as well as my favorite gear) on my website at www.caseycheuvront.com.
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?
Persistence – art isn’t something that comes easy (at least well-executed art isn’t, despite what Pablo said) for most of us. Being able to keep going, and produce in quantity, will get you through those failures and fallow periods.
Resilience – I fight with myself on this one alllll the time. Most artists have, at some point or another, experienced “impostor syndrome.” It rears its ugly head most often when facing adversity; being juried out of a show, or getting in but not selling or getting awards, or even just failing at a painting. You have got to remain resilient and resist that inner voice telling you what a failure you are (see “persistence”, above.)
Kindness – I have had the good fortune to associate with many truly kind people in the art world; collectors, gallery owners, art group administrators and volunteers (soooo many volunteers!), students, instructors, show hosts; the list goes on. It’s good to pass that on, and to try to remember to be kind to yourself as well as to others,
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The art world is constantly changing – AI being the latest in a long series of obstacles we all are facing. I have no idea where that’s taking us, but I hope that the human touch – *actual* human touch, not an AI-driven derivative copy thereof – will remain of importance to collectors, educators, and creators. Staying abreast of change is something we have to cope with in addition to staying on top of (and improving) our skill set, staying productive, managing our marketing and art world relationships, showing and (we hope) selling to what can seem like an all-too-distant public.
Making a direct connection is more important than ever, I hope art continues to make that possible for us.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.caseycheuvront.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheuvrontcasey/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/casey.cheuvront
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-cheuvront-b74b983/
- Other: https://www.caseycheuvront.com/email-newsletter
