Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Leigh Brooklyn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Leigh with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I think a few things go into my work ethic. One being that I think I’m here, alive in the world at this point in time for a reason. I feel that is my purpose be an artist. It’s my passion. If you love what you do it’s easier to work at it all the time. Secondly I realize time is limited. I only have so long to achieve all that I want to achieve, life moves very quickly. And finally I feel like I lost about 10 years of time where I wasn’t able to really work. I had to recover from that, it’s a big motivator when your back is against the wall and it’s sink or swim, so I swim.
I think a strong work ethic is something that many people in my family also have. I grew up with a mother who worked very hard, working all day and coming home to decorate cakes into the night while taking care of my brother and I. She pulled a lot of all nighters. My grandparents worked really hard farming. They had a dairy farm and the animals had to be tended to, it didn’t matter if they were tired, sick, or didn’t feel like it, it had to be done.
In college I remember setting up some crazy sleep schedules to try to get all the work done. I was in a really challenging major in college, studying Biomedical Illustration. Basically we had to learn a surgery, learn a new software, then make an accurate animation or illustration of a procedure in a few days amongst other projects. It was like a combination of medical school, art school, and computer programming. I think I slept every 3rd day then. It was do the work or fail and a lot of people didn’t graduate in that program – you definitely had to have grit.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I come from a very blue collar family, mainly farmers, factory workers, and military. We never went to galleries or museums growing up. All our family vacations were to things like war battlefields and monuments which I absolutely hated at the time, though perhaps that influenced my work today. The only exposure I had to the arts was through art at the local county fair or some kitschy magazine that sold art reprints and garden gnomes. I knew nothing and didn’t think it could be a career.
Then in high school an art teacher entered a painting into the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards without my knowledge and I received best of show and won at nationals. I realized then that maybe I was better than I thought. I did a whole series then of surrealistic self portraits and won countless awards in Scholastics locally and nationally and in many other competitions for my work during my last two years of high school. My junior year in high school I was finally able to go to New York for my art and my eyes lit up as I was seeing the art world for the first time.I felt like I finally found my calling and started looking at art schools.
I earned a degree in Biomedical Illustration from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2011 after being inspired to do forensic art. I saw on the news how someone was identified using a facial reconstruction from the skull and I thought that would be really cool to do. I bought a whole book on it before attending CIA. At school we did everything from working with the natural history museum to drawing cadavers and illustrating surgeries live in the operating room. It was a really cool and really challenging major. I interned with the Cleveland Clinic, several research facilities and created freelance illustrations for the Gastroenterology Department at University Hospitals.
Immediately after graduation I ended up moving around the country, I moved around 15 times during a 10 year period. Life was very “different” during that time and it was difficult to work, especially in the medical illustration field. But I did see a lot. I saw different art markets, I was able to visit Art Basel while living in Miami – which opened my eyes again, this time to the high end art market. When living in Los Angeles, seeing that I couldn’t pursue medical illustration, I began doing street photography to get reference material for figurative oil painting. I would street cast people and do shoots right there on the spot. That helped me with approaching people and accepting rejection because half the people would say no. I did manage to get some great material. I’d go through places like Skid Row and talk to a lot of people. My work at this time focused a lot on marginalized individuals and sharing their story. Eventually I ended up back in my hometown where I studied under a very well respected sculptor who taught me everything for clay sculpture to be used in making large scale bronze figures. The only thing I didn’t learn from him was the welding for the armatures.
In late 2019 I had a personal upheaval that changed the trajectory of my life. I lost about everything at that time and had to start my life over from below zero. Over the ten year period prior I had lost connections with about everyone I once knew and didnt know very many people anymore. I also hadn’t really worked during that time. It was a very challenging time. I realized that nobody was coming to rescue me and I had to get out there and make something happen. Nobody would help me if they didnt even know I existed. I started going to every art event I could to meet as many people as I could. Then a couple months later Covid happened and everything shut down. My whole life was turned upside down at this point but I didnt let that stop me, I continued entering art calls online. I was entering about five things a week. I tried to do all the virtual art talks that I could. Eventually stuff started opening up slowly and I was able to show my work in my city for the first time. That’s when my name really started to get out there again.
I started a new series at this time. I was going through so much and needed to surround myself with strong women. I decided I’d build this sort of army of women. I began reaching out to a few older friends that I hadn’t seen since high school and I started meeting new people that were referred to me. I asked them to model for a series titled “The Women’s Militia” and began dressing them as soldiers, photographing them in these different abandoned landscapes filled with colorful graffiti. It was so beautiful to see their expressions change when dressed as these modern day warriors. They became so empowered. I began using those images as reference for paintings, drawings and most recently sculpture. The series was to represent the strength of women despite all the battles we fight, and to show how much stronger we are when we come together.
I made the work about women’s role in contemporary society. I feel it’s important for work to reflect what is happening right now around us in our current timel. I created a piece titled “American Portrait” which was about some of the biggest mass shootings today and a piece titled “Pietà” referencing Michaelangelo’s famous sculpture under the lens of the Black Lives movement.
I expanded on the idea of the militarized female soldier and began painting on grenades creating, “Love Bombs” in early 2021 that touches on abuse and toxic situations. Love Bombing is a manipulation technique that a lot of abusers use to overwhelm their victims with gradiose displays of affection.
A lot of people go through so much silently on their own and I want them to know they’re not alone. I think people, women especially, relate to the work because we’ve all had to fight for something in our lives. We’re much stronger than society gives us credit for. We’re much stronger than we often give ourselves credit for.
I want to change the way women are portrayed in society and in art. We are more than a naked muse in the Metropolitan. In art women are portrayed as either a sex object, a seductress, a mother or a monster. I’m tired of seeing the passive female that looks delicate because I personally don’t know any. The women I know are out there working, they’re smart and they’re empowered. Women deserve a new narrative.
Currently I’ve just started learning to carve stone. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time and I’m absolutely loving it. Im planning out a series that combines my skills in stone, clay, welding, painting and drawing. I plan to get more and more into sculpture in the future.
I have four shows lined up for 2024 already and can’t wait to see what opportunities 2024 has for me. I have to say, I’m very proud of how far I’ve come from where I was from only a few years ago. No matter how dark the night is, the sun will always rise again. I’m really looking forward to what the future holds.
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?
Grit, tennactiy, or deggedness is the most important thing. I mention this a lot. It’s the ability to work really hard consistently at something over a very long period of time. The drive to keep going. According to author Malcolm Gladwell, It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Someone may be born naturally talented but natural talent does not equal success. Natural talent plus hard work can gain you skill and skill plus hard work can then gain you success. As the rapper, singer, and songwriter Mackemore would put it “The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint. The greats were great because they paint a lot”. Someone with slightly lesser skill and a greater work ethic will most always do better than someone with slightly more skill and a lesser work ethic. People give up so many times when they’re so close to making it. This is not to say I have never felt like quitting. The arts can be a really tough field. But this goes back to following your purpose. And your purpose has to be something greater than the money. If you chase money it will be easy to quit when times get hard and the money doesn’t come so it’s important to set the right goals. Goals that are bigger than yourself.
Chutzpah, a Hebrew word, meaning to have gall, audacity, supreme self confidence and conspicuous boldness. You need to be confident and go up to people and ask for what you want. If you’re not confident, fake it till you are. Read books on body language, selling, persuasion, learn to be charming but be genuine, people, especially people in the arts, can detect fakeness. Know what you want, have an “ask” in mind before you approach someone, let them know why you are talking to them and what they can do to help you. If you don’t ask, the answer will always be 100% “NO” so give yourself a chance. Do not just go up and say hi, then draw a blank. Be prepared. Look people up ahead of time who will be at events so you know who they are, who you should talk to, maybe learn a little bit about them so you know what is ok or not ok to bring up in conversation. Also remember, they are just people, like everybody else.
An eye for detail. Be organized. Make sure every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed. This goes beyond the art making. This goes into how you package your product. What your business cards or flyers look like, websites, how you dress at art events. Spend time on your writing or hire a writer. Pay attention to file sizes, formats and overall directions when applying to things. Follow up with people promptly. Do not get sloppy.
If you forget things, write it down. I have lists on lists on lists. I have a wall calendar that shows every month for the whole year at once and I plan out the entire year. Then I plan out each day of the week often times down to the hour. Bottom line, write it down or you will forget something.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am always looking for people to possibly collaborate with. It could be anything from exhibiting together with another artist or group of artists who have a similar message in their work or to looking for individuals with inspiring stories to model for me. Maybe working together on a specific artpiece or mural, or working with a company. Even public speaking engagements, it all really depends. I’m really big on empowering women and young girls. I’m open to a lot of possibilities. It really comes down to it being a good fit. If anyone is interested or has an idea they can reach out to me through my website or social media.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.leighbrooklyn.com
- Instagram: @LeighBrooklynArt
- Facebook: @LeighBrooklynArt
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/leighbrooklyn
- Twitter: @WLeighBrooklyn
Image Credits
Portrait & Studio Shots: Stephen Kennedy Cross Country Camera www.crosscountrycamera.com www.stephenkennedy.com
