Hello everyone! This is Jackson and welcome to the 11th interview for my blog, 3 Art Questions With Jackson. This time I interviewed the excellent painter Lindsy Halleckson. My Dad and I really love her paintings and we have featured them many times on our @artworldexploration Instagram. Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think!
Jackson: My Dad and I really like your paintings. How do you get the canvases to look like they are glowing?
Lindsy: Good question, and thank you, Jackson! I paint using brushes on canvas (and sometimes linen) with dozens of thin layers of thinned out acrylic paint. Each layer builds up more color, while still showing the colors underneath. For me, the process is meditative and physical. It feels very natural- almost like breathing. Even though the process isn't terribly difficult, it takes a lot of time and patience.
Jackson: How did you know that you wanted to be an artist?
Lindsy: From the time I was really young, I always needed to be making things. I loved drawing, painting, writing and illustrating stories. There was always a lot of music in my house growing up, and I played a couple of different kinds of musical instruments. Figure skating was a significant part of my teen years, so that was a major creative outlet for me as well. In junior high and high school I took a lot of art and music classes, which I loved. I was pretty good at drawing and loved color theory. But, I also loved science and math. When I went to college, I thought I wanted to study music composition and eventually write scores for movies. I didn't actually consider visual art seriously until I went on a trip to New York for a couple of weeks during my senior year in college. Spending time in that city made me realize that making a life as an artist is possible.
Somewhere along the line, I realized that art, math, and science are all ways that we learn about and connect with the world around us. Being an artist didn't mean that I needed to abandon my interest in science but could be a way for me to explore ideas and concepts - learning through making, like a scientist learns from experiments. That realization seemed to be what most excited me about being an artist.
Jackson: If you could meet any artist, who would it be and why?
Lindsy: This is such a good question! There are so many artists I'd really like to meet. If I could meet ANY artist, I would definitely want to meet Agnes Martin. Lately, I've been interested in the work of Zaria Forman. I love how her work overlaps visual art and environmental activism. Her mastery of drawing is inspiring to me, and the way that she raises awareness about issues affecting our climate is especially important right now.
