Whopple.com

Today’s Artist Interview Is With Marilyn Lowry from Montgomery, Texas.

Whopple: How long have you been an artist?
Marilyn: I have been an artist since I retired from education in 1996. I have always played with art, but I was never encouraged by my parents or in school. I decided to enroll in classes after 32 years as a teacher, administrator, counselor, and director of guidance. It was time for me to do something for me and see if the naysayers were right or wrong!

Whopple: Tell us about your first attempts to be creative.
Marilyn: My first attempts to be creative were at home as a child. I decided to decorate our baseboards with crayons to make them more colorful when I was about 4. Needless to say, I spent the next 2 hours scrubbing it off. My teachers could not get me to color inside the lines or use the colors they wanted. In junior high, my art teacher said art was not my forte, and that convinced me I had no artistic talents.

Whopple: Do you make a living with your art?
Marilyn: I wish I could say that I made a living with my art. I certainly spend a lot of time producing it, but betweenbeing new to showing my work and learning the ropes about marketing my art, I cannot say that I do. Fortunately, even though retirement for educators is not very great, it is a good means of support and backup and along with my online business and my husband’s business, I am fortunate to be able to spend more and more time creating my art projects.

Whopple: How many hours a day do you create?
Marilyn: I also wish that I could say that I create every day, but because of my other responsibilities, I find myself having to block my time. I do better if I can block out 2 to 3 afternoons each week. Sometimes I will be lucky enough to spend one entire day on it. It works better for me if I can have more time. I never have liked having to stop in the middle of something.

Whopple: How did you pick your creative medium?
Marilyn: I consider myself a work in progress, so I can only speak of my medium in the present. When I began going to school, I experimented with different mediums, different subjects and I found that I had a very difficult time putting myself in any kind of box. My work has been as varied as my life has been, but at the moment I would say that my medium found me. I primarily work with acrylic, as I like to work more quickly and oils take too long to dry, especially in our humid climate. I also love color and color mixtures. I was a home economics major when I received my Bachelor’s Degree, so I learned to love fabrics and textures. Put all of these together, and you can probably see why I do mixed media work with natural objects, fabrics and very bright colors. My work is fun and evolves as I progress. I put energy and emotion into every piece.

Whopple: What are your inspirations?
Marilyn: My inspirations are mostly from nature, viewing others’ work, and delving into my spirituality. We live in a heavily wooded area, and I find that walking in nature, observing the unusual and talking about it with my husband helps me to set off on another art adventure. I love animals, the seashore, traveling anywhere and experiencing other cultures and reading about everything. I continue to meditate and grow spiritually. I find the peace I experience opens up my creative flow.

Whopple: How do you recharge when your creativity hits the wall?
Marilyn: I recharge by doing something totally different…going out with friends with other interests, spend time with my pets and my family, reading funny novels, doing crossword puzzles or sudoku, and definitely by meditating. Visiting art stores and museums also gets my creative juices flowing as well as reading about art and taking workshops.

Whopple: What was your first job?
Marilyn: My first job was in retail sales. It was very boring. I have always found that I get bored quickly, so I need to have a lot of options in my life. Fortunately I have support by my family who enjoy the same needs. If you are asking about my first art job, it was a commission from my sister and biggest cheerleader who insisted that I could paint her an oil of the Grand Canyon. It was quite an undertaking. It took me several months, but she loved it and insisted that I continue. I just was doing it for pleasure, but she remained steadfast in encouraging me to market my work. She is probably the reason I finally got the courage to do so.

Whopple: What are your favorite snacks when you are creating?
Marilyn: I like to have a glass of wine either before or during the time I am painting (if it is in the evening). In the daytime, I have a glass of tea with lemon. Coffee and hot tea get cold, because I get so busy I forget about it. I can always add ice to my tea and red wine just gets better as it sits. I might not even finish a whole glass, but if I want to stand back and look, a sip is nice. As for snacks, I am pretty messy as a painter, and I usually have my hands in paint and gesso, so snacks don’t work so well. If I take a break, I might have a handful of peanuts, chips or crackers. I am not much of a sweets eater.

Whopple: What gives you hope in the world?
Marilyn: Children give me hope in the world. They are full of wide-eyed wonder and innocence, and as long as we have children in the world, it brings us down to earth and shows us how important it is to be good role models. Politically speaking, I have felt very stifled in the previous administrations, but I now feel a sense of hope for our country and a feeling of fairness that fuels my psyche. God has a plan for us all, and having hope in that fact is the basis for all of my beliefs and behavior.
Whopple: What do you wish you could do?
Marilyn: I wish I could see us all connected with a common thread, and my experience with counseling and art has strengthened that commitment to do all I can to make that happen. I wish we could all learn to give only kindness and encouragement, and that judgment would be a thing of the past.

Whopple: What are your artistic goals?
Marilyn: My artistic goals are to continue evolving as an artist and learning more ways to share my feelings and belief in inclusion through my work. I want to continue to produce works that become better and better and to be able to market my work to people who have a connection to my works. I see myself being the “Grandma (Moses) Lowry of Montgomery County.” It is never to late to learn, grow and improve!

Whopple: What has been your most exciting moment as an artist?
Marilyn: I think my most exciting moment as an artist was first when one of my art instructors told me I really had talent, and that was reinforced when I sold my first painting to someone I did not know. Prior to that, there had been a comment in our paper that was very complimentary of my work! I’ll never forget those feelings.

See More Of Marilyn Lowry’s Art Here:

http://www.squidoo.com/marilynlowry
http://evolutionezine.com/marilyn-balke-lowry
http://www.facebook.com/marilyn.lowry1 (scroll down to photo album and click on current artwork)
These Interviews With Artists Are Copyrighted To Whopple.com